Ironman Canada Training Recap
It’s been an interesting week, to say the least, and while things have stopped changing at breakneck speed, we are still evolving by the minute. Here is my latest training recap for Ironman Canada 2020, sans swim workouts. If you missed last week, find that recap here. Not a day passed when I decided to stop going to the pool because of this pandemic, they announced facility closures across the city. My coach gave me bodyweight workouts to substitute for the swim sessions, and nothing has changed with the bike and run sessions. I am still grieving the loss of my June 70.3 race, and I frankly don’t expect Ironman Canada in August to proceed as planned.
SWIM
2 bodyweight sessions in place of the swim sessions. I was given the Oiselle Dirty Dozen workout, as well as another bodyweight workout. The Oiselle Dirty Dozen workout looks innocent enough until you actually do it and then cry inside. My coach had scheduled 45 minutes for the Dirty Dozen workout, which I thought would be plenty of time. I did a quick 5-minute run for a warmup and proceeded to do the workout.
I’m proud to say I did 2 rounds of the entire Dirty Dozen workout. I didn’t realize how many pushups I ended up doing until after the workout. The sheer number of pushups and the fact that I didn’t stretch enough afterward left me in pain for days. The next time I see that workout, I will put aside my ego and just do the best I can. I know I wasn’t maintaining proper form. The second bodyweight workout of the week was much easier, but it had jump squats in it! I love and hate jump squats. They’re hard as hell but build so much leg strength.
BIKE
2 sessions, my weekly heavy intervals session and another 2-hour session with a 20 minute FTP test. I’ve been able to increase my resistance week after week during my heavy intervals session. However, I did notice some knee pain starting to crop up during this last session. I have a feeling I was not activating my glutes enough, and not focussed enough on a 360 smooth pedal stroke. I told my coach about it, and she told me to dial back the resistance for next time.
My 2-hour bike session was a tough one. I decided to ride later in the afternoon at an hour or so after lunch. There was a 20-minute segment calling for “solid race cadence” so I put on a 20-minute Peloton FTP test class for motivation. I like playing it because they split the 20 minutes into 4 sections of 5 minutes. They also give you instructions on when to raise the resistance and move into higher power zones. It was a real struggle in the last 5 minutes, but I made my way through it. I was thrilled to see in TrainingPeaks that I had hit an all-time best for my 20-minute peak power!
RUN
2 sessions, my favorite varying hills session, and a 90-minute long run. I love the shorter run session because it’s basically 30-second intervals at varying inclines. It’s such a quick and snappy workout. The long-run was a bit of a mental struggle. I wasn’t in a great mood to start the day and was dreading the workout. It was an easy one, just plenty of 3-minute intervals at half marathon pace. I ran it a little faster the last time I did the same workout. I decided because I was a little stressed out today, to run it a couple of points slower so that I wouldn’t be taxing my body as much.
Something finally clicked after 2/3 of the intervals and I was finally comfortable in my workout. It was a long time to run and mentally struggle, but it’s days like this that build mental strength. I was listening to an instructor the other day who was telling us that we’re always going to be physically capable, it’s the mind that requires training. I wholeheartedly agree, so I just kept repeating positive mantras to myself. “Make this your best effort yet” is one of my latest favorite mantras.
Overall Thoughts
This latest Ironman training recap thing might be one of the last few that I will get to do! Races in June are getting canceled. At the time of writing this blog post, we haven’t hit the peak of the pandemic, and so that leaves a lot of uncertainty as to what the summer will look like. I am bracing myself for Ironman Canada to be canceled. I don’t see it getting rescheduled to a later date in 2020. There is a lot of work that goes into a race of that magnitude, and given the size of the community in Penticton, I just don’t think a postponement is feasible.
My overall optimism on Ironman training and my outlook in this pandemic is wavering a bit today. I need to remind myself that there are so many factors outside of my control, and we’re just doing the best we can at this moment. I am grateful for everything I do have, and everything I get to do still.
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