We are 25 weeks out from Ironman Canada. It’s also 8 weeks to the Vancouver Marathon, where we’ll be setting personal bests (PBs) at the half marathon distance. In case you missed the previous Ironman Canada training recap, you find that here. This week of training went well. I’m really proud of the 2 2700m swims I got done this week.
Swim
2 sessions at 2700m each. I am super proud of this week’s efforts. The first swim took me around 1h 20min to complete, I forgot my Garmin so that’s an estimate. My next swim was much faster, at around 1h 7min. I was resigned to spending just as much time at the pool as my first swim this week and was happy to see how much quicker I was able to get the same distance done. To be fair, I had different workouts for each swim, and really it doesn’t matter how long it takes me during training as we weren’t doing time trials. But considering how swimming is not exactly my forte, it just really pleases me. I’m getting close to swimming the farthest I’ve ever swum in a single session.
Bike
2 sessions, my heavy intervals session, and 2 hour 15 minute long ride. The heavy intervals sessions is now marginally longer, at 1 hour 10 minutes. It’s a nice workout. My long ride was a good one, and similar to last week where we had a “mad effort” segment. It was only 10 minutes vs. the 20-minute segment. I did the best I could and tried to drop some higher efforts at the end. We went to mail a letter the other day, and there were Haribo candies on sale that caught our eye. I had a craving, so we picked up a few packages. I ended snacking on quite a few for my long ride and thought it made for some good fuel.
Run
2 sessions. One Moneghetti session, and one long run session at 2 hours. Moneghetti workouts help build endurance and speed. I enjoy this weekday workout a lot because it feels snappy. It’s a little Fartlek-y in a ladder format, so it feels snappy. This long run consisted of 18 3 minute half marathon pace intervals. My long run is after my long ride, so I thought it was going to be hurtsville.
The long run was surprisingly not terrible! I felt pretty strong throughout my long run, with the exception of my last 2 intervals where it felt like I was developing a side cramp. I didn’t feel thirsty, but I must have been dehydrated. Just like my long ride, I also snacked on some Haribo candies. I ended up doing about 15 minutes of stretching after my run. It felt like my hips and legs really needed it, and I’m glad I did. I don’t think I stretched enough after my long ride, so I made sure to spend some extra time on my hamstrings.
Overall Thoughts
In terms of this Ironman Canada training recap, this felt like another good training week. I was thrilled and proud of how far I am now swimming. I’ve been trying to keep the calories up, as well as keeping up with hydration. Hydration was my focus from last week, and I think I did a decent effort. But I know the night before my long ride, I indulged in a few cocktails and didn’t drink as much water as I could have. It seemed to turn out fine because I was able to put out a pretty good effort. Though I did end up going to bed really early that day. And then I got a little crampy on my long run the next day. It looks like I’ll have to keep working on hydration.
[…] My Ironman Canada training sessions went very well this week. We also started to see many race cancellations this week. My “A” race in May was canceled. One of my 2020 goals was to achieve a sub 2 hour personal best at the half marathon distance. More on the race cancellations in an upcoming post. I had a work trip that got canceled, so I was able to complete all my training sessions. If you missed last weeks recap, you can find that here! […]