29 weeks to race day of Ironman Canada. If you missed last week’s Ironman Canada Training Recap, you can find it here. I woke up on the rest day and definitely needed it. I was able to get all my workouts in this week without any issues. But with all of those workouts, I was feeling a bit sore as a result. I didn’t realize how much more volume we got done this week until my coach reminded me. Everything felt pretty good, and I’m mindful to do all my glute activations before cycling and running so I don’t create muscle imbalances and knee issues.
Swim
2 sessions, a 1500m and 2000m swim. Woah. These were a doozy this week.
The first workout was the 1500m swim where you swim a bunch of 25m hard, as well as a 200m hard. The second workout was a 2000m in the form of a Walton 50’s workout, where you swim hard every few intervals. The easy-to-hard ratios slowly dwindle until you’re just swimming fast.
During that 2000m swim, I caught myself saying how tired I was. And it reminded me of this podcast I recently listened to, on Oprah Super Soul Conversations. Essentially the podcast message that I took away was, don’t speak into existence things you don’t want. Instead of thinking, “oh I’m so tired, I can’t wait to be done” I switched to saying things like “just keep swimming” and “swim faster”. And I think it worked. It got my mind away from how many intervals I had left to swim fast. The “I’m tired” is the equivalent of negative self-talk, which is pretty detrimental in training or racing.
I don’t know when that type of self-talk snuck into my vocabulary but it’s good to have recognized it now and train myself to do better. Normally, to pass the time when I’m swimming, I just repeat to myself, “just keep swimming”.
Ride
2 sessions, A 50-minute heavy intervals session, and a 2 hour 10 minute long ride. I am hitting all-time new resistances on my bike! My legs are getting stronger and it should be fun to see how much more fun mountain biking will be in the spring, and more importantly how much faster I will be road cycling and in my races!!
Run
2 sessions, a speed session, and a 1 hour 40 minute long run. My speed session felt great! I’m very happy with how it’s going. I can feel my sub 2 hour 1/2 marathon PB. It’s a guilty habit/pleasure of mine to run close to the console. I know it’s probably not that good for me and probably messes up my form. So what I’ve done is stretched a resistance band across the handrails so it forces me to run further back on the treadmill. And I’ve tried to engage my arms in running more. It’s just something I hear in all our Peloton run classes. I think I might’ve gone a bit too hard with pumping my arms during that session because my back was a bit sore the next day. It’s either from that from shovelling.
The long run felt a little challenging, but overall pretty good. There were 15 3 minute half marathon pace intervals, and then a 10-minute medium effort after. I was able to do all the intervals at a reasonably challenging pace, as well as the 10-minute effort. I had a slight pang of knee pain, but I think it was just from some muscle tightness. I spent a bunch of time after the run cooling down, as well as stretching and using our Roll Recovery to massage my thigh.
Other Activities
I did not get a massage on my rest day. I should have went, but I didn’t feel like trekking out there in all the snow. So then my focus on rest day became plenty of eating and hydrating. My arms and back are starting to get to the point where they’re pretty sore from the workouts. And it’s been snowing a ton lately. The snow is pretty heavy at times and can be difficult to shovel, especially on a steep driveway. So we finally busted out the snow thrower, and it is the greatest! It makes clearing the driveway so fast and so easy. And I don’t have to worry about Justin or I throwing out our backs from chucking snow 10 feet into the air onto giant snow piles.
Coaching Feedback
A while back my coach had requested some recordings of my swim. So last week I finally brought my GoPro with me and tried to record some videos. I ended up taking more videos of my butt than anything, but I did find one video that was half decent to send to her for review. Initially, I was fearful about sending the videos to her because I didn’t want to be “judged”. But I came to the conclusion that that was a fixed mindset way of thinking.
I need to get better, and I need feedback on my swim! My coach saw my arms crossing my center line in the video, which I had noticed too… and one of the reasons why I didn’t want to send the video. She told me to enter wide and a few other things. And for the 1500m session, I made some more video recordings to send her. I got great feedback from those too, and some more pointers that have helped a ton.
Going forward, my focus for swimming is now: my arms entering wide, and really throwing my arms over hard. Entering wide engages your lats more, and give you more power swimming. Wider, faster strokes. I haven’t encountered any shoulder issues so far, so my coach has been giving me workouts that incorporate both pull buoy and swim paddles. As a result, those swim toys have been helping to build my swim strength in a big way. All this consistency in training is going to get me in great swim shape. I am beyond thrilled considering where I started in triathlon swim, I am so happy with the progress.
All Ironman Canada Training Recaps
Here are all the previous Ironman Canada training recaps for your reading pleasure!
[…] weeks. It’s 28 weeks to race day. If you missed last week’s training recap, find there here. I felt stronger this week compared to last week. And I didn’t feel like I was dragging my […]