Training Week 16: 3/31/08 - 4/6/08

Planned Training - TAPER WEEK #2
Monday - 3/31/08:
REST DAY
Tuesday - 4/1/08:
AM - none (changed due to being sick)
PM - none
Wednesday - 4/2/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr 45 min (bike to work) done
PM - Run = 45 min done
Thursday - 4/3/08:
AM - Run = 45 min done
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim done
Friday - 4/4/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr 45 min (bike to work) done
PM - Run = 40 min done
Saturday - 4/5/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr 45 min (bike to work) done
PM - Swim = 30 min at Clements, Bike = 1 hr (from work to Clements and to parent's house) done
Sunday - 4/6/08:
AM - Swim = 2.4 mile open water swim in Tempe Town Lake (DCB event) done
PM - Run = 30 min done

Weekly S/B/R Compliance (based on BT training plan):

Swim = 173 min / 170 min = 101%
Bike = 395 min / 355 min = 111%
Run = 195 min / 160 min = 123%

Total SBR training time for Week #16 = 12.7 hrs

Monday, 3/31/08 Update:
This is it! The last real week of "training." Even though next week is also a taper week, I'm not sure I can count the 3 hrs scheduled as training. More like easy stuff to keep the body loose.

Since today is a rest day, I can compare last year's training totals for March to this year's totals:

March 2007 Training Totals:
Swim = 3hr 0 min 0 sec; 5,800 yds
Bike = 14 hr 28 min 17 sec; 181.91 mi
Run = 9 hr 44 min 07 sec; 45.74 mi

March 2008 Training Totals:
Swim = 13 hr 10 min 0 sec; 33,939.77 yds
Bike = 34 hr 57 min 49 sec; 471.65 mi
Run = 14 hr 33 min 17 sec; 73.37 mi

Um, yeah. You know how much I hate swimming? Well, apparently I acted on it and refused the pool last year. This month last year we were moving and buying the new house. I had also been sick a whole week last year. So this is a huge improvement for me. That's all that matters!

Taper Sucks
Last week was my first week of taper. Before heading into it, I heard lots of people say that everyone feels bad during taper. This was mentioned several times at the TRIFEST conference. But I didn't know what they meant by "bad." It was just this general thing that people talked about, without providing details. Well, after last week, I can now defined what it means to feel bad during taper. Basically, it feels like I haven't done any training, and I'm back at Week #2 of IM training. Every workout is now hard. 30 minute runs hurt. Arms hurt after an easy 1 hr swim. 2 hrs on the bike are hard as if I had done 6 hrs. There is now a different kind of "tired." It's like having no energy to do anything. I feel like I've lost all fitness and I haven't been training. Apparently, according to the scientific studies, this is because the body has been stressed and it's recovering, and it's getting ready to deal with more stress (the race). Every workout wipes me out. I need naps like an old person on weekends. And these aren't 20 minute power naps...no they are the "apparently I went into a coma for 1.5 hours" naps. So that's pretty much why the taper sucks if you've been training hard. See, I avoided all of this in the past because I never trained hard!

Getting Ready
This week will be all about packing for IMAZ. I'm not going to have much time next week to do it, and given that I'm OCD about everything, I want to have lots of time to reveiw what I've packed to make sure it's all there. Here's the process:
1) Make lists of everything that goes into each bag: dry clothes bag, T1 bag, Bike Special Needs (SN), T2 bag, Run SN.
2) Put together mock bags that will represent the race bags (we get "official" race bags for those things listed above). Put a post-it note on the outside of the bag with the bag name and the checklist for what goes in the bag.
3) Pack each bag. Once something goes in the bag, cross it off the list that's on the outside of the bag.
4) Bring all the bags to the race, then transfer all items to the offical race bags.

See...I told you I'm OCD about this. Wait until you see next week's "plans" for each day.

Life after IM
I have determined IM training is very selfish. You have to think about yourself, your training, and your race constantly. Everything is done with your race in mind. You skip group workouts if they don't jive with what the training plan says. You skip extracurricular activities if it doesn't mesh with training. You wash your hands and use hand sanitizer by the gallons because you don't want to get sick and ruin this one race. You worry about getting hit by cars on your training ride, or how you might roll your ankle in dress shoes and decide to only wear flats until after the race. It's all me, me, ME. Ugh. That's the part about this that I don't like. I'm tired of it. This weekend we had some new folks at swim practice, and I was showing them how to use paddles and fins. And it was fun. Yeah, I was in a pool having fun! When was the last time I had fun in a pool?! It was because I was helping out the newbies. So I've decided after this race I'm done with ME for awhile, and I'm going to do more fun things with the new folks and training friends that I've just about ignored over the past 4 months. I'll be recovering, so 10 mile rides with beginners will be totally do-able. Fun rides, hikes, and maybe (MAYBE) even swims will be do-able.

So there will not be another IM in my future for quite awhile. I want to get back to the balanced lifestyle. Go for a hike when I feel like it, and be able to because I don't have to do a 3 hr run instead. Go mountain biking and explore new trails with friends and not have to worry about crashing and injuring myself that may take me out of a race that I paid $500 for. Seriously, it's that altered thinking that IM forces you to do that is totally wacked. At least for me it is.

Tuesday, 4/1/08 Update:
IMAZ Bib numbers are posted! Here's mine: #2022. That's a great number. I have this thing where I need to like my number. If I get a crappy number I have a crappy race, and then I blame it on the number. ;) But this is a great number!

Wednesday, 4/2/08 Update:
I've changed the training for this week, and re-arranged the workouts. I got into work late on Tuesday morning, due to being up all night the night before with severe heartburn (probably due to pre-race stress). So I'll be coming in to work on Saturday to make up time.

Thursday will be my very last Master's swim workout! Yay!

Training Week 15: 3/24/08 - 3/30/08

Planned Training - TAPER WEEK #1
Monday - 3/24/08:
REST DAY!
Tuesday - 3/25/08:
AM - Run = 50 min done
PM - Bike = 50 min done
Wednesday - 3/26/08:
AM - Run = 35 min done
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim done
Thursday - 3/27/08:
AM - Run = 30 min done
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim done
Friday - 3/28/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr 40 min done
PM - none
Saturday - 3/29/08:
AM - RACE = Tech Trek 10K run done
PM - Bike = 1 hr 15 min done
Sunday - 3/30/08:
AM - Bike = 2 hr at Saguaro East done
PM - Swim = 1 hr TTG swim done

Weekly S/B/R Compliance (based on BT training plan):
Swim = 180 min / 175 min = 103%
Bike = 352 min / 345 min = 102%
Run = 204 min / 175 min = 116%

Total SBR training time for Week #15 = 12.3 hrs

Monday, 3/24/08 Update:
Well, I have successfully made it through all of the hard weeks of training, doing 100% (and over) of all swim, bike, and run workout volumes on the training plan. Now there's 3 weeks of taper. This week it will be about 12 hours of training, which is quite a bit less than last week's 16.4 hrs.

Yesterday I did my last century ride of the training. Once again, we rode from Cortaro Farms in Tucson to Casa Grande and back. Johnny joined me for the whole ride, after doing the hilly metric century GABA ride on Saturday. So this weekend he did a metric century and an English century. Shari and my father in law, Craig, joined up with us at Picacho.

The last 25 miles of the ride were really tough. We pulled into the gas station at the Marana exit and Johnny bought a Pepsi and some M&Ms. I went with peanut, which saved me on that ride. Each time I started to feel bad I would eat an M&M. I think those are going to go in the bento box for IMAZ. I'm not putting them in Special Needs, as I'm hoping to not stop for Bike SN. I'll stop for Run SN, but by then there should be no fear of meeting the cutoffs (I hope). There's a 10:30PM run cutoff on the run course, but I hope to be way ahead of that.

Thursday, 3/27/08 Update:
People are asking, "Are you ready?" I respond with, "Ready to stop training!" I really want to quit this training. But I can't. I'm OCD on hitting the training totals now. I swam in the rain a few months ago, and back in December when my gear froze to the deck, so I can't back out now just because I hate swimming and everything having to do with the pool. Just a few more swims and I'm done.

Next weekend is the DCB 2.4 mile open water swim at Tempe Town Lake. It'll be a nice little dress rehersal for IMAZ. But I'm looking forward to getting swim time in for my training that is NOT in a pool. No black line to follow, no creepy things to look at under water. I think it's a good thing TTL is cloudy so that I can't see what's down there. I don't want to know what's down there. Ok, let's just not think about that anymore.

Funny pic o' the day! The horse is a Tri Girl. See the purple innertube? Yep, Tri Girl.

Training Week 14: 3/17/08 - 3/23/08

Planned Training
Monday - 3/17/08:
REST DAY
Tuesday - 3/18/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr 20 min done
PM - none
Wednesday - 3/19/08:
AM - Bike = 30 min done
PM - Run = 15 min, Swim = 1 hr Master's swim done
Thursday - 3/20/08:
AM - Run = 1 hr done
PM - Swim = 45 min Master's swim done
Friday - 3/21/08:
AM - Run = 50 min done
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim done
Saturday - 3/22/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr, Run = 30 min done
PM - Swim = 1 hr (Udall) done
Sunday - 3/23/08:
AM & PM - Bike = 6.5 hr ride (100 miles) done

Weekly S/B/R Compliance (based on BT training plan):
Swim = 225 min / 225 min = 100%
Bike = 572 min / 530 min = 108%
Run = 187 min / 155min = 121%

Total SBR training time for Week #14 = 16.4 hrs (Highest peak week!)

Monday, 3/17/08 Update:
This week is going to be another 15-16 hr training week. At least it's my last hard training week, and next week the taper starts. Though the first taper week is still 12 hours, so I'm not sure if it's much to look forward to. Why can't taper be "stop training completely and rest?" Or at least "just do one workout a day." But no, it's pretty much the same 2X per day stuff, just without a long bike or run on the weekends. And people say they hate the taper. What kind of freaks hate taper? The less training I can do, the better.

Yep, I am sick and tired of training. This is what happened last time, except last time I would skip out on workouts and not train. I'd look at the training plan like what is on schedule for this week and say "15 min run? Are you kidding me? I'm not messing up running clothes and getting changed just to run 15 min." So a workout like that would be dropped. And eventually it all adds up and at the end of the month you realize you really didn't train much. Not this time. No matter how much I want to stop training right now, I still keep doing it because that's where those 6 minutes could come from. This year I don't have the question in my head of "Did I train enough?" I know I couldn't have trained any more. Well, I could have if I quit my job and stuff, but given the time I had I couldn't have done more. I could have definitely done less. So it's nice to be going to the starting line knowing I've done everything training-wise to get there.

The pool makes me want to cry. Swimming is now my least favorite of the 3 sports. I don't have a favorite. It's more like "which one do I hate least?" I hate biking least, because I get to sit down. But I hate biking a lot if it's more than 4 hours. Running is now second. I used to hate it the most, but oh no, swimming has taken that spot over. I hate the pool, I hate the chlorine/bromine/whatever halogen they're using nowadays smell that is constantly on my skin, and I hate being wet because wet = cold and I hate being cold. I may stop showering because it makes me wet which makes me think of swimming and how much I dislike it. Most of my workouts are Master's swim because I need a group to keep me in the pool. It's not like I talk to anyone there (unless other Tri Girls show up, but I haven't seen any in awhile). It's not like the evening coach is much help. No, I think it's the $40 a month and trying to remember the workout that keeps me going back. All I know is, if I swim on my own, I end up watching the clock until I get to get out.

I've started making my packing lists. Thank goodness for blogs, because I pulled up last year's and copied most of what was on there. I've also ordered more nutrition mix, and started my to-do list of the last things needed before race day. I'll pack everything in grocery bags that are labeled like the race bags (i.e. dry clothes, T1, Bike special needs, T2, Run special needs) and then when I get to the race I'll just transfer everything over to the official bags.

Friday, 3/21/08 Update:
I have survived until Friday! Just a few more short workouts, and a long bike on Sunday, and my last long week of training will be done. Next week the taper begins. I am NOT looking forward to tonight's or tomorrow's swim. 4 straight days with swimming. Are you kidding me? Why do I have to swim so much for the sport that takes the least amount of time to do in the actual race? I've determined that the only reason triathlon has the swim portion is to disorient you and make you as uncomfortable as possible for the bike.

I have mapped out my training schedule for the next 3 weeks. All that means is I take the BT plan and switch the workouts around to fit my schedule. I have also made a detailed race week schedule with just about every hour accounted for Thurs - Sun leading up to the race. Yes, I am that OCD about this. You'll see when I post it here in a few weeks.

Tues - Fri this week was all early morning and late evening workouts. Mostly up at 5AM to get out the door for a run (or on the trainer), and Master's swim at night. I AM SLEEPING IN TOMORROW MORNING! I really need to keep on top of the sleep right now. They say sleep is an important part of taper, so who am I to argue?

For some strange reason, these shorter runs this week have made my legs and feet hurt. They have all been easy, short runs. Yet my legs, knees, and feet are really tired afterwards. Either it's due to last weekend's 3 hr run, or it's part of the winding down. They do say you will feel "bad" during taper, so I'm not sure what "bad" means.

Training Week 13: 3/10/08 - 3/16/08

Planned Training

Monday - 3/10/08:

REST DAY

Tuesday - 3/11/08:

AM - none

PM - Swim = 1 hr 5 min (Master's), Run = 1 hr done

Wednesday - 3/12/08:

AM - Run = 45 min done

PM - Bike = 1 hr 10 min done

Thursday - 3/13/08:

AM - Bike = 1 hr done

PM - Run = 40 min done

Friday - 3/14/08:

AM - Swim = 1 hr (Master's at noon) done

PM - Bike = 1 hr 30 min done

Saturday - 3/15/08:

AM - Run = 3 hr done

Sunday - 3/16/08:

AM - Volunteer at Tucson Tri done

PM - Swim = 1 hr 15 min, Bike = 1 hr done

Weekly S/B/R Compliance (based on BT training plan):

Swim = 200 min / 200 min = 100%

Bike = 280min / 280 min = 100%

Run = 355 min / 305 min = 116%

Total SBR training time for Week #13 = 13.9 hrs

Monday, 3/10/08 Update:

I am FRIED from this weekend. Legs & body are sore and I'm tired. Thank goodness today is a rest day.

Friday morning I got up at 4:30AM and hit the morning Master's swim, followed by a 20 min run. Then I went to dinner at Leslie's house and hung out with her and Shari all night. Saturday I got up early and drove down to Garner Canyon and rode some of the trails down there with Liane. We were trying to follow the cartoony map and got turned around quite a bit. I contributed to getting us on some extra trails, but at least I brought the map, so I don't totally suck. The whole time we were laughing at our situation, so it was all good. I followed Liane home and got to exercise the 4X4 of my Jeep to get up the 4 miles of twisty road leading to her house. It's more of a Jeep trail than a road (it reminded me of Chiva Falls). It climbs way, way up high, and I just concentrated on keeping my Jeep from rolling off the side of the mountain. It's times like that that justify me having a Jeep. Nate made us panini sandwiches, and we spied on their crazy drunk neighbor who was getting arrested on the dirt road and his hooker girlfriend walking home. Good times.

I had enough time to get home (30 min to get down Liane's road), get my MTB stuff out of the Jeep, and throw on my running clothes and fly down the road to Sabino Canyon for the sunset run. I got my race number and visited with some Tri Girls before the race. Before I knew it someone said "go" and we started running. I've never ran the road in Sabino Canyon, so it would be interesting. All I knew was to expect hills and water. The group thinned out pretty early, so I found my groove and worked my way through the pack. We came to the first water crossing, where many around me were cursing. I've had to run in water on lots of my training runs, so I wasn't too worried. I made sure to pick my feet up extra high so that I wouldn't trip and continued on. Shortly after there was a second water crossing. Got through that one, and about a mile later was the third. There was a crazy steep hill before the turnaround, and I took shorter steps to get up that. I hit the turn, grabbed some water, and kept running. I saw a ton of Tri Girls out there, which was great as I was always yelling or cheering for someone in the crowd. I felt great on the way back, as it was mostly downhill until the very end. The last hill was about as steep as the one before the turnaround, but I knew I had less than a mile to go once I reached the top. Got to the top and it was a fast downhill to the end. I pushed pretty hard at the end and came in at 59:57, just under the 1 hr mark. According to the race results, I averaged a 9:22 pace, so I was pretty jazzed about that. Shari and I hit Eegee's afterwards, then I headed home to shower, which I needed badly. After riding the bike with Liane on dusty trails for 3 hrs, and doing a hard run, I was definitely funky.

Sunday morning I got up early again, got my tri bike stuff together, and drove out to the Wal-Mart on Cortaro to meet up with Shari and Johnny for my 100 mile training ride. Shari rode with us to the Picacho gas station, then headed back. Johnny and I continued on to Casa Grande. There were a ton of wild flowers by Picacho, and Johnny snapped lots of pictures. How he can ride and get good pictures and not crash is beyond me. We made a few stops along the way for food and water and to stretch a bit. We got to the outlet stores in Casa Grande and turned around to head back. The wind wasn't too bad for the ride back, and mostly swirled around us to where we'd have a slight headwind, then a slight tailwind, then still before the pattern started up again. There were 2 tough parts of the ride for me: getting back to the Picacho gas station, and the last 10 miles. At Picacho they were having a civil war re-enactment show, so there was lots of cannon fire and smoke. Thankfully we didn't get shot. We made it to the Marana Chevron for one last stop and stretch before the final 10 miles. These last miles my butt was getting really sore, and I just wanted to get OFF the bike. For most of the ride we had averaged 15.3 mph, which was my perfect "go slower than you think and don't eat the paste" pace. The last 10 miles I wanted to get back so we averaged a bit faster and made it back with a total average of 15.5 mph. This was perfect and exactly what I'm hoping for IMAZ. The pace allowed me to practice my nutrition and hydration, which worked out well. We rolled into the parking lot just under 100 miles, so we did a few laps in the parking lot until my Garmin GPS clicked over to 100 miles. We packed up and hit Chili's right after. While it tasted good, my stomach felt really bloated on the ride home. Probably because it was used to processing mostly liquids all day, and then I slam a pile of food into it. There was a plug flow situation happening there, but by the time I got home I felt much better.

2 more hard weeks of training left, then taper. This week is the long-run week, so Saturday has a 3 hr long run. LAST LONG RUN OF THE TRAINING!!! YAY!!! The following week will be my last long bike. As you can tell, I'm just trying to survive until the taper.

Here are some of Johnny's pics from our Sunday ride. Can you believe he can take these and not crash?

Shari and I starting the ride:

Picacho Peak in the distance:
There was a corridor of purple flowers for quite aways:


Me checking out the wildflowers as we rode past Picacho:


Heading towards Casa Grande (I-10 and outlet malls in the distance):
Almost there!

Proof that we made it:

Heading back to Tucson after the turnaround:

Wildflowers on the other side of the road:

Purple flowers and a purple jersey:

Wednesday, 3/12/08 Update:

The IMAZ athlete guide is now online: http://www.ironmanarizona.com/2008AZAI.pdf I really can't believe April and this race is almost here. I'm just hoping to get to the start line healthy. Everything after that will be easy. I want race day to be here so that I can get it done. I'm definitely ready, and I just want to be done with this race. 4 more weeks of anticipation is going to kill me!

Training Week 12: 3/3/08 - 3/9/08

Planned Training
Monday - 3/3/08:
REST DAY
Tuesday - 3/4/08:
AM - Swim = 1 hr (at noon) done
PM - Bike = 1 hr done
Wednesday - 3/5/08:
AM - none
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim, Bike = 1 hr 30 min trainer ride done
Thursday - 3/6/08:
AM - none
PM - Run = 30 min done
Friday - 3/7/08:
AM - Swim = 1 hr done
PM - Run = 20 min done
Saturday - 3/8/08:
AM - Bike = 1 hr 20 min (MTB Gardner canyon with Liane) done
PM - Race = 10K Sabino Sunset Run by SAR done
Sunday - 3/9/08:
AM - Bike = 6 hr ride w/ Johnny (goal is 100 miles) done

Weekly S/B/R Compliance (based on BT training plan):
Swim = 185 min / 170 min = 109%
Bike = 651 min / 560 min = 116%
Run = 124 min / 95 min = 130%

Total SBR training time for Week #12 = 16 hrs

Monday, 3/3/08 Update:
I haven't updated in awhile, so the following is just going to be a stream of consciousness. I will try to use paragraphs.

Man, am I tired. It probably has to do with last week being a 16 hr training week and going 2 weeks without a rest day. I'm taking today completely off. Training is now like holding down a part-time job on top of everything else. Those 16 hrs are just actual swim, bike, and run times. Not included are driving to the pool, getting everything ready, packing, etc. I have a pretty good system down. I use a bunch of those free cloth bags that come in race goodie bags as my gear bags so most of my swim, bike, run stuff is ready to go in bags. Except the swim stuff that is thrown over the shower door to dry from the previous day's swim. And when you get tired and just ran 2 hrs 30 min on the first hot day of the year (yes, 82°F is currently "hot") and know you've got to get your ass to the pool to do a 40 min swim, sometimes you forget that your towel is still hanging on the shower. Yep, that was my last swim of the week. I thought about going back for my towel, but I already had arrived at the pool. T-shirts make decent towels. Note to self: pack an "emergency" triathlon kit to keep in the car and include an old towel.

Friday was my worst run ever so far. It was long and hot and I really didn't want to be out there. And because it was warmer out, I went through my 20 oz water bottle pretty quick. I ran to a school and noticed the gates were open and there was a drinking fountain. I quietly slipped in between the middle school kids outside doing an art project and filled my bottle at the fountain. I booked out before I was noticed and the cops were called about a sweaty runner trespassing on school grounds. I made it to Tanque Verde, and was once again out of water. I ran into the Circle K and filled my bottle at the water tap in the Coke machine and ran out. Not until I dumped fizzy water on my face did I realize they had the CO2 line hooked up to that water and it was carbonated. Carbonated water combined with salty sweat really stings. Not to mention I couldn't drink it (it tasted horrible). So I continued running, except the bouncing from my run shook the bottle of carbonated water, creating a little bomb in my hip pack. I had to constantly purge the gas from the bottle, which caused the bottle to leak fizzy water everywhere. Did I mention this was the worst run ever?

I went to the TRIFEST conference this weekend, and it was a blast. There were world champions there giving talks to help us all out with our triathlons. I'm really glad that I went because I picked up a ton of awesome tips for Ironman, none of which will be posted here. You'll have to go to TRIFEST next year to get them. ;-) But to be sitting 5 feet away from Mark Allen, Andy Potts, and other national and world champions was awesome. And I only had to pay $99 to do it. I attended several lectures from a sports psychologist about the mental side of racing. Yep, I'm a mental case and needed all the help I could get. I picked up some good tips on tapering for Ironman and what to expect.

Speaking of taper, I only have 3 more hard weeks to go before my 3 week taper starts. Thank goodness. I'm climbing the walls just trying to get through this training and not completely chuck it all by not training in March. It has been a long 12 weeks. The taper will be good and I am SO looking forward to it.

I hopped on the scale out of curiosity on Friday. I've been stuck at 132 lbs for months now, but my body type had changed during that time. Even though the number was the same, all of my clothes were fitting loose. Except Friday I got on the scale and saw 128 lbs. I haven't seen that number in years (possibly since high school). But one thing has tipped me off that I'm converting fat into lean muscle mass. Let's just say one part of the female body is mostly composed of fat, and when you do this type of training, the fat starts to disappear. There's a reason pro triathletes look the way they do, which is the exact opposite of the Victoria Secrets models. I'm swimming in the smallest 2 piece suit that I own now. That suit used to be too small, to the point that I didn't want to be obscene when I wore it. Now the bottom fits great but the top is loose. Oh well.

In January I did a comparison between last year's training totals for the month and this year's totals. Here's the comparison between Feb 2007 and Feb 2008:

February 2007 Training Totals:
Swim = 4hr 01 min 27 sec; 10,500 yds
Bike = 15 hr 55 min 46 sec; 164.42 mi
Run = 5hr 52 min 26 sec; 26.36 mi

February 2008 Training Totals:
Swim = 15 hr 01 min; 39,150 yds
Bike = 30 hr 02 min 27 sec; 372.31 mi
Run = 20 hr 36 min 24 sec; 98.35 mi

Yeah, I don't recommend buying a house, selling a house, and moving while training for an Ironman. Thankfully none of that happened this year. And this year I've become the poster child for "follow the training plan." Pretty amazing how prepared you can feel when you do that.

Thursday, 3/6/08 Update:
Last night I went to Master's swim and barely survived the workout. I'm getting so burned out on training. Swimming is always the first to get burned out on, because I don't particularly like swimming. I'm just trying to take it one day at a time and not bail on the workouts. After last night's swim I needed to do laundry, and wanted to stay up to watch the Project Runway finale. Since I was going to be up late anyways, I figured I might as well get my 1 hr 30 min ride in, and rode the trainer while watching PR. Better than sitting on the couch (I guess).

This weekend I have a lot of workouts planned, and thankfully it is with friends that will keep me motivated. If I make plans to meet up with people to do workouts I'm more likely to do the workout and not bail. I had a "do what you want" ride for 1 hr 20 min on the schedule, which includes mountain biking. Since I'm getting tired of the trainer, I e-mailed my buddy Liane to see if she wanted to hit some trials. She'll be doing the Gardner Canyon MBAA race, so we're going to ride down there this Saturday morning to pre-ride the course and see what it's like. I haven't ridden down there in years so it will be interesting. Here's the course we'll be riding: http://www.mbaa.net/images/stories/08%20gardner%20canyon%20course%20map%20for%20on%20web.jpg Afterwards, we'll do lunch at her place then I'll head home to clean up, feed my doggies, and get ready for the SAR Sunset run at Sabino. It's a 6.4 mile run on an out & back course where the first half is all uphill and the second half is all downhill. I've never done this run before, and the last time I was at Sabino was many, many years ago, so we'll see how it goes.

Sunday I have my long bike for the week. This is the second to last long bike ride before the race. I'm going to start at Cortaro and ride the frontage road from Tucson to Casa Grande and back. It's long and boring, just like the IMAZ course. I'll be riding with Johnny from work, so at least I won't be alone. That's one ride I don't like to do by myself.