Low ebb

Friday: Yoga, bike 9 miles

Saturday: Yoga, bike 34 miles

So tired. Either the yoga+34 miles wiped me out, or my body is busy fighting off the disease my husband and son have (or both). At some point this evening we just gave up trying to do anything useful, had pancakes for dinner, and watched movies on Netflix until bedtime.

I have to say, it's disheartening to be so exhausted after a ride that's less than a third of 112 miles. Instead of a marathon afterward, I took my grandmother grocery shopping. After about an hour of moving at 0.5 mph, I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep on her living room couch.

I might take tomorrow off just so someone around here has the energy to do the dishes.

Playing with my toys

Thursday: Walk/run 6 miles

I still have just the strap of my heart-rate monitor, but I decided to try it out at the gym to see if I could get the hang of this type of training. The treadmills are compatible with the strap, and they have programs that automatically adjust the incline so you can hold your heart rate wherever you want it.

I thought it would probably be pretty easy to do the whole walk/run at 65%, but that actually turned out to be a bit harder than I've been walking (uh-oh). In fact, I thought I was doomed at first, because it took some very steep, very fast treading to get my heart rate up to the magic 118 and I kind of got out of breath. (Starting to wonder if I am the world's wimpiest walker.) When I jogged, though, I literally could not go slow enough to get it down to 118, but at least it was flat, and I felt more relaxed.

My resting heart rate is pretty low (although I'd like to find my watch and actually measure it), so I wonder if I might need to adjust the training ranges down from what the treadmill suggests. More research!

Getting ready

Wednesday: Rest

I tore the house apart yesterday looking for my heart-rate monitor and came up with nothing. Then I mentioned to my husband that I was looking for it, and he walked over to a drawer and emerged with it 10 seconds later. The strap anyway. I still don't know where the watch is, and neither does the amazing magical genie spouse.

I took my bike into the shop this morning and am getting an 11/27 put on. I hope that's sufficient. I really had no basis for deciding whether that would be easy enough or if I would need a third chainring, so I went with the simplest and cheapest option. At any rate, it will help. I was counting my pedal strokes per minute last time I climbed the Molt hill, and I got as low as 35. If this keeps me above 60 or so, I'll be delighted.

While I was tearing the house apart, I found an empty little datebook that will be perfect for planning out my training weeks. I have Week 1 filled in and it looks pretty easy, so I went ahead and planned on three yoga classes. It's ridiculous how many variables go into planning a week: weather forecast, gym schedule, workload predictions, kids' schedules, spacing out the easier days evenly, and—yes, I admit shamefacedly—putting my long run on "Project Runway" night. You didn't expect me to sacrifice for this goal, did you?

Easing up

Monday: Bike 17 miles

Tuesday: Yoga, swim 1,500 yards

I'm toning down my training a bit so I'll be rested and gung-ho when I start the "real" training in a few weeks. The plan is to start the day after the Montana Marathon, and I'm so glad I decided not to run that! I managed to sell my slot on Craigslist to a woman about my age doing her first marathon, so I'm really happy it's going to someone who is excited about it. She asked for advice, so I threw in my "wisdom" about the course free of charge. It's nice to feel like a veteran.

I got up for psycho-early-yoga again. I felt pretty good in class this time, but man, it makes for a long day. And it seems to require that I eat an entire extra meal ("second breakfast"), so I think it might be counterproductive as far as losing weight. Maybe if I go to bed at 8:30 tonight I can stay within my calorie limit??

Happy to have a plan

Saturday: Yoga, swim 1,000

Sunday: Run/walk 4 miles, weights

I've spent some time this weekend doing training research, and think I've come up with a plan. I really like the free ironman training program at trifuel.com, but I had a few concerns:

1. There's a ton of swimming (up to four days a week!) that I don't necessarily need.
2. Everything is done by time and heart rate rather than distance, so if I remain very, very slow, then I might not get in the distance that's intended.
3. There's no time for yoga, which I really think I want to keep up.
4. The taper is only two weeks and (to me at least) looks like too much work too close to the race.
5. My job is going to create a handful of three- or four-day periods where I can't work out at all.

So the plan I came up with is to start the 36-week program 40 weeks out. That gives me one extra week to taper, one extra week to add on distance to my long ride and/or run, and two weeks of buffer to add random rest days when work gets crazy. I'll stick to swimming once or twice a week, but maybe double up the swims to get in the full week's yardage. And I'll take the time freed up by swimming less often to do yoga about twice a week.

I'm 42 weeks out from the race right now, so I'm thinking I might back off on my training a bit for the next two weeks (and hit a ton of yoga classes instead) so that I can start fresh and raring to go.

Ooooouuuuch

Friday: Ride 44 miles

Wow, that one hurt. 44 miles, plus massive hills. Still, it was another beautiful day, and it almost made me feel guilty to ride by people out doing actual work. Think I'll have a shower and go eat something…or possibly everything.

The gear I want

Thursday: Bike 31 miles, walk/run 6 miles

Such a beautiful ride today. The wind was howling, but it was cool and crystal clear, and the sky was pure poetry. I didn't attempt another hilly route, but I was certainly cursing the headwind for the first part of the ride. (The way back, now!! That was fun.)

It's been dawning on me that my bike (purchased in Virginia Beach) isn't really geared for mountainous terrain. Well, I always knew that, but I guess what's been dawning on me is that this is fixable. I ran across something that said that the IM CDA bike course gets up to a 19% grade (what?!!) for short sections and that you'd be a fool to do it without at least a 12-25 or 12-27—WHATEVER THAT MEANS. I'm pretty sure I don't have it, though. I checked my bike for similar numbers and saw "53-39," but I'm not sure that's even related.

(I know there are punier gears out there, because when we were in Colorado and drove up to the top of Mount Evans, I saw a guy pedaling up an incredibly steep hill at about 100 rmp and going about 2 mph. That's the gear I want.)

Anyway, the point is I'm clueless about this stuff, and another stop at the bike shop is in order. Might as well do it sooner rather than later so I can start practicing on appropriate gears.

P.S. I added a grand total of 5 minutes of running to my 90-minute walk. So far so good, hip-wise.