Half Ironman Training: Week #1
My first week of half Ironman training for the Beach2Battleship Half Ironman is in the books. (To see more about my half Ironman training plan, click here.) Although I had to miss several of the prescribed workouts due to my schedule and travel, I feel good about the 5 days of work I got in and for doing 4 of the 5 workouts in the morning before 8 a.m.
Here is what the week looked like.
Monday
Monday is always a rest day in my training schedule, but since I was going out of town on Friday morning, I started the week of workouts on Monday to use my rest day on the weekend while I was gone.
Swam 1,500 meters:
300-meter warm up
8 x 25-meter drills with 10 seconds rest between each
5 x 100 at moderate intensity with 5 seconds rest between each
8 x 25-meter kick only with 15 seconds rest between each
300-meter cool down
I was supposed to get in an hour on the bike on Monday evening, but since I had biked for an hour and 10 minutes the day before, I was content with just the swim.
Tuesday
Ran: 4.17 miles with 6 x 30-second sprints during the middle part of the run (My plan called for a 30-minute run. I ran for about 36 minutes.) It was 90 degrees outside so this run felt tougher than it was.
Strength trained (1 hour): Kettle bell workout focusing on Turkish get ups:
Wednesday
Brick: Biked and ran
11-mile bike on the trainer (45 minutes)
I watched the most recent episode of the Real Housewives of Orange County to pass the time. (My guilty pleasure!)

I followed my bike ride up immediately with a 2.2-mile run. My plan called for a 15 minute run. I ran for about 18 minutes.
Thursday
Swam 1,450 meters:
300-meter warm up
8 x 25-meter drills with 10 seconds rest between each
4 x 100 meters building and descending with 5 seconds rest between each
8 x 25-meter kick only with 15 seconds rest between each
350-meter cool down
Friday
Biked 1:10 (24 miles) on an indoor spin bike
I woke up at 4:45 a.m. to get this in before an 8:50 a.m. flight to New York. Ideally this would have been a 90-minute ride and 30-minute run, but I was glad to get this in with my limited schedule.
Saturday and Sunday
I was at a bachelorette party in the Hamptons in New York and was not able to work out due to our schedule and traveling. The workouts I missed were a 1,600-meter swim and 1-hour run. Although I’m bummed I wasn’t able to perfectly follow my training plan during week #1, the weekend off will motivate me to have a great week of workouts this week.
My mileage was low this week since I missed 2 runs, 2 bikes and a swim (sad face). I did 6 workouts for a total of about 43 miles. I’m quite embarrassed about my running mileage. *Eek.*
- Swim: 2,950 meters (missed 1 swim)
- Bike: 35 miles (missed 2 bikes)
- Run: 6.37 (missed 2 runs)
- Strength training: 1 hour (missed 1 strength training session)
My goal for this week is to follow my plan strictly and not miss any workouts.
How did your workouts go last week? Do you stick to your training schedule exactly, or do you change things up to fit workouts in where you can?




