Half Ironman Training: Week #9
After many consecutive weeks of unwavering discipline and what I consider to be near-perfect training, this was bound to happen. A bad training week. When I say bad, I mean terrible, no-good, never-want-to-have-another-training-week-like-this before the Beach2Battleship Half Ironman ever again. Yep, week #9 of my half Ironman training sucked. And the only person to blame is me.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot about how strong I’ve felt by simply doing what it takes to follow through with everything I say I’m going to do – whether I feel like doing it in the moment or not. Waking up early before work. Doing a second workout in the evening. Hitting the pavement or the trainer when it’s the last thing I really want to do. Getting 3 workouts in during a single day.
I temporarily forgot how powerful that feels last week. I temporarily made a bunch of excuses and bad choices. Until I woke up today and remembered.
We are all bound to have bad weeks. Weeks where we don’t do everything we want to do. Weeks where we make poor decisions and don’t follow our own advice. Weeks we wish we could rewind and do over. But we can’t. The only thing we can do is get over it. Move on. Start fresh TODAY and not dwell on what could have been and should have been.
So, I’m letting last week go. Letting go of the fact that I missed 4 of my 10 workouts. Letting go of having eaten a pizza and ice cream and candy and cookies and a burger with tater tots and a whole bunch of stuff I try to avoid. Letting go of hitting the snooze button 6 out of 7 days. Letting go of giving myself 2 rest days instead of one.
I’m officially back on the wagon, and I’m officially letting last week go.
Week #9 began the build phase of my training where I started focusing on high intensity workouts to maximize my aerobic capacity and enhance my ability to sustain faster speeds while continuing to build endurance. Despite having a less than stellar week, the workouts I actually did were all strong (when I wasn’t eating, clearly), and there were a few shining moments amidst the clouds.
Here is what the week looked like.
Monday
REST
Tuesday
Biked 1 hour and 10 minutes on the trainer, including 4 x 5-minute hill repeats on a high gear at a fast speed with 3 minutes of active recovery between each (total = 15 miles)
Wednesday
Ran 4.29 miles on the treadmill: I ran a slow warm-up followed by 16 x 30-second sprints at a 6:15 pace with only 30 seconds of recovery between each. I spent the remaining time in the 8:30 pace range. I did this workout at lunch time which was great since it was only prescribed as a 36-minute run. I was able to get from work, to the gym and back quickly. And yes, I showered. I’m not that unladylike.
Thursday
Swam: 2,200 meters
300-meter warm up
8 x 25-meter drills with 10 seconds rest between each
5 x 100 meters at moderate intensity with 5 seconds rest between each
7 x 75 meters at maximum intensity with 45 seconds rest between each
6 x 25 meters at speed intensity with 20 seconds rest between each
8 x 25-meter kick with 15 seconds rest between each
325-meter cool down
This was one of my toughest swim workouts of the training cycle so far, but I was really pleased to see how much I could push myself on the 75-meter sprints. I felt strong and fast in the pool.
Friday
AM: Brick
Biked 47 minutes at moderate intensity on the trainer in aero position (10.17 miles) and then immediately went for a 10-minute run at threshold intensity. I maintained a 6:55 pace for the 10 minutes (1.47 miles). I was really proud of this workout and how I felt on the run.
PM: Swam: 1,500
Did a long easy swim without stopping.
My best pal Brittany came into town Friday evening and we went to see the Atlanta Braves win their 14th consecutive game. My pre-run dinner at the stadium consisted of shrimp pasta with veggies. Not too shabby for a baseball game!
Saturday
Ran 9.5 miles with my friend Amy (@alauth). Although we ran at an easy pace, I was excited that I felt so good during this run. It was a hilly route and the heat and humidity were high. It felt easy to me, which was not the case during last year’s training cycle. Progress.
Sunday
REST
I was supposed to ride for 2.5 hours on Sunday and possibly get in another swim, but I got wrapped up in another project and just got lazy. It didn’t happen. Neither did my third swim, my fourth bike or my fourth run of the week. Gotta kick it into high gear this week.
Week #9 mileage total: 43 miles, 7 workouts, 5 hours and 27 minutes
- Swim: 2.3 miles
- Bike: 25.17 miles (Is this a joke?)
- Run: 15.23 miles
- Strength training: NONE
What do you do when you have a bad training week? How do you react?
Comments
That’s okay! Like you said, it was bound to happen. It was your body and mind’s way of telling you that it needed a break. Now you’ve got a chance to move forward and continue in the strong mentality you had in the weeks before. You can do it! Don’t let this get you down.
You have been going strong for so many weeks! Maybe your body and mind really needed a little bit of a break. You still did great, and had some tough workouts in there. I know you will be back on track this week. I agree that you have to start fresh and not let a less than perfect week get you down!
Amen, love. Sucky training weeks happen, but all we can do is let them go and do things differently this week, just like you said. I’ve been getting antsy now that my first marathon is coming up quick (33 days…eeeeek), and I think I’ve just gotten to the point where I’m ready to be done with the long training runs ha. I want to go and run this thing with everything I’ve got…and be able to sleep a little later on Saturday mornings (I’d give anything for a 7:00 wake up at this point) and have a long run be less than 12 miles. I know it will be over before I know it, and I’ll probably shake my head about how fast it went, but I can’t lie…I’m ready for it to be here. Just have to keep putting in the work till September 15, and then celebrate with a good race 🙂 Good luck this week, girl! I’m sure you’ll rock it!!
I used to let “bad weeks” really get to me, and now I just use it as fuel. Life happens and bad weeks happen– more often than we would like it to. Yes it will bother me when it does, but then I just let it go and say “it’s for the better”. Usually bad weeks happen when I really need them and can’t admit it. When my mind and body need a break. It’s good to regroup because the week after a bad one I am always better about focusing on what I NEED to do
You’re exactly right — bad weeks happen and the best thing you can do is just let it go. Easier said than done, of course, but cheers to you for moving on and making it happen.
I think off-weeks have been going around lately, like a bad cold. I like your view: let it go and move on! This week will be better!
Love this. I agree, the only thing you can do is keep going and not let one bad week turn into multiple bad weeks. Once you get back in the habit it’s easy to keep going. I think even your bad week sounded pretty awesome!
This is a great post and sooo important to remember! It is really hard not to let bad weeks or even days get you down…but we all have them and they are just a part of training!
Amen to not dwelling on it. We can’t have awesome days and pr’s all the time. Sometimes we just need to relax and be thankful for the ability to run or swim or whatever 🙂
Great post :)!
I’m reading this now because I slept through (or maybe never set?) my alarm this morning and missed my morning run. And this is one of those days where it’s too busy to get it in anywhere else. It’s important to remember to let it go. Thanks for that reminder!
I love this, and it’s great to know we are not alone when we have bad weeks. I’m coming off a week of bad food choices (way too much sugar) and still feeling disappointed with myself over it. Your post just gave me a peace of mind to let it go and move on. Thank you! Even for an ” off” week, your workout schedule is impressive!
Bad weeks happen but don’t get too worked up – it’s really the combination of all those other weeks of training that will help you achieve your goal! And I personally believe in the philosophy of having a few weeks here and there where you just eat what you want say screw it and don’t feel bad – I honestly think it helps keep my metabolism going and it keeps me sane and feeling normal 🙂
this is EXACTLY how i felt about my last week/this week. i am in such a slump and was going to write a blog post about it! can’t believe how similar we feel—-we will have bad days. it will happen and i need to get to that point where i can let go!
It’s impossible to have good weeks every week of these long ass training cycles. You have such a great attitude about it that I have no doubt this week will be like a bad dream come race day. You got this homie!
I too have had a bad week of training for my first half marathon. A lot of things were coming up that I allowed to get in the way but I’m hoping to get out of this slump and get back to work. Good luck!