Week 9 of Endurance Phase

Phew! I needed a rest this week after all the hard work of the past 3 weeks. As I mentioned before, the body needs a rest and this week was a welcome week for me. My mileage was cut down by a full 1/3 which allowed me to recover slowly but surely.

It's funny but you can actually feel from day to day various parts of your body starting to get stronger and your whole energy center start coming alive again. At times I felt like I was cheating not getting enough training but having put my trust in my coach and my own experiences, I knew that this would turn out to my benefit in the long run.

Sure enough, Here it is Saturday night and one more day to go into my recovery week and I feel so re-energized for my long stuff on the weekend which there is no reduction in. All the tapering back was done on the interval and tempo sessions of my workouts as the long stuff still had to get done. The difference being that now I was fully re-energized to do my long ride today and felt this was the best ride I had since last August when I finished my Tri season. Today's ride turned out to be close to 80k with some of my best friends and steady training partners Julie, Bob and old time friend Gerry from Vancouver who just had to get away from the big city this weekend to connect with us and join us in a fantastic bike ride to Lake Cowichan and back. This ride is perfect training for the uphill section of Ironman with steady 35k ride steady uphill all the way to the turn around. All the hardest work is done in the first half of the ride and on the way back achieve speeds of up to 60+ km's on the way back and we had a tail wind to boot. Wow! We were feeling so good and flying.

As for my long run, now Sunday, it also went well with 24k's which was very hilly. It did sap some of my energy but not significantly. I seem to have a night shift at work every afternoons after my long run but I found that if I ate emmediately carbs and protein as well as saturate myself with my minerals and salts through gatorade, that I recovered ok by the time I got to work to make this more tolerable.

I am also sure my energy coming all back to me during this easy week helped in making these long workouts on the weekend a breeze. So Yeah....Those easy weeks might be low mileage and one might feel guilty and like a slug after a while but I know deep down it was the right thing to do in order to excel on the long bike and run. For now relish in my fantastic weekend, the weather, the long bike ride and run, the company of good friends and now relaxing with a glass of wine enjoying live Doo Wop music show on the big screen. Ahhh life doesn't get any better. Except for backing into a policeman's SUV today with my Van. He He He!.....Rock on Baby!