11 Weeks to Go!

My second week of my 13 week Ironman training is behind me.  It was a week that presented a mixture of challenges.  To start with our local pool was closed for the week for maintenance.  It's an annual closure and I anticipated it.  No big deal, I will just improvise and head over to the YMCA in Salem to use their pool.  A check of their schedule quickly confirmed they too were closed for the week for maintenance.  My third option was to use the municipal pool in Salem, except they were abruptly closed due to lack of funding.  So I scraped my pool workouts this week.   No harm, no foul there as I can swim fairly well.  No real set back.

Monday was regular day off from training.  Tuesday morning I got my 1 hour run in and ran 7 miles before work.  Wednesday had me riding after work and I rode the reverse route into the Santiam canyon.  A 23.1 mile route of which 9 miles was climbing.  I took the road bike out on this work out and quickly discovered that I damaged the rim on last weeks blow out.  My rear tire is extremely out of true and wobbled like a weeble.  To compound matters on that ride, the local farmers were burning their grass seed farms and the air was thick with smoke and ash.  But I made do and rode on for 1:19:00

Thursday called for an easy 30 minute run.  Again I ran in the wee morning hours before work and knocked out 4.31 miles in 38:42.  Thursday night I also succumbed to the prodding of my buddy Trevor and decided to race an Olympic distance triathlon on Saturday.  The triathlon would consist of a 1500 meter swim, 24 mile bike and 6.2 mile run.  I signed up for it at the last minute even though the weather forecast called for RAIN!
See my race report on the blog - Scoggins Valley triathlon.

Friday's schedule was for an hour bike session which I was hesistant to do because of the race on Saturday, but being the stubborn type, I decided a quick spin couldn't hurt. The quick spin turned into 23.1 mile ride after work completed in 1:11:28.  I returned home that night just as the rain was rolling in.

Saturday morning started early as I woke at 4:30, ate and prepared to drive up to Hagg Lake in the pouring rain for the race.  I made the trek north and competed in the race.  After it was all said and done I pulled off a 2:51:13 on this challenging hilly wet course.  In true Oregon fashion, we ignored the rain and had a blast playing outside. 

Sunday called for a three hour ride.  On Friday I dropped off my road bike at the shop to have the chain replaced - nearly 3,000 miles on it - and have the rear wheel trued.  So I would be without my relaxed ride and forced to ride my tri bike. Normally not an issue for me, but the weather was still crap outside!  Rain, WIND, rain and WIND!  I caught a brief break in the weather around noon and managed to squeeze in a 15.4 mile ride in 50 minutes.  The head winds were freaking ridiculous so I called it a day and came home to chill out with the family.

104 miles of training for the week admist some challenges and some weather!  Still a decent training week and another step towards the big show in November.