Ironman Louisville Week 21...

What what???  The doubt has firmly planted itself in my head.  Floundering between "you got this" and "oh dear, I hope I have enough training hay in the barn...".  The typical pre-race jitters, I suppose.  I think I was spared the nerves last year as I had done the race before.  I knew the course, I knew what to do, nothing was unknown.  I was trying to remember if I felt this way before the first IM.  I am certain that I did.  

This year, the training has been the same but different.  I followed my plan that has worked in the past but amped up the biking and added in strength training.  Because I upped the biking, some of the long weekend training plans were changed quite a bit.  I hope I didn't alter them so much that it changed some master plan of readiness.  All that remains to be seen on August 25th.

...and if you have been following me for long you know I always get nervous, over-analyze the training and normally do just fine.  I am counting on that again :)  

I saw this on FB last year and can't remember who I borrowed it from but I love this!

This week I felt more tired than usual.  Not sure if it was the road trip from the weekend or just training in general.  I haven't been getting great sleep so that it not helping either.  I took off a couple of workouts to try and help that situation.  Not ideal, but...
   
Monday 
Run (AM and PM):  20 miles.  The intention was to do this all in one brick but after the road trip extraordinaire on Sunday, I was more tired than I thought on Monday AM.  Regardless, I rolled out of bed and hit Stone Mountain.  After 5 miles I knew the full 20 wasn't going to happen so I decided to do 10 in the morning and come back and give it another go in the afternoon.  The 10 in the afternoon felt effortless.  So very different than the morning run.  I took it as a good sign since my Louisville run will be well into the afternoon/evening :)    Not the ideal way to do the long run but I am happy that I at least logged all the miles.

Tuesday
Crossfit (PM)
I had a swim and run on the schedule for this day but dropped it.  With the long run Monday and the activities of the weekend, I felt like I would be better served skipping it and moving on.

Wednesday
Bike (PM) 30 miles
Run (AM) 6.2 miles (guess that was my own personal 10k race)  :)

Thursday
Swim (AM) 3500m  This was a lot of speedwork and a time trial.  I really like the swim workouts in this plan, just the right mix of pulling, kicking and stroke work (besides freestyle) to keep me from getting bored with it.
Crossfit (PM)

Friday
Swim (AM) 1800m  This one was all IM and I loved it!  (or maybe I just loved that it was short...)  

Saturday
Bike:  100 miles, Covington Century.  Last year I did this ride with Summer.  It was her first century!  We laughed the whole way because this ride was billed as the "flattest and fastest in GA".  So. Not. True.  Easily the hilliest century ever, there was even one hill that we were sure was a wall in the distance.

Summer:  is that a hill up there
Me:  that is a wall, we must be turning up ahead
Summer:  um, sure OK
Me:  oh wait...  crap.  (starts riding up a wall)

This year they reversed the course so we rode down the wall (hooray!).  Overall, it still had about 4600 feet of climbing but we both agreed it was soooo much easier than last year.  I will say I FINALLY got to ride in the heat this day.  After a summer of unseasonably cool temps, I think we were high 80s/low 90s for the ride.  It wasn't too bad!

Sunday:
REST!  (Also known as the day I do laundry, straighten up the house a bit and go to the grocery store).  I did go get a pedicure and used the time to read which was so great.  I used to read books by the dozen as a kid but as I got older other things took that time away.  I need to make more time for reading.

Hope you guys have a good week!  Kids are headed back to school around here this week, can't believe their Summer is over!