Road to IM 70.3: 9 Weeks to Go

It’s June! Gasp. By tomorrow, I only have exactly two months of training left before Ironman 70.3 Cebu.  It’s crunch time, but, I’ll have to be honest with you, it’s also beginning to get a little more exciting.

Coach Andy tells me that, beginning this week, we start focusing on speed.  We built the mileage the past few weeks, but now it’s time to push harder and go faster.  It almost feels like I’m on a roller coaster ride, climbing steadily and slowly up toward the peak.  I’m not quite there yet, but just a few more weeks and I’ll be ready to free fall.  Weeeee!

SWIM

I swam my longest last Tuesday: 2.7km, swam easy 1.5k Thursday, then swam 2.4k with friends on Friday. I could use a lot more speed, but hey, at least, I know I won’t drown in Cebu.  Unless, of course, a humongous jelly fish swallows me up.  Okay, okay. Delete the last line. Positive thoughts only.

RUN

My nemesis has returned: ITBS.  He’s bugged me ever since I started running.  Last Thursday, after a short but fast run, I suddenly felt knee pain (a sure sign that my tight ITBS was tugging at my knee cap already).  Grrrrr!

ITBS is a recurring injury for us runners.  Once you get it, it lays dormant when you rest or train less, but once mileage increases, he starts rearing his ugly head once again.  Double grrrrr.  This time, when ITBS showed up, I told myself that I wouldn’t let him win. Thankfully, after “bringing out the big guns” to get rid of him all week, he did go away!  (Full post on exactly what I did to fight ITBS in a few days)  By Tuesday, I ran a 12k and another 10k on Thursday.  No ITBS!  Wooohooo!

Come Sunday, I had the pleasure of running 22k under near perfect cool and cloudy weather with friends, Lit, Jun and Leana. We bumped into Peter Coyuito too who ran with us for a bit.  It was a relaxed run that capped my stress-filled week because of ITB.

BIKE

> Tuesday, Coach Andy and I met in Daang Hari for my Power Meter test.  I was to bike for 1 minute and then 20 minutes as fast as I could.  All the while, we monitored the distance and my heart rate.  Aaaack, it was the l-o-n-g-e-s-t 20 minutes of my life.

After all the suffering, Coach Andy emailed me a file providing me with the recommended power and heart rate training zones for the various workouts I’ll be doing.  I’ll be trying them out this week!

> I dropped by Starting Line at West Gate Center, Filinvest Corporate City to finally get a Speedfill bottle for hydration.  I still have a hard time grabbing the bottle (As I said before, don’t laugh!) so I thought this would solve the problem.  I was right!  (Thanks to Raoul Floresca of Starting Line for the help!)

– Still a work in progress. I wanna pull this lower to make it look cleaner –

> Last Saturday, Jun, Ton, and Unilab ActiveHealth teammates, Mike, Jake, Backy, and Coaches Ani and Dan Brown, and myself set out to ride 100k in NUVALI.  (Is it obvious that I was pretty determined about making up for the missed long ride due to ITBS last week?!)

The weather was cool, even chilly at some points, and cloudy almost the entire ride.  I was a bit nervous, as I always am, at the start about all the things I have to consider—mounting, dismounting, aero position, drinking while riding, and more—but, as the hours passed, I got comfortable with the Shiv.  Maybe even too comfy because I didn’t pull as hard on the brakes anymore, stopped over analyzing my movements when I rode in aero, and—oh boy, I’m embarrassed to admit it—but, I really do think I’m falling in love with my Shiv!  If I start talking to him while I ride, then maybe I should have myself checked (although I do know a couple of triathletes who do that.)

I was so slow that I would’ve spent the entire day biking just to reach 100k!  So, we called it a day at 82k and I promised myself I’d reach 100k soon.  Um, to be exact, the next attempt is this Thursday.  As Coach Andy always tells me: You Will Do It!

Total training hours last week: 12 hours.