Back at it!

I did it. Well, sorta. I promised myself that come April, I was going to back on the team Z training plan.

Progress
Saturday morning, though, I had planned to attend the Cancer to 5k workout. But then there was facebook, and all of my teammates seemed so excited for the bike time trial at Prince William Forest Park (a favorite training and camping location for the Knight and me). And a mere 7 minutes before the Knight was scheduled to leave, I embraced my inner spontaneous self, threw on the bike shorts, and headed out. Go me!

Needless to say, it was tough. I’ve never been good at climbing hills, and since I have been on the bike roughly, oh, twice, since Ironman…Yeah…you can get where this is going.

I got the 21 miles done. I even made time to help out a new Z-er who was having a very common newbie problem. She had taken out here water bottle to drink and couldn’t get it back in her bottle cage. Boy, do I remember those days.

I totally understood why she didn’t want to stop (it was a time trial, after all). So instead of flying down a big hill, I was braking so that I could take her bottle from her.

Yay, 3rd bike ride of the year DONE. It is just going to get better from here.

This week I’ve been pretty much following the training plan again. Boot camp Monday morning was a butt-kicker. And I loved it.

I didn’t swim Tuesday. Ummmm, I can’t remember my excuse. I did workout on the elliptical, though. I plan to be back in the pool, any pool, on Thursday. I don’t feel ready for an hour long team swim, but what the heck…maybe I’ll shock everybody and show up anyhow.

We had track practice this morning. I did not feel like running when I woke up. I mean, I reallllllly didn’t feel up for it given my lingering boot camp aches. So it was pretty shocking that I had an awesome workout. A bunch of zone 2 work and just one 800 (half mile) in zone 4. It hurt – big time - but it felt great. GREAT!

The weather is beautiful. The sun is shining, and I am ready for the year.

Training Plan?

Now I just need to decide what training schedule to follow. As I have previously mentioned, I am planning to take it easy this year. I’m running the Cherry Blossom 10-miler on Sunday, relaying at Rumpass in Bumpass the following weekend (biking the Olympic and the Sprint), and at Kinetic in May (running the half, biking the sprint), and I am doing the Musselman Sprint in July (and of course, the micromussel). Anyone have a tricycle I can borrow? I’m serious. After that, who knows?

I was planning to follow the “Under 70.3” training plan, which is for those racing olympics or sprints. But as I look at it, I wonder. Is it enough?

Right now I am trying to decide. I kind of want to keep my options open in case I decide that I want to do more (i.e., a half IM this year). But then again, the whole idea was to give my body (and the rest of me) a break and take it easy. I’m just not sure what to do.

The Knight suggested that I follow the 70.3 (half Ironman) plan, and then allow myself to do less if I want. Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen. If the plan says bike 40 miles, then I will bike 40 miles. If not, I’ll feel bad. And then I’ll dwell on it like I did eating those six, yes six girl scout cookies last week. Hey, what can I say? I was working on a brief and I was so stressed. Chocolate=calm. You know?

Hmmmmm….. I will let you know what I decide. In the meantime, it feels great to be back to regular, structured training and I am loving the excitement of the team workouts. We had almost 50 people at boot camp on Monday. So great!

Happy training, everyone!