Back to one of my favourite places in the world to train!

Parry Sound!!!  I got this past week off so I can put in some good mileage in my last big week of training before tapering for Ironman France.  Therefore, I am back visiting my second family!  Thanks again for putting me up for a week!  Hope I wasn't too much of an inconvenience! ;)  Here are some pics I took during one of rides showing why this is such a great place to train!

I came up Monday night after my night shift.  I went straight to work early Tuesday morning with a run interval workout at a field.  This was actually much harder than a track workout because of the terrain.  It actually was a cross-country workout!  We did 2x600m followed by 1000m and then 3x600m followed by another 1000m.  Well, I was toast after the second 600m of the first set! LOL!  I then did a 110km bike ride under the HOT sun repeating a hilly loop three times with one hill averaging 9% for a total of 3228ft of climbing.  The temperature spiked to 38.5C during my ride and averaged 35C!  Good practice for Nice!  I knew it was hot but didn't realize it was this hot!  Guess that would explain why I ran out of fluids at 80km into the ride and I resorted to liking the salty sweat around my lips! haha!

Wednesday the temperature turned and it was much colder and very windy!  Gusts of 50+km/hr.  I was soooo exhausted when I woke up that morning I could have easily stayed in bed all day!  I managed to force myself out for a 9km run and then went open water swimming solo for 30min.  When I got back from swimming we decided to do an easy short bike ride followed by a Starbucks stop!  And then I did another 30min open water swim to give someone else some company out in the water. 

My riding and Starbucks buddies for the afternoon!

Thursday I woke up with more gusto and went out for an easy 90km ride as that night was time trial night!  I gave Torture Thursdays a new spin.  The time trial consists of a 16.3km ride and a 3km run - ALL OUT!  I gave it all I had and I believe I went faster than the two previous time trials I did last year.  I averaged about 33km/hr on the bike, 189 watts, 94rpm, and 165bpm.  I ran a 4:40min/km pace for the 3km.  Not bad!  Hope to improve on this if I have another chance to do the time trial over the summer.



Limey getting psyched up for the time trial



before the pain of the TT

cooling down after the ~45min of torture

Friday I had my long ride planned!  I haven't ridden more than 140km this year and I only did that once.  I was getting a bit worried about not having the mileage behind me.  So it was decided after some advise to do 160km.  Before that I did a one hour open water swim.  The water was sooooo calm that morning we were sailing as we swam across the lake.  That really was a great swim!  Then I got back to the house to refuel and get ready for the long ride.  I did the same loop as Tuesday's ride just made it a little longer and repeated it four times.  With the wind in my face for a good portion of the ride it was a tough one!  I climbed a total of 5151ft which I believe is the most climbing I have done in a ride!  According to my Garmin files this was more climbing than any of the North Carolina rides and more climbing than IMC!  I unfortunately did flat on my first loop and had to change the tube but was on my way after about 20min (I had a couple of failed attempts at the CO2 cartridge and had to resort to the hand pump).  I was out longer that I would have liked, about 6.5hrs and I was initially planning on running about 1-2hrs off the bike but that did not happen.  Ah well! 

Saturday morning I did a short easy 10km ride followed by a 10km run in the rain with some thunder and lightening threatening me!  I definitely negative split the run home after I saw the bolt of lightening cross the sky!  So after training just over 22hrs this week I am racing a sprint race tomorrow in Milton!  Shall be interesting!  I am hoping to race hard but my legs might say differently!  I'll update with a race report as soon as I can!