Week 10

I'm part of an online mentor group with 10-12 other people who are training for various types of races. But most of them are triathletes. The other day a guy asked the group "Why do we do this?"

First it might help if I painted you a picture of what 'this' is. Each week I have talked about specific training rides or runs I completed, or I have told you the amount of miles I covered. So today I'll give you a breakdown of my week, day-by-day.

Monday-Friday I work from 7a.m. to 3p.m. A perk of my job is having my meals provided by the facility so I don't have to eat before I get there or pack a lunch. Which means I usually don't wake up until 6:45a.m. I really like that :)

Monday: this is a medium distance bike ride for me. Currently that is 25-30 miles and will take me around 2 hours to complete. After that I will eat some dinner and then watch t.v., read or spend too much time looking at facebook or some other such website.

Tuesday: this is the day I do my long run. Currently 13 miles. By my last big training week I will be running 18 miles on Tuesdays. I'm not a fast runner, and the longer the runs get the harder it is for me to maintain my normal pace. So at 12mph it takes me...a long time. By the time I finish this run I'm usually hungry and head home for food. I'm really into salad these days. I've decided to make myself eat orange peppers so I will learn to like them. They are good on my salad.

Wednesday: Today is a short run and a short swim. Ideally I will get up before work to complete my run, which will be around 2-4 miles. I haven't actually gotten up in the morning to do a run yet, but I keep planning to. Then at 5:30p.m. I head for the gym for a swim class I signed up for. If I didn't get my run done in the morning I have to do it after swim class because I had a meeting right after work that prevented me from running then. Somewhere in between or after all that I eat. Then sleep 8 hours or more if possible.

Thursday: Medium run of 4-6-7 miles. I also have a short bike ride of 15-20 miles to accomplish. Hopefully I did my run in the morning. Another option would be to do something called a brick workout. That's where I intentionally do a back to back training session so my body gets used to going from the bike to a run, since that's how it works on race-day. For biking I usually can maintain a 15mph pace; except when I'm going uphill, then it's more like 8, or 7, or 6mph...hahaha. I also eat and sleep.

Friday: I try to make Friday my swim only day so my legs get some rest. It is my long swim which is averaging between 3500-4000 yards, and yes I get bored swimming lap after lap.This year I've learned the value of drills to break up the distance so I don't go crazy. This workout takes me around two hours. Eating and sleeping are happening at some point.

Saturday: I do my long bike ride on saturday because it takes me a long time to finish it. I'm up to 65 miles this week, which is about 4-4.5 hours. Then I have a medium distance run (6-9 miles). I usually sleep in a bit and I love to drink coffee and eat breakfast sitting in the dining room looking out the window. It's quiet and relaxing.

Sunday: I finish my week with a medium distance swim (2800-3000 yards) and a medium distance bike (25-30 miles). The church service I attend is at 8:30a.m. which get me moving early and I appreciate that.

I don't get a day off. I can't eat whatever I want because I don't have one of 'those' types of metabolisms. I'm not a type A person who loves getting up every day and taking on all the training and then some. I was never an athlete. I don't like getting up in the mornings. I don't like following a schedule or being committed to accomplish something everyday.

So "Why do I do this?"

...stay tuned!