IMAZ training Week 14

Another week, more miles, this is the penultimate build week and then I have two weeks taper. I am not counting the days…much!

Last week was big; big miles, big hours. Not the biggest mileage week but by far the largest in terms of time. I finally blew through the 1000 minutes mark, 1044 to be precise. That’s 17 hours and 24 minutes, and that includes no core work and a missed 30 minute swim. That’s the first missed workout since starting the plan…it had to happen eventually but one out of literally 100s is not going to kill me.

A couple of notables from last week in typical S/B/R fashion;

• I matched my longest swim of 4300 yards and managed to shave 8 minutes off of it; the main set was 3900 yards non-stop and the whole thing was done in 2 hours. I am not fast but I am relentless!
• I rode my longest ride (ever) 110 miles in 6:13, two miles short and 13 minutes slower than my race day target; I am finally getting used to the race wheels although it’s still a bit sketchy going fast downhill and side-winds are a royal pain. The nice thing is that with a wee tail wind I can zip through 20 miles in less than an hour. Keep your fingers crossed for race day! Also a good opportunity to dial in my nutrition, I managed to eat all of these and a banana too! I had a three mile run at the end and felt soooo much better  than last weekend! On my ride I came across this pretty cool Missile Museum on the side of the road and had to stop to grab some photos;

• I had a mid-week 3 hour run where I clicked off just over 21 miles, this was the perfect race pace for me; 8:30. What’s very pleasant to find out is that without any real focus my running has really come back to form

So now I am tying off the loose ends; a new Hammer race kit, same as my existing one which is now south of the border due to the frequent rinse and repeat, a new pair of shoes to put some miles on before race day as well as some new socks (I got a blister during the 20 miler and looking back my socks probably have an average of 700 miles on them!). Some new lids for my Fuel Belt bottles…I’ll show you why in the next post. I am also booked in for two Lactate Threshold tests; one for the bike and one for the run, this will allow me to dial everything on race day based on my HR and avoid blowing. My HR is pretty low for these rides and runs, the long ride and run mentioned above were 122bpm and 138bpm respectively. The bike will get a service and clean and I am sure there are a few more things to square away.

I’ll leave you with the view from my run at the end of Sunday’s Brick;

19 days to go!