Friday Five

1) Rolling Rolling Rolling… I've been riding the rollers about once a week this winter. We've had them for a couple years now I think (although I didn't spend much time on them at all last year). I have progressed from the confines of the hallway, to the entrance of our kitchen (it's a slightly wider space than the hallway, but still has something on each side: a counter on one side and a fridge on the other). I would say I am much more confident and comfortable on them than I was in the early days (I don't feel the need to wear my helmet anymore like I did the first time I rode them, haha), but I still am a little shaky at times and do like feeling there is a bit of a safety zone with the counter/fridge situation.

On Wednesday night at trainer class we had some of Kelly's Kids join us. One of the girls rode rollers for the class. She was beside the wall, but it was just on one side. I was kind of in awe. The poor girl probably felt a bit awkward, as I think I spent the majority of the class staring at her. She was quite impressive – one leg drills, high cadence drills, strong efforts – she seemed to handle it all with ease. Never once did she look like she was going to hit the edge or slide off. Perhaps it is the fearlessness that comes with youth or maybe she has been riding rollers for a long time, but whatever the case, I was impressed.

2) Last weekend Shane was away and Kirsten was in a conference, so I spent a bit of time training (and living) solo. The weather was great on Saturday afternoon, so I tackled a 90km ride around Greater Victoria. My folks joined me for the first 30km which was nice and then I peeled off on my own to head down around the waterfront. The sun was shining and the roads were quiet. It was a good day.

Sunday, my motivation to run long on my own was lacking a little, so I joined the wonderful Trail Guys and splashed around Thetis and Stewart Mountain. I didn’t hit the kilometers that I was scheduled to run (25km) but I did spend a solid 2.5 hours running through the forest (so probably around the same amount of time it would have taken me to run 25k on the road). 

It was one of those outings that was good for your soul. At times I found myself lost in conversation, and at times I was equally lost in the quiet. My legs were pretty fried by the end, but I was happy with the day and the weekend as a whole (and I was finished early enough to be able to get all my chores done ~ something that often gets neglected during IM training).

3) This week has been a bit of a “regeneration” week. (I've noticed Kelly called it this, rather than a “step back” week or a “recovery” week in one of his emails). So, what that means is the week has been a bit lower volume, but with some higher intensity stuff mixed in. On Wednesday, I tackled my first interval run in a while.

The main set was 6x 1km at 10km RP with :90 recovery. I was a little worried about this workout, as it has been a while since I actually ran at a true 10km race effort. Thankfully (and maybe a little surprisingly) it went really really well (despite the shockingly cold weather, one urgent bathroom break, and my stupidity in hitting the stop button rather than the lap button at the start of my last 1km effort). I managed to hit times that I think are realistic of my 10km RP at this time (and they were pretty consistent to boot), and while it was a hard effort, it was definitely a maintainable effort.

4) As mentioned above, it has been ridiculously cold in Victoria this week (central Canadians and east coasters can start laughing at me now). Each morning when I've left the house the thermometer has read somewhere around -8 and I don't think the day time high is getting much above the freezing mark. It's dry and my skin in cracking and I can't seem to get warm – EVER! While I absolutely love the sunshine that comes with this cold weather (and even though my last couple sentences may say otherwise, I don't actually mind it that much), I have realized that I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to the cold. Also, it has made me ever more thankful that I don't live somewhere that “polar vortex” type weather is the norm. So, I guess what I'm saying is... Island living for the win!

5) I tackled one of my New Year's goals recently. I swam 800m with flip turns. I did a 600m “steady strong” effort in one go and then was feeling so good about it, I carried the flipping through into my 200m cool down. I definitely am still not flip turning consistently throughout the workout, and I do notice that if I don’t really focus on what I’m doing, they can get a bit sloppy, but I think it’s a good start. Yay me!

And with that, I’m out. Happy Friday everyone!