Another week of getting it done in the books.
Tough swim on Friday – 4400 yards. Haven’t swam that far in a long, long time. Was proud of myself for getting it done mentally. The pace I held was pretty good to. Really felt like I needed some encouragement after that swim though so I posted on social media. My watch showed my pace and time and I had said I wouldn’t do that, so I felt kind of bad about that. But I just needed some kudos.
Friday turned out to be very productive. I took my bike to Shama for a bike fit. Didn’t have any expectations but things turned out amazing. The first thing he asked me about was why I had 165 cranks. My very first coach had suggested I might need 155s, but every time I brought it up to a bike fit guy they said it wouldn’t make a difference. Shama said “I use 165s so either I’m wrong or you are.” He’s the experts so I said, let’s do it. He noticed my cleats were close to breaking and fixed those up and put a new oval chainring on and dropped my aero bars into a slightly more aggressive position. Wasn’t sure what to expect but Saturday’s 3 hour ride was PURE JOY!!!!! My hips felt so much more open, pedal stroke felt so smooth and best part – power was higher. Same course one week prior, normalized power was 120. This week 135. Sixth highest power ride ever and I was not going all out, really “pushing” my power. So super excited about this new set up!!!!
Had 12 miles and a recovery swim today – pretty uneventful other then forgetting to bring gel blocks with me on the run, so I died at mile 9 – live and learn.
This week I also did Metabolic testing with Alyson. She is going to go over the results with me tomorrow and I’m excited to hear how understanding this could help make me train smarter and get stronger.
Going to the mailbox was even fun this week. I came in third in the USAT Ambassador Team challenge (most training miles + most fundraising $) for August and they shipped me a package of goodies! Then one of my teammates shipped me three hand-made IM face masks – so sweet!!!!
This week will be another hard one: long swim Friday and a 90 mile ride and brick on Saturday (my birthday)!!!!! But excited to get it done and the following week is RACE WEEK!!!!!!! New Trails, Louisana Spring on Saturday and 70.3 on Sunday. CAN. NOT. EVEN. WAIT!!!!!!!!!
ironcheryl2018 