Hell Weeks 3 & 4

I’ve been a bad blogger the past two weeks!

The good news is that I’ve survived “Hell Month” so far.  In week 3, I was back to following my schedule.  The week honestly wasn’t horrible…my longest weekday run was 1 hour 15 minutes, my longest weekday ride was 1 hour 25 minutes.  The weekend was tough – 100 mile ride on Saturday, followed by a 22 minute mile run and an 18-mile run on Sunday.  These were going to be my longest workouts before race day.  Both went well, but I have been noticing a pain in the middle of my back on the right side..fortunately, I’ve only noticed this on the bike.  We also met up at Lake Conroe and had an amazing open water swim!  Each one of those gives me a little more confidence about the swim on race day.  

I feel extremely lucky to be able to swim in such a great location!

Also, the temps are warming up here.  I have been trying to run in the afternoons instead of the mornings, just to start getting acclimated.  I ran on a trail near my house when the temps were around 86 degrees.  I found it really difficult to keep my heart rate where it's supposed to be (~143) and ended up walking quite a bit to keep it there.  Grrr....the joys of IM training!  At least the trail scenery was nice!

The paved trail near my house...

Week 4 actually ended up being a recovery week.  I was a little surprised by this even though we’ve  typically had a recovery week every 4^th week of training.  I know others who had one more really tough week and weekend of training and then were going into taper mode.  But, I have to admit, the recovery was AWESOME.  The weekday workouts were still somewhat long, but not as bad as a regular week.  Instead of 2 ½ - 3 hours on my bike/run days, I had less than 2 hours.  The swims were also a bit shorter.  My long ride was only 4 hours, followed by a 90-minute run.  I went to see a chiropractor mid-week to have him check my back.  The pain during my bike ride was minimal…until I had to come to a complete stop at a 4-way stop.  When I started going again, the muscles on the right side of my back tightened up so much that I thought I was going to have to stop mid-way through my ride.  Luckily, it eased up and I could continue.  Whew!

So now we are in the final week of the month and ready to enter the taper zone.  The workouts this week consisted of 3 swim days with the longest swim at 3,400 yard, 2 weekday bike rides with the longest at 1 hour 40 minutes and 3 weekday runs with the longest at 1 hour, 20 minutes.  This weekend, we will bike 70 miles on Saturday and run 15-ish on Sunday…which we may flip/flop around to accommodate other activities!


I am getting really excited about the race.  It’s hard to believe that there are only 15 days left. 

Yes, this pretty much sums it up!

IT’S GETTING REAL!!!

In the past couple of weeks, there have been a couple of other developments that have made the experience even more real.  First, we received our bib numbers. O-M-G.  Second, the wall of names at Lululemon was revealed!  So exciting!

My bib #!!!!

The window covering at Lululemon...it lists the name of every IMTX participant!

My emotions go from “OMG, I am soooo excited, I can’t wait!” to “Oh holy hell, how am I going to do this??”  But it’s good.  I am ready.  Well, other than my leg cramps in the water and this nagging back pain.  But yes, I am ready!