Need motivation?

If you need motivation to get out on your bike that should do the trick! Simon Whitfield behind the camera...

Winter?

Great week and great week-end. I rode 2h25 this morning with few steep climbs. It was foggy at 6am but ended up a perfect morning. After our usual Sunday morning walk to the farmer market to buy our vegetables and fruits for the week, we all went to the beach (Point Dume beach). We had lunch there and the boys played in the waves for a while. I went for a 20 minute open water swim to get used to the wetsuit again and test the water before the race in Oceanside. It is cold! My hands and feet went numb for a while but after few minutes everything was fine and I had a good swim.

It was a good week as far as training goes: more than 20 hours in total, 15000 meters of swimming, 9+ hours of biking and 6+ hours of running.

Yerba Buena

Beautiful 5 hour ride today, the weather was great with temperatures up to 75d. I even got sunburned! I climbed Yerba Buena (picture above), my favorite climb in the Santa Monica mountains. I finished very strong and then ran 30 minutes.

Swim Start

Swim Waves are up for Half Ironman California! This race is slightly different than many Ironman races because the swimmers start by age group waves and not all together. The main reason for that is the narrow channel in which we swim for the first 500 meters.

I'll have the pleasure to start at 6.57am, that's pretty early to jump into 55 deg. waters (less than 15 Celcius)!!!

Running

A lot of it! Monday the plan called for 50 minutes in Z2 followed by 8 strides, tuesday 1h20 including the dreaded 5 x 8 minutes in z4 and today 1 h 45 in Z2. My legs are stiff!

Solid week.

Last week was solid with 18h45 of training despite a day trip to Phoenix:

Running : 5 hours
Cycling: 8 hours 45 minutes
Swimming: 5 hours

Sunday, my 5 hour ride (160km) was done in almost perfect conditions, slightly cold at the start (48 degrees) but warm after a while (70). A strong wind started to blow after few hours, of course it was a headwind and it made up for a very hard last hour. The transition run felt good.

And now I just have to start again for a new week…

27 days...

It had been a while since I could find the time to swim four times in a week for a total of 15000 meters. I did it this week and it is obvious that under that I maintain my (low) level but don't really improve. But on thursday on my fourth session of the week I had a great 3800 meter swim with 8 x 200m in Z4 at a speed I was very happy with! Few weeks at this volume and intensity (Z4 in the water in painful for me) and I should see some pretty good results.

This morning I went for a 2 hour ride with 60 minutes tempo (z3). I felt very strong and Watts were often in z4 for a low RPE. Tomorrow 5 hour ride (with 4 x 20 minutes tempo) followed by the usual 30 minutes transition run.

And by the way today is March 1st which means that my first race of the year is approaching fast: Half Ironman California on March 29th in 27 days and few hours!!!