IMTX Training - Week 6

This past week was Week 6 of Ironman Texas Training. This week included my new longest bike ride of 79.4 miles, beating out last week's 70.0 mile ride and continuing a string of growing workouts. These growing workouts included getting in more than 16 hours of workouts for the first time. Next week will be the last build week of the current phase of training before I start a recovery week.

Here is how this past week of training breaks down:

Swim - 8100 yards, 3:23:04
Bike - 79.4 miles on roads plus time on spin bike or trainer, 7:17:49
Run - 24.0 miles, 4:55:25
Other - stretching or other training workout, 0:30:00

Overall training time 16:06:18

This week had me in the middle week of the current build phase of training as I increased slightly ahead of where I was last week in terms of total time trained. I learned a bit of a lesson this week as I pushed my pace during two of my training runs this past week, and while it was nice to run faster than I had in a long time...I also stressed my left knee a bit more than I intended and could feel that extra stress (although not so much that it feels injured). I will drop back a bit in pace and remind myself that my goal is a quality finish, not a fast finish.

Today's 79.4 mile bike ride was a bit of an adventure. Last night's low was supposed to be in the upper 30's with 40 degree temperatures expected 8 a.m. However the reality was temperatures in the upper 20's when the ride began at 7:30 and staying below freezing until at least an hour into the ride (brrr!!) To make matters worse there were about 10 mph winds during much of this time. Fortunately, the day warmed by about 40 degrees by the end of the ride, even though the wind picked up as well. The temperatures and wind made this ride more challenging than originally expected, however I also feel that this gives me a good baseline for lower-level expectations for race day as most of this ride was on the Ironman Texas course. One especially positive note was that a good part of this ride was also over most of the Iron Star 70.3 distance course that I did last November. I definitely felt much better today than I did last November over this more challenging part of the course.

Week 7 brings more of the same as the build phase continues, including another 80 mile bike ride, my longest planned swim ever of just under the Ironman swim distance and the longest run of my training plan to date (13 miles) planned for next week.

97 days until Ironman Texas......