Last week, I committed to myself to get in a good weekend of training hard. So I did that.
On Saturday, I went swimming in the pool. I think people were surprised I was at the indoor pool rather than the outdoor pool, but the outdoor pools here don’t have lane swimming (I think that this is ridiculous and would like to see it change). I didn’t push it too hard because I think I’ve forgotten how to push it while swimming. I’m going to test this theory later this week, but I’m really having a hard time pushing myself to get my heart-rate up while swimming. It may have to do with my anxiety, but I will have to explore that further later. So I did an easy 2100 metres. a 250m warm-up, 3 sets of 500, 100m of kick, and 250m of cool-down. It was refreshing and it felt good. I am going to try to work in some intervals soon, now that I’ve gotten my swimming rhythm back.
Sunday was the big training day, though. I had a long bike followed by a short run planned. I did two laps of my favorite loop that even has some hills. The first lap I was accompanied by a couple of great triathlon people that let me talk almost non-stop about my personal problems. They were extremely supportive and without them there, I’m not sure I would have been able to continue on the second lap. However, I must have warmed up a lot from the first lap because I picked up the pace a bit (about 1.5 km/hr) and ended up with:
Distance: 115.70km
Time: 4:28:52
Max: 37.1 km/hr (on the flat!)
Average speed: 25.8 km/hr
That pace is a great pace for me and didn’t even feel like a race pace. So it was really exciting. My legs just felt really good. Afterwards, I changed into my shoes and put on my hat (it was hot and sunny, not unlike Penticton in August!) and did a nice 35 minute run. I didn’t go very far and it kind of hurt, but bricks are so important in training. It felt good to get out there and run… and it started feeling really good at the end, but I didn’t want to push it.
All-in-all, a great training weekend!
My friend Jenny (from Living Vegan) and I had a conversation that went like this:
Jenny: What do you mean you’ve never seen a vegan triathlete blog?
Me: I don’t know. I never looked.
Jenny: Well you should! There are others out there, you know!?
Me: Okay, send me some links, I’ll look tonight.
(ie keep at it, our forces are growing.)
Thanks Matt! Yes, we are a growing part of the sport of triathlon. I’m glad that you found me and yes there are others!