Double Secret Training Continues

I've been racking up the miles over the last several months. In fact, this past weekend I did the most training hours I've ever done in one weekend. The funny thing is I don't feel tight at all. More on that later.

Friday was an easy day leading up to the weekend and only consisted of 1:15 of weights and Ab workout with a 1 hour easy bike. No problem 2:15 in the bank.

Saturday started out bright and early. 5AM, which means I needed to break out the head lamp. I met 2 friends down at East Boston Camp (EBC) in Westford where we were scheduled to run 3, 1 hour loops. The first loop gave us just over 7 miles. We then hooked up with another group of runners and by the end of the 2nd loop we had 15 miles in the bank. After the second stop for fuel my right leg started to lock up. I wasn't cramping but was not that fluid anymore. The third loop got me back to EBC in exactly 3 hours and 23 miles in the bank. Great way to start the day. I headed home to clean up then off to my daughters Softball game. After that it was on to cutting the lawn. This family stuff is really cutting into my workout time. Next it was swim time. I wanted to do an open water swim but didn't want to travel all the way over to Walden. So I headed over to Nabnasset Lake in Westford. I circled the entire lake which I mapped out to be 2 miles in 1:12. I'm starting to really feel good about my swimming. One year ago I couldn't do 100 yards without stopping to rest. No rest for the family guy here, next I was driving my 2 daughters to their social events. Now it's 8 PM and I'm off to do my last workout. Thank god this one was an easy stretching routine for 1 hour. At the end of the day I asked myself if I could have done a 100 mile bike ride and they answer was "YES", WOW I'm in good shape. Saturdays total 5:12

Sunday I planned on getting up and being on the bike just after it is light enough to bike without a head light. Which would have been around 6:30 AM But at 6:30 AM I found myself still in a nice warm bed. Time to get going. I found myself on the road at 7:05 with winter gear on. It was 39 degrees at my house at the start. I needed a 5:30 ride and was looking to put in a century or more. I also wanted to simulate the Florida Ironman course. So I headed down to the Rivah and did a 10.1 mile loop that took me through Chelmsford, Tyngsborough, and Lowell. I did this loop 9 times. Talk about boring but I was able to stay in the aero bars most of the time and only put my foot down a couple of times for lights. I stopped only once because my fingers wouldn't operate correctly in retrieving my Gu from my back pockets with the lobster gloves on. In all I was out for 5:30 minutes with 5:23 of moving time and covered 102 miles. I got home and knew I was spent. There was no way I could do a marathon after that ride. I'm hoping that all the work I did the day before was the cause and not just the bike ride. Once again family time started and I was off to other activities. It wasn't until 6:30 PM that I was able to get my last workout of the weekend in, with 1:15 minutes of lifting and ab work. Sunday total 6:38.

Weekend total: 14:05

My weekly total is up around 21 hours per. Boy do I sleep good these days.

Why do I feel loose? While doing all this ironman specific training I've been doing P90X for the last 6 weeks, which incorporates loads of stretching with each workout and Yoga at least one day a week. My flexibility has been improving while my work load has been increasing.

Next weekend is the peak of training and I'll be adding on another hour of training.

I sure can't wait until this race is in the books. I just passed up donuts. Now that hurt.