Layers

29 days. Out of the 30's. Eep!!

Lots of things have layers. Lasagna has layers. Fancy shots have layers. (Fun fact about me: I went to bartending school. I learned how to make layered shots.) Onions have layers. So do parfaits. Yes, that is a Shrek reference.

I'm gonna be lazy and not find and post a picture of Shrek and Donkey here.

Workouts also have layers, particularly when you are a triathlete. Brick workouts - one sport followed immediately after by another sport - are a pretty normal part of triathlon. But since triathletes are all about taking the crazy to new levels, there is, apparently, this thing that people do sometimes when training for an Ironman. It's called a triple brick. Bike/run/bike/run/bike/run.

A somewhat standard IM training triple brick is 40k/10k x3. I would love to do that, except the weather has gotten crappy and the amount of daylight and warmth available is shrinking. I did some research and discovered that triple brick lengths can and do vary, and that more non-competitive IMers (like me) decided that distance was not worth the recovery time.

There was not a triple in my training plan, btw, but since I extended the training plan back when I switched to Coz instead of Rev, I've been following this 30 week training plan for about 40 weeks now. I'm bored with it. I hit my longest ride early (because I wanted to get it in while I could still ride the whole thing on the road) and my longest run distance early (because I'm impatient.) So this weekend, I switched it up.

Due to the aforementioned crappy weather, I did all the biking indoors. I decided to stick with the 2.5 hour run on my training plan (ironman training is SO DIFFERENT than standalone marathon training ya'll - you won't find a 20 miler here) and planned the workout around the two spin classes, 1 hour apart, at the local Y. End result: 1 hour spin class/45 min treadmill run/1 hour spin class/1 hour run/2 hours on the bike trainer at home/45 minute run in my 'hood.

 It went fantastically well. I'm shocked at how well it went. Oh sure, it was hard. Spin classes are definitely more intense than riding on the road. I did, umm, adjust them to my particular needs. :) And just the sheer volume and the "I have to run AGAIN after this?" and the boredom and the "OMG I NEED FOOD" and etc. was tough. I took a break before the 2 hour ride to eat inhale two english muffins with pb and j because I didn't fuel well enough during the first 4 workouts. But when I did that last run, I felt like I could've kept going aaaallll day long baby.

The point of said workout? It's not just to practice running with dead legs off the bike; it's to practice working through fatigue and fine-tune nutrition intake. Well, I have gotten slower than I was when I was just focusing on running, but I am getting this working through fatigue thing DOWN. Fatigue ain't got nothing on me. I really and truly am feeling 100% capable of having a good first-time Ironman experience. I am beyond stoked about it.

For the moment, I am basking in the endorphins in comfy clothes, compression socks, and wet hair, happily eating everything in the fridge.