Race week: QuarterMax

This week’s a doozy, first week of the IM training plan and its QuarterMax race week. Fun stuff! Yesterday was my first day of two-a-day workouts, and it went pretty well. Masters swim practice in the morning and a 3 mile run in the evening. I had to go to a meeting at 6, so it was about 7:30 by the time I got home. I got a couple of salads ready and then told Dan to fire up the grill so we could have burgers when I got back. It wasn’t too terribly hot, but it was HUMID! 3 miles felt really long, and I was wondering where my marathon base fitness had gone. But I realized that the average temp is about 20 degrees higher now, and the humidity is about 50% higher than when I was training for Lincoln. Doesn’t seem like it was only a month and a half ago. I’m a 12 minute/mile girl, and I did my 3 miles last night in 33:40, so that was a pretty good pace for me. Maybe the speed sessions are paying off already!

It was after 10 by the time I got to bed last night, so 5am came pretty quickly. I didn’t really feel like getting up and running again, but I did. And once I was out on the road, I was happy to be running. I had 5 miles scheduled for this morning’s run, which is the longest run I’ve done since Lincoln. I was feeling pretty good for the first 2 miles or so, and then I learned a lesson that I’m sure I’ll carry with me through the rest of my training.

IronMan training lesson #1: when doing a morning run, get up early to give myself enough time to move around and get my system working so that I can take a shit before running. Because as anyone who has done any running knows, if you don’t have to poop before you run, chances are you are going to have to after you get done......or before. Stupid mistake on my part, I should have known better from all my early morning long runs for Runners Edge. I made it home, but it was not comfortable, to say the least. Lesson learned, won’t be making that mistake again.

And now for the fun stuff, QuarterMax is this weekend! Yay! This is such a great course, it was my favorite race last year. It’s held at the lovely Innsbrook resort just west of St. Louis. They don’t allow gas powered boats in the lake, so the water is crystal clear. A nice change from swimming around here. The first 8 miles of the bike are inside the resort, and that portion of the course is a bitch. Nothing but up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down. It’s all hills. The good thing is that most of them aren’t very long, they’re just steep. I feel like I’m getting pretty decent at climbing, so it shouldn’t be too bad. But the bad thing is that the downhills aren’t very long either so you don’t really get a chance to rest your legs and catch your breath. Then you get out on the highway and it’s just gentle rollers until the last few miles before you get back into the resort, where it’s more hills again. The run course is pretty much the same as the first part of the bike course, all hills. I HATE running hills! Uphills make want to lay down and die, and downhills hurt my knees. No fun. And there is not a single flat on this course. Fantastic. This is definitely a very challenging course, which is what makes it so fun. The resort is heavily wooded and beautiful, it’s just a really great location for a race.

Courtney and I are heading out around noon on Friday to drive down there. We had contemplated taking a short swim or ride once we got there, but I think we’ll probably skip that and just take it easy for the evening. This is my first race that Dan hasn’t come to, which is a little sad. There will be nobody waiting for me at the finish line! Actually, Courtney will probably finish ahead of me, so she’ll be there J

And on a more personal note, we met our nephew over the weekend. Long story short, he’s 18 months old and we just found out a couple of months ago that he’s my brother’s kid. Strange stuff, I can’t believe my brother is a dad!