The Sunday Ritual & Another Race!

I can't believe it, another whirlwind weekend is almost done.  I think this whole two day weekend thing is really just plain wrong.  Two days is far too short to really decompress from a stressful week of work, get your weekend errands done and get some good down time in there.  A three day weekend would make so much more sense.  You'd have a bit of extra time to get things done and get some good chill out time in there.  But, I don't make the rules so I'm stuck with a 2 day weekend.  Might as well make the most of it, which I definitely managed to do.

I spent Saturday morning running around and getting a Computrainer lesson from G.  I spent the afternoon meal planning, did a little cooking and tried to stay off my feet as much as possible as I was going to be racing this morning.   I hit the sack around 9:30 pm and slept relatively well until my alarm went off at 4:45 am.

G was going to be racing with me.  It had been 10 years since his last half marathon!  10 years!!!  He's spent the majority of those years doing triathlons which has kept him in pretty decent shape.  He wasn't sure what to expect today and neither was I to be honest.   I'll save my full race report for tomorrow but I'm pleased to say that we both had great days.  G finished in 1:40:49, which is a PB for him by at least 7 minutes if not more.  Not bad considering he's getting up there in years and has just started really running again over the last couple of months.   I managed to snag the Overall Masters Female win with a time of 1:33:36 on a course that was about 500m too long.  So realistically I would have been sub 1:32 had the course been correct.  I might have even had a PB.  Oh well.  I'm not too fussed about that though.

We were back home by 10:45 am.  Gotta love that.  I've managed to have a nice hot epsom salts bath, make myself some food and now I'm sprawled out in the good corner of the couch (G is off to Washington for work) in my Salmon compression capris.  I think I'll probably spend the next few hours here until I feel ready to stand in front the stove and finish up the rest of my Sunday Ritual.

On tap for this week:

Mashed cauliflower (currently cooking), roasted fennel (all done) and this soup.  I may add some sauteed ground chicken to the soup to get some protein in, instead of the pasta.  This bit of cold weather has me craving soup and comfort food.  I also have to make my frittata.  I alternated between eggs and quinoa last week for breakfast.  I didn't mind the quinoa but I think I prefer eggs in the morning.   Yesterday I used up the rest of the basil from the garden as well as a bunch of cherry tomatoes to make a Mediterranean inspired dish with eggplant and extra lean ground beef from Gourmet Nutrition Vol 2.  I'll top it with a bit of feta cheese when I re-heat it.  It's the perfect thing I can freeze as well so I have one container in the fridge and the other in the freezer.  Lunch is taken care of for 2 days this week.  Awesome.  If I get my soup made, that will cover me for another couple of days and perhaps a dinner.  And, I still have a couple of chicken burgers from last week in the freezer.  All sorted for the week.

Melanzana Riccha (eggplant in a meat sauce)

Roasted Fennel

 I had another good week of training this week.  I didn't get a bike ride in despite getting a new toy this week.  Shocking, I know.  I'll make sure I get a ride in this week.  I had several really strong swims this week and 2 really good runs, along with a solid race.  Here's how my week panned out training wise.

Monday:  Swim:  Fin & stroke work with snorkel.  2150m  This was tough.  Snorkel work is always hard. 

Tuesday:  a.m.:  Run and weights.  Did 20 minutes on the treadmill (4:06km) and then 40 minutes of weight work.  p.m:  ran with my group.  Did East to Ellis which is a really hilly route.  10.80km in 49:49.

Wednesday:  Swim:  2250.  Lots of stroke work again. 

Thursday:  40 minutes of weights and 9.28km run with 4x hill repeats and a serious set of stairs.

Friday:  Swim:  2100m.  Another day of stroke work.  Led the lane for most of the swim. 

Saturday:  OFF

Sunday:  3.04km warm up then 21.5km race. 

Totals:

Swim:  6500m
Bike:  nada
Run:  48.68km
+ 1hr 20 minutes of strength training for just under 8 hours of workout time.

Another productive week.  Looking forward to doing it all over again next week.

What did you get up to this weekend?  Did you race?