Monday Musings: Short and Sweet

Have you ever gone on a trip that seemed to be longer than it was but also went by too fast?  I know that sounds weird but I can't think of any other way to explain this past "long weekend".   I went to Lake Placid and spent 5 days with 12 other likeminded women that I had never met before.   In fact most of the women there didn't know each other.  Groups like that can go two ways, either everyone gets along or, you have a group of opposites that just don't mesh.  I can safely say that this group got along really well - it was like we'd all known each other for years.  There were different levels of ability but that didn't matter.  We all supported each other and learned from each other.  I am so glad I decided to go to this, even after my girlfriend canceled.  I feel like I've gained a new network of ladies who love to ride.  Not to mention our awesome hosts in Lake Placid, Brian & Karen from High Peaks Cyclery.  I'm so excited to go back there in September to race the 70.3 and see them again, along with my new pal, Liz who is also racing and turned out to be the best roommate ever.  Brian will be racing as will one of the other guides, Karen (we had 3 Karen's in the group!) so it's going to be a big reunion, ha ha.  I had forgotten just how beautiful Lake Placid is.  It's changed a lot since I was there last in 2013 but the rugged beauty remains.

I will probably do a separate post on the camp itself and what to expect when going to a training camp but for now I will just say that it was a super fun experience!

Suffice to say this week was all about the bike.  I knew I wasn't going to get much swimming in and I had hoped that I might get at least one run in while I was in Lake Placid but sadly that didn't happen and it was probably for the best.  It's been a long time since I had done back to back to back days of riding and I think had I thrown a run in the mix, my legs wouldn't have made it to the end of the week.

Since I'm going to save the camp details for another post, I'll get right down to the nitty gritty and fill you in on how my week rolled out.  Literally, ha.

Monday:  2900m swim.  I knew I wasn't going to get any other swims in this week so it was off to the pool on Monday morning.

Tuesday:  FTP Test (30.2km on the trainer).  It had been over a year since I buckled down and did one of these and holy crap, I had forgotten just how much they hurt.  Thankfully I was rewarded with a shiny new FTP.  I'm chalking it up to all the riding I did in Florida.

Wednesday:  This was our first ride in LP and it was an easy spin to have Brian, our guide assess our skill levels.  I had forgotten to turn my watch to outdoor mode until about halfway through the ride so I missed a fair bit of the distance.   I think we covered about 30km or so but I only captured 18km of it.  Grr.

Thursday:  86.3km This was the climb up Whiteface and around some of the back end of Wilmington and Lake Placid.  The last time I climbed Whiteface was probably in 2005 and I remember suffering through it.  This time it hurt but definitely not as much.  I was very happy with how I climbed it.  I used to surge and fall back, surge and fall back, now I am a much steadier climber.  I get into a groove and I just chug along.  It also helps to have the right cassette on your bike!

Friday:  100km on the nose.  This was a ride around Saranac Lake which is somewhere I've never ridden before.  It was an "easier" ride in terms of elevation so we managed a nice steady pace.  We practiced pace line work both two up and single file, which was so much fun.   We pulled into the parking lot with about 700m left to cover so myself and two other ladies rode in circles around the parking lot until we hit 100km.  Yes, we have a problem.   This was followed up by an hour long yoga class led by one of the girls came to the camp.

Saturday:  101km +  This was supposed to be a shorter harder ride but I think our guides got us a bit lost.  This ride featured my nemesis, the descent into Keene.  It's an 11km descent that has some wide sweeping turns and I have white knuckled it every single time I've gone down it.  We were also going to climb it on the way back into Lake Placid.  My legs weren't feeling terribly fresh at the start so I was happy to just spin them out as we climbed out of Lake Placid.  We climbed a lot that day and I was concerned about climbing back up Keene.  But as usual, my body was capable of so much more than my mind led me to believe.  I crushed the descent with NO tears or fear or panic and I ate the climb back for lunch.  Steady effort all the way up and I felt strong the entire time.  If I had actually remembered to start my Garmin when I started the climb, I would have known how long the climb took me.  But alas, I didn't.  UGH. I think I missed about 2-3km of it.  So annoying.  So really I probably rode closer to 105km on the Saturday.  I was smart about the climb back.  So much so that I had enough energy to hammer it back into Lake Placid and spin around the lake to make it to 100km.  This was the best ride of the camp for me.  I burned every single match I had left on the way back in to Lake Placid and had a blast doing it.   This was the elevation for the day.  Yup.  All the climbs.

Sunday:  12km easy spin.  I had hoped to do a bit more than this and had I looked at my mileage for the week, I would have found I way to ride the extra two km to take me to 350km for the week, ha ha.  This was a very easy spin around the Lake and into the back areas of Lake Placid.  My legs didn't feel great but they were happy to be moving.  If I hadn't done this, I'm pretty sure they would have been super stiff after the drive home.

Totals for the week:

Swim:  2900m
Bike:  348km
Run:  ZERO

Total time:  15 hours and 2 minutes.

So, this week will be a bit easier.  I really want to get back on my bike tomorrow but I think I should probably give myself another day and go for a bit of a longer run instead.  Last week's TSS was pretty high so I need to dial things back a bit.

Have you ever gone to a training camp?  If so, where?  

What are your goals for the week? Whatever they are, tackle them at 150%!

Happy Monday peeps!

~ Coach PK

Monday Musings: Adventure is calling!

I hope everyone had an awesome weekend.  It was a big race weekend here in the GTA with the Goodlife Marathon and the Mississauga Marathon taking place yesterday.  The weather didn't look awesome but it turned out to be some pretty darn good racing conditions.  Cold, but good.  I had athletes racing in both races.  Everyone had good races, with one of my athletes completing her first marathon!  (YAY STACY!)

The sun has finally come out in Toronto but the temperatures are still lagging behind normal.  I am hoping things start to warm up soon!  It's hard to believe that I'll be racing a half ironman in 8 weeks. Apparently there's still SNOW in Tremblant.  That's not good because that means that the lake is probably still very cold.  It's a big lake that will take a while to heat up so it will be interesting to see what happens come June.  But I'm not going to worry myself about things I can't control.  I'm just going to make sure I've got my neoprene cap, ha ha.

Speaking of cold weather, I'm off on a bit of an adventure on Wednesday this week.  No, I'm not going skiing, ha ha.   It's the Morning Glory ladies trip to Lake Placid.  The weather forecast there is looking pretty darn crappy.   I've packed every single last bit of thermal clothing I have for the 5 days of riding.  I was really looking forward to this trip but my girlfriend that was going had to cancel so now I'm going solo, which is a bit of a bummer.  I'm not going to know anyone which would normally make me uncomfortable but this year is all about putting myself out there so I'm looking at this as an opportunity to meet a bunch of like minded women and potentially come away with a few more riding partners.  Here's hoping this forecast changes!  It is in the mountains so if there's one thing DO know from my many trips there, it's that the weather changes from hour to hour so, who knows!  My goal for the week is to log about 400km so we'll see if I can make that happen!

Knowing that I was going to be putting in some serious time in the saddle this week, I opted to dial things back a bit this week.   I had plans for some solid work but this week ended up being a bit of a gong show with a failed FTP attempt (power meter wasn't working), missing my Wednesday swim and dealing with a massive sinus headache / migraine on Thursday.   The crappy weather didn't help either.  So, the FPT test is going to happen tomorrow and I"m going to try to get at least two runs in while I'm in Lake Placid.   I'll miss about a week of swimming so I'm sure I'm going to pay for that when I get back.   Oh well.  At least this is the last trip I'll be taking before Tremblant so I will have time to get back into the pool on a regular basis.  I also found a brand new pool near our place that is FREE.  Yup.  FREE.  So, I know that is there as an option if I want to get some extra swims in.

With that being said, let's see how this past week rolled out...

Monday:  2500m swim.  My swim bag wasn't in the car so I ended up having to borrow goggles, a swim cap and fins from some of my teammates.  Not wearing my own fins ended up causing blisters on my feet and they were totally chewed up by the end of the swim.  OUCH.

Tuesday:  28.7km ride on the computrainer.  After spending about 3 hours trying to find my ANT stick to update the software on my pedals, I gave up on doing my FTP test and just decided to ride.  I chose a hilly course and made sure I worked the climbs.   By the time I got myself sorted, it was late afternoon and the rain had also started so there wasn't going to be a run either.  #trainingdayfail  I at least managed to get 25 minutes of upper body and core work in.

Wednesday:  Missed my swim so I could take G to the doctor.   The sun finally came out and the temps were actually quite nice so I went for a very easy run in the afternoon + 20 minutes of core & physio work after.

Thursday:  25.8km bike + 8.5km run.  I dragged my butt out to ride with Morning Glory.  I was totally overdressed and I felt like crap.  I managed 3 loops of Ellis before I called it a day.  I rode around the top of the park until I hit 25km and then went back to the car, grabbed my run stuff and went to meet my friend David for a run.  We ran trails and hills in High Park and stopped to visit the capybaras in the Zoo (because that's what you do!).  It was a tough workout and I felt horrible by the afternoon.

Checking out the capybaras

Friday:  2550m swim.  I still had lingering sinus issues when I woke up on Friday so I skipped my masters swim and waited to see how I felt.  By mid morning I felt much better so I opted to go to the brand new York Rec centre.  I had a lovely swim in an equally lovely pool, despite the fact my Garmin ate 25m of my swim for lunch.  

Saturday:  17km run.  This was a bit of a struggle.  My legs didn't feel great.  I really tried to focus on keeping my HR low, which wasn't that hard given how crappy my legs felt.  I think I'm training in the wrong zones these days.  I should have had my HR / V02max tested at the beginning of the year once I started running regularly again to establish my zones but I didn't.   I think I'm going to do that when I get back from Lake Placid.  

Sunday:  OFF - CHEER SQUAD DAY!   No good pics from the day because I am the worst at capturing any sort of running shots on my phone.  I need a real camera for that, ha ha.  I have to say that watching everyone  race yesterday and seeing the smiling faces, the medal pics, the tales of PR's all over the place really lit a fire in me to get my running mojo back.  It's been missing for the last few months.  So it's time to find that speed again.  Onwards and upwards!

Swim:  5050m

Bike:  54.5km 

Run:  31km

Total time:  7 hours on the nose

Congrats to everyone who raced this past weekend!   Enjoy your achievement and your recovery!!  

~Coach PK