14 weeks ’til #IMWI: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

Not sure how this happened, but we are inside of 100 days until Ironman Wisconsin. I guess time flies when you’re having fun!!

Monday:

Since we both had the day off work and we weren’t on a rigid schedule, we slept in and completed our workouts at different times throughout the day. We went to the gym at about 9:20 am for an hour strength training session. It was nice not to have many people at the gym since they weren’t officially open. We have a 24/7 key and can go to the gym anytime we want to do strength training and use the cardio equipment. This does not give us access to the pool anytime we want, so after our strength training, we went to the outdoor pool for our swim. It was SO AWESOME to get to finally swim outdoors!! After refueling, we hopped on the bike for 75 minutes of saddle time. We knew there were storms coming, so we opted for the trainer so we could get some yard work and house work done after our workout. With a couple more days of work, we prepared for the coming week, went to shower at our friends’ house (since we still didn’t have a working hot water heater) and then it was early to bed.

Tuesday:

We took today as a rest day since we had put in lots of hours last week and knew we were getting a new hot water heater after work. On my way home from work, I met a client for a personal training session, picked up our CSA, stopped at the pharmacy, and picked up a gift card for the person who was installing our hot water heater. It took longer than I imagined to install the hot water heater, but it felt so amazing to shower at home and not have to heat water on the stove to do dishes!!

Wednesday:

Last day of work!! And to celebrate, I went for a bike ride!! It was an ABSOLUTELY PERFECT day to be in the saddle and on the open road/trail!!

Serious #bikelove in my FAVORITE Coeur Sports kit!!

Thursday:

Happy first day of summer break!! We woke up at 4:30 am (yes, you read that correctly, I still got up early to workout with the Iron Hippie) and ran hill repeats with the sunrise + my two faves!! It was the perfect start to my day!! I spent most of the morning doing house work (vacuuming, laundry, and dishes) before going to the outdoor pool to swim at 11 am. There were a lot of people in the pool, but it was so peaceful to have my head in the water, the sun shining on my back, and not a care in the world about trying to rush off to whatever is next. After my swim, I made lunch, cleaned our veggies from our CSA, took an epsom salt bath, and did more laundry before the Iron Hippie came home from work. We capped the night off with TRX and refueling before bed.

Friday:

It was another early morning and so peaceful to start my day in the 50 meter pool!! The long course + sunrise + quiet morning = #happyheart I consumed my breakfast smoothie on the way home from the pool. I had just enough time to get an easy hour in on the bike (trainer style) and shower before meeting a client for a personal training session. I went grocery shopping for the coming week on my way home…it is so nice to go during the week and not have to fight the crowds of people on the weekends. After eating lunch, I took the dogs for a walk and spent the afternoon relaxing, catching up on email and blogging. The Iron Hippie and I went downtown in the evening for the local “Art Walk,” where each downtown business sponsors a local artist for 3 hours. It is crazy how many different artists there are in our area!!

Folk dancers at the downtown “Art Walk”

Locals knitted a square to be hung as part of a quilt on the outside of a local business

Saturday:

We started the day with a 10 mile run, which I was hoping to average a 9:00/mile pace for…nailed it!! After making a quick smoothie with whey protein, for recovery, we rode our bikes to yoga in the park. Every Saturday from now until the first weekend in August (except July 4th weekend), Ames offers free yoga at Bandshell Park from 10-11 am. It is a great opportunity for people new to yoga to try it for free! For those who love yoga, it is a great opportunity to practice yoga outdoors with others! When we came home, we devoured food, did yard work, cleaned the house, did laundry, and then it was nap time!! It has been a while since I took an afternoon nap on the weekends, but my body loved it!! After my nap it was time for dinner and froyo before bed. It was great to meet my #solesister and her kids for some froyo!!

Basil cooling down in the shade post running. Love her!!

Sunday:

I was a bit tired, so I slept in and then completed the 3x(60 min bike + 20 min run) by myself. I set up the trainer in the driveway since each brick was supposed to be slightly harder (higher zone) and faster. This would allow me consistency and not have to worry about traffic/traffic lights/wind speeds to go harder with each one. I also ran the same route off the bike each time to try to go a bit farther with each run. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” was the theme for this workout. In the middle of brick #2, the wheels fell off…it became REALLY hard and I wasn’t sure if I could do brick #3. When I came back from run #2, I climbed back on the bike and reached out to multiple friends to encourage and motivate me to #nevergiveup on this workout, even though it wasn’t going as planned. With their encouragement and support, I pushed through and finished this workout. I seriously hope that our 70.3 race in 2 weeks is much easier than this workout!! After refueling and spending over an hour just laying in the recliner, I decided to move and take an epsom salt bath. We then did a little shopping for the coming week, took the dogs to Peterson Pits so they could swim, gave them baths in the driveway to wash the fishy water away, grabbed some leftovers for dinner, and met some friends for froyo. It was great to sit outside and chat with them while enjoying some froyo!!

Weekly Totals: 18 hours and 1 minute

Swim: 7907 yards (the 50 meter pool throws my yardage off during the summer)
Bike: 122 miles
Run: 24.8 miles
Strength Training: 2 hours & 15 minutes
Yoga: 1 hour

Quote of the Week:

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. ” ~Friedrich Nietzsche