First things first: yes, I got up at 2 am to watch the royal wedding. I was back in bed by 3:30 and then slept in until almost 6 and got on with my day. Totally worth it!
This morning’s workout was one of my favorites of all time – stacking bricks. Long-time bloggy friends may remember when I crowed about this workout last summer. (Though, then again, you probably don’t because why would you commit my silly ramblings to memory???) On tap for the morning was a 5-mile bike ride 1-mile run brick for as many repeats as I wanted to handle. I knew for sure I could do three repeats but felt pretty good about making it to five. When I woke up to 20 mph winds with gusts up to 30 mph, I wanted to chicken out of the whole thing! But I’m a firm believer in training in all kinds of weather so I can be prepared for whatever weather race day throws at me (please, please, PLEASE don’t let it be this windy on race day!!!) Once I got going, of course, it wasn’t super awful and I ended up with four satisfyingly consistent repeats. Can’t ask for better than that, right?
Today’s bike-run (x4) extravaganza was made all the better by having IronHubs act as my own personal paparazzo. Ha, ha! (We recently got a fancy-schmancy new camera and he was trying it out for the first time.)
Wheeeee! Heading out for Lap 1 and rocking some race-day braids.
I thought about cropping this one, but the fact is, no amount of cropping was going to disguise how ghetto-tastic our garage looks. One would think with that many cleaning implements at my disposal that I would keep things tidy. Sadly, no.
Yep, I plunked my booty right down on the ground to wrestle my toes into the VFFs. It didn’t take as long as I feared.
Ready to run, but what’s this? ANOTHER epic Garmin fail??? I had let Garmin stop itself with an Auto Pause in Bike Mode, and when I changed it over to Run Mode (I don’t use Auto Multisport because I don’t like the display screens as much as the regular ones. I could probably fiddle with this, but I haven’t.), it freaked out and turned itself off. When I turned it back on and waited the minute and a half for it to find satellites, it was still in freak-out mode and appeared to be measuring my distance in milliliters. Thankfully, I know exactly where the half-mile turnaround point is and I was very happy that it recorded my overall time so I could do the math to figure out my pace later. According to my Training Center data, I ran 3.27 miles at a 2:39 pace – LOL! Next time around, I hit “Stop” as I was getting off the bike and didn’t have any trouble at all switching modes and recording correct data. *whew*
It cracks me up that IronHubs took pics of my little Transition Area.
Finishing up Run #4. Let’s hear a little “w00t! w00t!” for that forefoot strike.
Ahhh, another sweat-tastic workout on the record books. You can bet I’ll be shoveling food in my pie-hole like it’s my job after this one! Let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?
Reading last year’s numbers made me a little sad (damn, I used to be fast!), but no sense lingering on that. I’m happy and proud of where I am training-wise right now. This week has seen my highest training volume since…maybe ever on the swim and bike, so why worry about my paces?
I hope today was a fun and sweaty day for you, too! Good luck to all my racing blog-buddies this weekend!! Sure wish I was heading up to Eugene to cheer you all on…when you hear cowbells, just know that I’m there in spirit!
Teamarcia says
Love that workout! You look plenty fast to me! : D
Have a great weekend!
misszippy says
Awesome workout you got in! And wow–your form looks fantastic–look at you!!
I think you should work on pure BF for your next tri. Think of all the time saved in transition. ; )
trifitmom says
very interesting i have never heard of stacked bricks….cool job
Alma says
Nice footstrike, indeed! And great braids!
ajh says
Love all the workout pics. You are too cute and plenty fast!
Running Ricig says
I love that your husband took all of these pictures! This is so fun. Don’t worry, our garage is WAY worse than yours. Yours actually looks pretty nice 🙂
Annette@(running)In the Right Direction says
That seems like a great workout! Impressed with those winds! I feel ya with that Garmin…my first duathlon it crapped out and I was so annoyed. They told me I had to update it to the newest version. Always seems to happen when you really want to know the times!
Aimee says
Woohoo! That is an awesome workout! It actually sounds fun to me!
tri like mary says
LOVE those braids; they make me jealous 🙂 And, what are the chances – I have the same towel! LOL
ratherthecouch says
Now that I know you can run at a 2:39 pace, I can better understand why you’re disappointed in an 8:35…
Julie says
I love when the family finally gets on board with supplying us with good blog photos!!
Your workouts sounds like fun!
If only it was JUST my garage that looked ghetto-tastic….
Mike says
Thanks for sharing your workout.
Jonathan Rohr says
Great workout! I want to point out that your footstrike in that last picture looks perfect. Mine is STILL needing a lot of work, especially when I’m tired. So cheers to you!! =)
Little Miss Runshine says
Great workout! I’m glad to see some of your training for brick workouts. I will be needing some tips soon! 🙂
Colleen says
What a great workout. I need to try that one! 🙂 Way to kick butt!
And I love all the pictures. You wouldn’t believe how clean and organized your garage appears compared to mine! 🙂
Matthew Smith says
That sounded like you really enjoyed that workout. Good job! Your garage doesn’t look too bad to me. Thanks for all the pics!