Week in Review: Ironman Training Week 7

May 13 to May 19
Swim: 5000 yards / 1 hour, 45 minutes
Bike: 34 miles / 1 hour, 45 minutes
Run: 6.24 / 51 minutes
Strength: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Total: 43 minutes / 6 hours, 10 minutes

My mileage was cut down this week because of my short taper (two days off -- Friday and Saturday) and then the cancellation of the Kansas City Triathlon.

Week 8 of my Ironman Training Program is suppose to be a step back week, but instead I'm just going to follow Week 7 again since I basically took my recovery week last week.

Fitness Retest
Every few months I do a max-out test with my strength trainer to see where I am.  I'm pretty weak when it comes to strength, so the fact that I bumped up my bench press by 30 lbs is pretty cool (120 pounds in January to 150 pounds on May 13).  Back in January I could only manage 9 pushups and this time I did 30 with a 25 pound weight on my back.  To be fair, both of those test were after my bench press test.  While not part of the test, I have gone from doing 3/4 of a pull up to 10.  Woot!

We aren't doing any triathlon specific strength training activities and I'm not asking him to.  I just want to make sure my body can handle 140 miles in one day.  I do try to specifically work on core months occasionally.

My body fat has dropped from 13% to 11% with an offsetting increase of muscle mass.  Once again, I'm not focused on losing weight or bulking up.  Frankly, I feel like I don't want to drop my body fat too much or I'll lose my fuel source!!

This Week
As well as redoing week 7, I'm planning to bike to work on Tuesday (basically the only available day I have to bike to work).  This means bike to the gym, swim 2,500 yards, bike to work After 9 hours of recovery sitting in meetings, bike home, and then do a one hour run.  This is usually a 40 mile day, which means I will hit the same distance totals in one day than what I did nearly all last week.

Tryouts for the KC Corporate Challenge Bike Race is Wednesday too!  I'll probably end up doing my normal brick workout at the downtown airport after the tryouts (Note to TKB: I may be late for dinner) I normally meet with my strength trainer on Wednesday's after work, so will have to cancel or reschedule that.  Sorry Sam.

Photo of the Week
Noticed this while letting my wetsuit dry from its soaking

Memoirs of triathlons passed.