1 Down, 19 to Go!

Today begins week 2 of my half ironman training–woohoo!  I have been anxiously awaiting getting back into training for a while.  While I have enjoyed my running adventure this fall, I do like mixing things up between the three different disciplines in triathlon.  That being said, my plan is still very run heavy right now as I am building up my mileage and endurance to do the distance and keep the speed.  One big change is that I have switched from speed and distance workouts to heart rate and time.

Yesterday was a big day, as I had my first “long” run.  It was actually on my plan to do Saturday, but I had run the first five days of the week and my legs were tired, so I switched my bike and my run to give my legs some recovery time.  When I started my run yesterday morning, I knew it was a great decision.  My legs had energy and bounce to them that they did not have Saturday.  My run today was 1 hour 15 min run with 5 min wall to warm up and five min walk to cool down.  I was able to break thru a wall that I had created in my mind at 6 miles.  My last three workouts that were 6 miles had been aborted for some reason or another–heat, fatigue, etc.  Today I broke thru 6 miles and even ran a little bit more 🙂  It was a really good day!!!  I think a key to my success was that I ran by feel and not my garmin.  It is cold down here in South Louisiana, so I had to bundle up a bit which meant my garmin was covered up and I had to make an effort to get to it as opposed to just glancing down.  Of course I checked it several times on the run, but the first time was about 15 minutes into the run and my heart rate was right on target…in fact my average heart rate for the run was only 2 beats of my goal.  Yay me!!!!  I am learning something 🙂

Even in my first week of training I have had to be very conscious of my nutrition.  I am trying to make sure that I eat enough protein and not rely on sugars to get me thru a workout.  (Because of some of my biology, my body and sugar don’t play well together.)  It is going to be interesting to experiment with food as workouts get longer and the need for nutrition during a workout increases.  Yesterday, I fell back into using a couple gels since I haven’t yet found an alternative.  So far the suggestions are peanut butter and turkey sandwiches, but not together.  If you have some to pass along, please leave a comment.

So there’s the recap of week one…1 down and 19 to go!!!