Taking a Knee

Week 2 of 20 is in the books! Can’t believe this week is over…so glad. Didn’t quite go as planned as the middle of the week came with some pain in my knee that made it impossible to run.  In consultation with my coach, we decided to take a day off and then sub a swim for a bike and it helped me get thru my long run on Sunday.  Speaking of my long run, it was 7.38 miles–the longest distance I have run since the 70.3 last April.  Felt good to complete that, but I also felt post run like I had run a half marathon–just that stiff ache.  I could feel it setting in so I rushed off to the pool to do a short recovery swim and it made the world of difference.

This weekend was also the first bike test of training.  It is something we repeat many times over the course of training.  There is an 10.75ish mile loop in town that we ride at max effort to get heart rate and average speed.  It turned out to be a chilly morning and to be honest I was not expecting good things at all as my bike time has been very limited and I surely haven’t gone all out in a LONG time.  Went out fast off the start, but not too fast (working on that jack rabbit tendency still–applies to more than just running), but kept pushing until the end.  Was able to pass up a couple folks in previous waves and stay ahead of a couple from my own wave.  Finished in 38 min which given the first test of training, my issues with my knee and my limited bike time, I was very happy 🙂  Things will only get better from here and I am excited about that.

The week was very stressful for many reasons including the fact that I am not living in my house do to remodeling my bathroom, so I feel quite happy to have gotten in the volume of training that I did.  I have had to be very diligent in planning out my days including my meals, workouts, work and extra curricular activities–every minute counts!  But it all paid off and I am that much closer to my goal and that feels good 🙂