Milestones

Time to taper for the century! 

I said CENTURY.  EEEEE!!!!!

It hits me every now and then that I'm going to ride 100 miles next week. 

ME.  Lil' ol' me.  I'm going to ride ONE HUNDRED MILES.

And then a week later I'm going to swim 3.1
And then 4 weeks after that I'm going to run 26.2

I'm going to be an IRONMAJ!

EEEEEE!!!!

I have hit a lot of milestones this past few months. Highest training volume week (13.78), fastest 1-mile (7:44), fastest 5k training (non-racing) run (31ish mins), fastest group ride (19.1 mph AVERAGE), longest bike ride of my life (80 miles), fastest I've ever gone without a hill (29+), fastest I've ever gone on a bike (39), longest OW swim race (2.5 miles), first swim-only race, fastest 100yd swim time (1:47) . . . . the list goes on and on.


I had a lot of time to think the past few weeks since I haven't been spending 8-14 hours a week working out.  And, of course, one of the things I thought about was my weight.  I spent too many years obsessing over the scale numbers to be hung up on them now. I only worry about them if they're making a serious trend up or down. (And thanks to iron-distance training my weight has definitely been up a little. Damn you, constant inflammation!!!!) 

Well, I hit another milestone there, too.  My current "low" weight, 155, is the lowest my weight has been since I started racing in 2006.  I've been buying size 8's left and right.  Don't care if I never get smaller - single-digit sizes make me happy.




Last week I was back to strength and running, and this week I am returning to riding with 2 very short rides and then getting fit for a new saddle to hopefully reduce some of the discomfort during the century.  If this still doesn't help, I am riding the metric route.  And, after that's done, I'm off the bike for a while and reducing my rides to 1-2 a week in anticipation of run and swim volume increasing (thanks, 5k swim and marathon!) and to help the saddle sores/bruises finish healing.

5k swim is the week after the century.  With the extra time off, I have also devised a stratgey to reduce my swim to the 3k if I need to.

The marathon?  On like Donkey Kong.  I've been building my mileage up so I can make my long (18-mile) run 3 weeks before the race on 11/5.  The run is going great.  I'm way faster than I expected.

My mom used to say Meggan has the luck o' the Irish - she can fall into a pile of $4it and still come out smelling like a rose. Now that I'm grown up (ha), I like to think it's just that I can see the good in most all situations. I think in some ways that the saddle sore situation (say that 5 times real fast) was a way to get me to back off and rest a little. Since then, I am back down to the lowest weight I've been in years and I am feeling extremely fresh on my weekly runs.


I was looking at my training plan for Florida Half Ironman next year and I am so excited by how much lower the volume is than what I'm doing now.

And then all I could think about was

I'm going to ride ONE HUNDRED MILES.

And then

I'm going to be an IronMAJ!!!!
EEEEEE!!!!