Week Summary: HARD TRAINING!

I can’t even begin to describe the last 10 days of training that I have been through…we have done some pretty intense workouts, followed by even more intensity! I got back from Hawaii on Monday and on Tuesday morning I was out on my bike with the group doing a set of race-pace efforts! And that was over a WEEK ago…the workouts didn’t stop there…Coach Cliff has really tested our abilities!
A lot of the things I’m doing are very specific for the Alcatraz race…trail runs, stair climbing, hill repeats on the bike, etc. That reminds me: I need to get my wetsuit out and swim a couple of practices with it to prepare for the 56 degree San Fran Bay water.
This morning we started at 9am with a 2 hour bike ride…first we warmed up over to the Gold Camp climb and then climbed it 4 times! The first and fourth repeats were OYO (on-your-own) pace, but the middle climbs were in group situations with people launching attacks at any point. Talk about having dead legs…the 4th climb was beyond painful and thank goodness that 90% of the ride back to the OTC is DOWNhill!
This afternoon I have a run workout with a few stair climbs thrown into the middle of the tempo run…like my legs aren’t hurting enough:). But I’ve got a date with the ice bath when I finish…I spent 10 minutes in the ice bath yesterday after our intense run workout and I know that it helps all my muscles recover faster.
Yesterday afternoon I finally remembered to take my bike to the mechanic for repairs. I had been riding with broken handlebars since my crash in Honolulu. Since I kept riding all last week, even though I knew they were broken, it was a bit scary climbing hills and putting a lot of pressure on the bars. So today I didn’t have to worry about the bars suddenly snapping in half when I launched attacks on the Gold Camp climb. It’s nice that I can pay the on-complex bike mechanic with home-baked cookies:)!
The cookies came from Tuesday night when Jasmine and I felt the need to bake. We looked up recipes on –line and decided to go with the partially-already-made cookies (reasons for this choice included: less mess, less mixing, less time, and quicker results). We used a Pillsbury recipe with 3 steps: first, bake chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies about the same size; second, mix peanut butter and fudge icing together; finally, spread the mixture on the bottom of a peanut butter cookie and stick it to the bottom of a chocolate chip cookie! Voila…these delicious calorie-bombs got two-thumbs-up from all the triathletes on the third floor in building 10. We baked at Jessica’s house down the road and then brought them back to the OTC and knocked on all our teammates doors at 9pm…one bite and they were all very happy to see us:)! I don’t think any of our cookies had a life span of more than 3 hours!!