I am not sure who, or what has possessed my body, but I am going to go with it!!! A switch has been flipped and for some reason I am feeling more focused and driven to train than ever. We are still 3 months out from Whistler 70.3 and waking up at 5:30am for swim practice is about as out of character as it gets for me! You may be able to convince me to do this a few weeks out from a big race in a last ditch effort to pull it together…but 3 months out! Who am I? Haha

The last 4 weeks have actually been pretty solid training weeks for all of us and we’ve laid down a good base for the real hard work to come. I’ve been doing 2 structured masters swim sessions a week, a tempo run class once a week on the treadmill and getting in an extra hilly ride on Tuesday nights with the team. It’s feeling really good too. I usually train by myself a lot during the week and just go and swim, bike or run to get in the miles. There isn’t normally much structure to my workouts and I am really seeing the benefits of adding more of this to my training. For starters it’s a LOT less boring and it makes the workout go by so much quicker when you are focusing on technique, times and tempos rather than just zoning out. Hopefully I will see some other benefits too, like faster race times!

Here’s a look at this Tri-belles last week of training:

• Monday – Swim 3,100 (fast intervals)
• Tuesday – Precision Running class at Equinox (15 x hill repeats FAST) | Bike 20 miles (hills)
• Wednesday – Rest
• Thursday – Swim 2,200 | Run 3 miles
• Friday – Run 7 miles
• Saturday – Swim 1,800 (pulling) / Spin class 1 hr / Run 2 miles
• Sunday – Run 8 miles (easy)

Totals = Swim 7,100 yards / Bike 40 miles (ish) / Run 25 miles

Now I just need to work on getting in more bike miles. But, it has been abnormally windy and crappy in OC lately so we have been switching things up and opted for a mountain bike ride over riding on the road (and getting blown into traffic) last weekend and spin class this weekend. Whistler has about 3,500 feet of climbing so Kelly and I are planning on making mountain biking part of our training for this race to get us hill ready. Luckily these views are well worth all the uphill…

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I also did a fake trail run/photo shoot last weekend so I could get some photos of the new 361 trail shoes. More to come on that…Now…all I can do is cross my fingers and baby toes and hope that this new found enthusiasm stays with me for the next 3 months!

What motivates you to train?