Princeton 70.3 Half Ironman Training: Week 2 (Fitting the Puzzle Pieces)

Two weeks down, a bunch of weeks more to go until the Princeton Half Ironman.

One of the things I equally love and get stressed out about race training is trying to figure out how to fit my workouts into my schedule. It often takes creativity to squeeze a workout in to a time slot that I previously hadn’t thought of—either because I’d thought I should be doing something else or because I thought I should be sleeping.

In that way, race training teaches me a TON about time management and prioritizing. Generally, the race becomes the most important thing outside of work, and I figure out how to make everything else in my life fall in line behind that.

I’ve already been doing some two-a-days as part of my new plan, and I’m sure I’ll be doing many more as I progress through this plan. Figuring out when/how to do them has been an interesting puzzle, and I feel victorious when I figure out a creative way to squeeze in that extra workout.

So…week 2.

Monday: Recovery ride with Chainsaw, one of Meggie’s many instructor girl crushes, at Cyc. And for good reason. Yes, the class was half friends, which was fun, but the energy that Chainsaw brought was amazing. This is why I love group fitness so much. Feeding off the energy of the instructor and the rest of the class can be exhilarating when the stars align.

Tuesday: Rest day. Well, twist my arm.

Wednesday: Was scheduled for a mile warmup, 20 minutes of form drills and mile cooldown. I felt like such a tool doing the form drills out by the water, but I went with it. Totally normal to butt kick at 7am, right?

Thursday:

I’d seen Aladdin on Wednesday night (more soon!) and got home at midnight. I’d booked a class at Uplift for the next morning and was NOT going to lose my money.

#1: I took Sculpt Fusion since my plan called for an hour of core work. I can tell I’m losing some of the strength I’d built up over the past few months, but I am happy to get my endurance back.

Went straight from Uplift to the pool for a 35=minute swim. There’s sometimes a wait at the pool to get into the lanes, which stresses me out a ton. I hate sitting and waiting to swim, and then when it’s my turn to get in, I feel like I need to swim really fast because people are watching, and I burn out after a few laps. Towards the end of this swim, I finally hit that good groove I remember during the tri last year, and I was psyched to finish the swim strong.

Friday: 50-minute bike ride. It was fine. Nothing to write home about except for clipping in for a second time and living to tell the tale!

Saturday: I was originally just scheduled for a 35-minute swim, but having a free Saturday morning, I couldn’t skip my NYJL run club. I ran about 4 miles with the ladies before brunch.

I had the best intentions of coming home, walking Bailey and turning right around and going for a swim, but I guess they have kids’ hours on Saturday afternoons so I hung out for a bit before my swim. Sidenote: Saturday afternoons are a wonderful time to swim at NYHRC. Nobody’s there! I had a whole lane to myself.

Sunday: I had big plans of getting on a lobster boat in the afternoon, so I had to get my workout in first. I had 1:25 of cycling on the schedule, so I rode up to the park for a big loop, a small loop and back home. The Celebrate Israel race was yesterday, and I thought I’d die running into a runner with my bike. Spoiler alert: I did not!

Today I was supposed to go to CityRow with Bo, but please refer to spending all day drinking wine on a boat above. Did. not. happen.

How was your week of training?