5...

Another huge week in so many ways!

Mon: was due to do a 2hr ride this morning on my day off but woke up after 9 hours sleep still feeling a bit rusty. Not sick. But not 100% either. So I decided to skip the session & conserve my energy for swim squad in the evening. This turned out to be a good decision. 2.96km in one of the hardest - well, fastest - sessions I have ever done :-)

Tue: 45min strength session at the gym at lunch.

Wed: otherwise known as 'toothpick (for the eyelids)' day. I worked until midnight & then stayed up til 1:30am watching probably the best stage of the TdF I have ever watched. Then dragged my butt out of bed at 7am for a 2km swim which started with 1.6km non-stop as another race simulation. I went through half way in 16:30 and maintained that pace to finish in 33:01. For my longest non-stop swim ever, I am pleased with that time, particularly given its in the 3rd week of a training block & after very little sleep

Thu: 64min bike session on the windtrainer in the garage after work. Lots of firm efforts. 25.7km.

Fri: no pilates with Carly today as I had to cancel my session due to work. Headed to the pool at work during lunch for a 2.2km swim which included 18 x 50ms in total. Yikes. Happiness is having an entire pool to yourself during a lunchtime swim.

Sat: with rain forecast for Sunday, I decided to do my 4hr long ride on Saturday. It's not my preferred long ride day; I do love my Saturday morning sleep in - if you can call 7.30am a sleep-in ;-)

I decided today to ride out along the Northern Road & then to the dreaded Cobbity Road. Cobbity is, by far, the hardest route that I have ridden so far. It is a 'dead' road surface making hard work & then there are the 6 hills which get steeper & longer the further along you go. This was my third time over Cobbity Road & it doesn't seem to get any easier. I felt really sluggish for the first 1:30 along the Northern Road until we turned off at Cobbity Road but was surprised with my effort over the hills. Still very pleased to get off the bike. 92.4k. 4:11. 22.1k/h av.

Sun: as usual, for my 2 hr ride I headed out to Richmond & back this morning along Castlereagh Road. This is a challenging ride in that it is, for the most part, a dead surface and flat. So you have to work the whole time. There are no hills to coast down. You stop pedalling, you quickly come to a stop. My legs were feeling heavy after yesterday's ride.

Someone must have let the idiotic drivers out this weekend. Once yesterday & twice during this ride, I watched cars travelling in the opposite direction attempt to overtake slower cars, which of course, put them on my side of the road coming directly towards me. Sigh. 47.2k. 2:01. Av. 23.4k/h

Ah, tomorrow sees the start of a recovery week - yippee! This week has been my biggest week on the bike ever; 166km in total. After 3 solid weeks of training - in which I only missed 1 of my scheduled sessions - I'm feeling tired but pleased to finally get a solid block in. However I don't know if there will be much recovering going on next week given the number of stages of the TdF I'm planning to watch :-D

MTD:
Swim - 9.1km
Bike - 236km