Week 1 / Weekend Recap

Ironman training: Week 1
This past Monday, July 18th, kicked off the first official week of Ironman training. Only 18 weeks until race day! Since Team Z had their "A" half Ironman race last weekend (mine was Eagleman a month ago) this week was a recovery week for them, and GRE week for me so the miles and intensity were pretty low. Even though this week doesn't have very impressive numbers, I am going to summarize my mileage every Monday from this week onward so we can all watch it go up and up and up until race day. This week included...

11 miles of running.
2300 yards of swimming.
50 miles of cycling.
2 strength workouts.
1 GRE domination session.

Weekend Recap:

I came home from work on Friday evening to Phil hovering over a stealth-bomber looking road bike. That boy upgrades his road bike often...he will buy one and then check Craigslist daily until an awesome deal comes around and then nab a new bike and sell his "old" one. I am happy he doesn't go through women the way he goes through bikes or else I would have been history 2.5 years ago!

Phil's new love

I hit the hay pretty early on Friday evening (930 pm to be exact) because Beth, Victoria and Tim convinced me to meet in Georgetown to start our 50 mile ride at 6am. Meaning I had to be out of my place by 530 am!

 We were really glad we started so early because we got through the whole ride without melting. Despite this being my first long ride since Eagleman, I held up pretty well. The ride was hill after hill after hill which was a challenge but it felt so good to be pushing it on the bike. Tim also found it amusing to keep going faster as I was trying to draft off of him. I was sore for a few hours after the ride but the soreness was gone by Saturday evening. I was happy with the mph I held as well.

Just after climbing out of Great Falls

Saturday evening I met up with friends at the Crystal City Twilighter to cheer them on. I decided to not run in the 94 degree heat. :) It was also great to finally meet Melody in person! It's so nice to meet blog friends in person!

And then popped over to wish two of my Team Z teammates happy birthdays! And obviously help them eat the amazing birthday cake.

the birthday girls!

Look at that cake! Yes, I ate a whole slice.

Sunday morning started with an early morning run with Amy. Holy hell was it hot. I'm so glad I had Amy to talk to or else those 8 miles would have never ended. It was a very slow run but I couldn't run faster with the heat and my heart rate going insane. Thanks for running at a snail's pace with me, Amy! 8 super sweaty miles in the bag before 830 am.

foggy car windows

Amy and I after 8 sweaty miles

Look who else woke up to run. The heat and humidity have been so bad here in the DC area that early mornings this weekend were necessary.

don't act like you're not sweaty too!

much better.

It was a great weekend of friends and sweat! What did you do this weekend?

I have a few fun things planned for the blog this week- including a product review of an item that claims to take a nice chunk of time off your T1 time!