Sacrificial Races

Sacrifices. For those that know me, mountain biking is my primary activity. I love riding the steepest, rockiest, scarriest, gnarliest terrain I can find. I am well beyond your average weekend warrior trail rider. My season is normally dotted with some racing but Ironman demands I sacrifice this competitive component of my activity if I am to make it at Ironman.

Paris to Ancaster is a long standing tradition, 60Km mountain bike race. In reality it is dominated by cyclocross riders but it's still seen as a MTB event. The first event of the year, usually a good opportunity to test yourself after a long cold winter of stuffing yourself with Holiday turkey. It's one of those races that reminds you of just how out of shape you really are. Its always a challenge!

Which comes to the sacrifice. I cut this race out of my schedule, as well as all other mountain bike events. I might have time for a couple after Ironman, but in the meantime I decided to save the money and the suffering so I can stick to the training plan as best I can. I was disappointed that I couldn't join friends at this year's race but after seeing the horrible weather and conditions the race had to endure - I am glad I didn't go. Every year has been cold, muddy and miserable so I dropped this race knowing I probably wouldn't miss much. It turned out exactly as expected. These conditions actually make for one epic ride, something to be remembered but alas I do not regret missing the race. I promise myself I will make up for it next year though - I definitely plan to race it next year and actually train seriously for it.

In the meantime I spent the better part of the morning on a 21Km run fit perfectly between the snow and rain. We started and finished between the spurts of bad weather, so outside of some cold and big wind, it was a great long slow run! We learned that the other people in the running group go for coffee afterwards so I accepted the invitation to get to know the other people in the group. That is one of my favourite parts of this running group, everyone is very nice and I like getting to know the other athletes. We had a good time!

I realized that this upcoming week is a recovery week! I had not looked that far ahead in the training program. If I look too far ahead I see scary numbers and I start stressing about how am I going to fit all the training in, so I didn't even think to see what was on the upcoming agenda. I have finished this week very strong and look foward to going 70% distance, intensity and duration for the upcoming week. It is time to let the body heal, build up those energy reserves. I like to think of these recovery weeks as 'wife' weeks. I will run and bike with her so we can spend some time together and I can help motivate her out the door to get her workouts in. This will be a fun week! Too bad the weather may not co-operate, we'll see.

TRAINING:

Run - 2:00hrs