Challenge Roth Training: Week 7

19 weeks to go.

Week 7 totals:
Swim: 2. 2600m, 1hr 34min
Bike: 2. 3hr 19min, Saturday Ride: 30.5mi, 768elev.
Run: 3. 17mi, 2hr 43min
Strength: 0. 0min
Total time: 7hr 36min

Challenges:
Letting my pulled shoulder heal resulted in some heinous kick sets in the pool on Tuesday. Do you have any idea how long it takes to kick 400 meters? A long time, that's how long. Plus, it's kind of exhausting. My tenure of pain(ful boredom) was bookended by 200 meter sets of breaststroke (which is a slow stroke for me), followed by some 25 meter easy freestyle tests to see if I could swim normally without pain, and--hallelujah!--I could.

Accomplishments:
Stayed in my heart rate zones (for the most part) on Saturday's bike ride in spite of two rather annoying things:

1. Powering by multiple people during a hard, all-out interval on a long hill, and then having those same people pass me by (probably thinking "oh, she burned out. She burned out hard.") as I settled into a prescribed recovery interval. My pride, you guys. Ouch.

2. Pedaling into a crazy headwind and having to maintain a low heart rate means pedaling slowly. So very slowly. My amazing/stupid watch beeps every time I get out of my prescribed heart rate zone, and so I spent the majority of the last 10 miles of my ride yelling "I KNOOOOW" at my right wrist at regular intervals as I struggled to keep things at an easy effort. Needless to say, speed and mileage were at the lower end this week.

Surprises:
A sad one this week - my uncle died somewhat unexpectedly on Friday. I spent a big chunk of the day trying to find a reasonably-priced ticket that would get me to his funeral in Kansas three days later, and thankfully managed to do so. It was great to see family (all my cousins made it back - I hate that it seems like that only happens for funerals these days), and the service was really nice. Just as they began the internment at the tiny country cemetery, a huge flock of snow geese took off from a neighboring field, honking and calling in the crisp, late-winter air, and flew over our little gathered crowd. It was a really beautiful moment, and was a nice little memorial for my big, opinionated, soft-hearted Uncle Steve.

Bonus:
Had the first official Team K-Lar ride of the 2014 season on Saturday. So far we have 33 people on the team, and we're making our way to our team goal of $25,000. If you're able, help us get there!