Monday: Didn’t do much today. Tired and not happy with the bad weather. Just did a masters swim, which was probably fine since Monday is supposed to be an easy day anyways.
Tuesday: Luckily I had the run group in the morning, as it snowed the night before and there was no way I was going to do a hard ride outside. By the end of the long fartlick, our group of eight was coughing heavily (some of us were dry heaving heavily), proving the effort we’d just put in. Adelaide and I did an easy 2 hour ride inside afterwards.
Wednesday: I delayed getting outside until late morning because I had no motivation to do anything at all today. 15 minutes into the ride, while I was deciding whether to do 2 hours or 3, a ‘fitness-level’ rider passed me and helped make up my mind: 1 hour it is! In fact, it wasn’t even quite one hour. Later that afternoon I had enough motivation and energy to do an easy swim with my brother and Joslynn.
Thursday: Justin. Justin Daerr and I did a 12 mile run in the morning with Maybellene, then I managed a 3.75 hour ride. My back and sacrum ached quite a bit in the last hour, neither being used to running long first and then riding after. However, I assume this will be how I’ll feel 3.5 hours into the bike leg for the race.
Friday: Another group run with some hard hill repeats in the morning, then a 4 hour ride in the mountains on my road bike. I didn’t have a power meter so I’ll never know for sure, but I felt strong, especially considering I had run hard right before. My route: Sunshine to Peak to Peak, to the closed gate on Brainard, then down through Raymond to Hygiene. I felt great all the way to my garage door.
Saturday: I did not feel great on Saturday though. 5.5 hours up Big Thompson to Estes Park, then a 30 minute run off the bike with Maybellene. I had no intensity in me today at all. In fact, I wasn’t really in the mood to ride since, not only was I tired, but I learned that my grandmother had died the previous night right as I set out on the ride. I knew it would be better to think about her over a long day in the saddle than a long day cooped up sitting inside.
Sunday: I did a 20 mile run with BTC, the first 14 of which were with Nick, then I did the last 6 by myself (with Maybellene of course, so not really by myself at all). Adelaide and I headed to the gym next for some stretching and an easy 2K swim.
It was another big week of riding and the biggest week of running I’ve ever done at 59.4 miles, quite a bit of which were hard/fast miles. I’m feeling pretty decent on the bike, and confident for the run. My plan is to pull the swim together in the final three weeks of training and just cross my fingers that it’s cold enough for wetsuits, which it has always been in June and I don’t foresee that not happening this year. Maybellene is continuing to build her run endurance for rabbit hunting season. If there’s a rabbit that decides to run 15-25 miles straight instead of ducking into a hole or behind a chainlink fence after 10 feet, Maybellene will have no problem keeping up and going for the kill.
KENNETT PETERSON 