Triathlon Training Week 3

This has been a big week. It certainly helped that I didn't have to work and the weather was really nice. It's also comforting that I was able to almost triple the swim and bike race distances this week (typical tri guidelines are to triple the mileage of each discipline during a week of training once you get closer to the race). It's also great that I have a lot of friends (and my hubby!) that I can ride and hike with. I rode bikes with five different people this week and hiked/snowshoed with three. If I'm actually going to do the half Ironman, I'm going to need a lot of training buddies! Next week I get to cut back as it will be the fourth week (build for three, cut back the fourth).

Swim: 5200 yds (2.95 miles)
Bike: 133 miles
Run: 9 miles
Hike/snowshoe: 11 miles (1800' vertical)

Skunk Canyon to Royal Arch hike

Nice warm sunny day today! We rode bikes to Chautauqua and hiked to Skunk Canyon. The bottom of the canyon was still a bit snowy and we just had sneakers so we didn't want to go too far up -- plus there was a raptor closure farther west. A faint trail going steeply up the north side of the canyon took us up to some unknown Flatirons (we heard people climbing) and then up to a ridge. From the ridge we saw swarms of people around the Royal Arch to the North. We bushwhacked a few hundred meters across the valley to the bottom of the Royal Arch rock. That wasn't too tough, but once we were around the north side of the arch the terrain was steep and snowy. Finally made the trail and hiked it to the arch. About 5 miles round trip and 1400' gain in 3 hours.

Half Ironman Training Week 2

Swim: 3350 yds (1.9 miles)
Bike: 35 miles (very cold and snowy week--much of this was indoors. Yuck!)
Run: 11 miles
Ski: 20,000 vertical feet

Half Ironman Training

Well, I know we haven't posted anything in 6 months (I WILL get the Hawai'i stuff up some day), but it was really motivating for me last year to post training mileage totals as I prepared for my Olympic distance triathlon. Now that I've officially begun my 70.3 training (1.2 swim, 56 bike, 13.1 run), I'd like to try to do the same thing. So here goes...

Week of March 11th:
swim: 3250 yards (1.85 miles)
bike: 90 miles
run: 7 miles
hike: 3 miles