Love and Loathing on the Treadmill

It's winter in Maine...I'm training for an Ironman...I am spending countless hours on the treadmill.  I know many of you can relate, it has been a hard winter everywhere!  I actually love running outside in the winter, but the enormous amount of snow and ice here has just made it completely unsafe.  In this regard, I love my treadmill!  I am thankful to be able to safely log mileage on it.   It is great for my weekly Brick Workout to hop off my bike trainer and get right on it to run.   I also appreciate not having to double and triple layer for the frigid cold temperatures. 

(Here's a picture of my son Ben & our dog Walter in the 2+Feet of snow at our house!)

However, yesterday was one of those days that I loathed the 'mill.  I had an 11 mile run on my training schedule and I just could not wrap my head around doing it inside.  I had a narrow window of time to complete the run before picking up my kids, so this forced me to just hop on and do it!  The first 7 miles were dreadful!  I tried to Not look at the numbers tick away, but I could not stop..."oh look, 1 mile down, 10 to go!"  "Hey, I'm at 3.7 miles, thats approximately 1/3 of the way through it!"  "5.5 miles...HALF WAY DONE!!!"  You get the point, not much fun, but what was the alternative?  At one point, I thought I would just cut it short to 8 miles, but then I knew what that would do for my psyche each and every time I had to do a treadmill run after that.

(My Mio Global HR monitor, Me-so Happy to be done, & the 11 miles and my timer reading 11 minutes 18 seconds after it hit 0!!)

I finished the 11 miles.  I was also reminded that my treadmill timer goest to Zero after 1 hour and 40 minutes, which made me laugh!  Fortunately, the mileage continues to count on or it would not have been humorous!!

I would love to hear how You get through your Treadmill Runs??

Ironman Mont Tremblant Training: The First 6 Weeks

It has been so long since I have blogged!  I had every intention of writing a post at the end of each week of my Ironman Training, but here it is 6 weeks later...yikes!  Let's just say that Ironman training is a bit time consuming.  I have loved every minute of it, but spare time does not exist!  Of course, with 2  young children involved in multiple extracurricular activities, a job, a husband with a crazy work schedule, multiple pets, etc. I did not have extra time to begin with.  In fact, it was a huge decision to tackle the goal of completing an Ironman, but here I am at week 6 of training and going straight forward to reach a dream I have had since I was 14 years old..to become an Ironman!

My training began on 12/29/2014 and I am proud to say that I have hit every workout that my coach has scheduled since the beginning!  I must admit that I was surprised at the intensity of the training right off the "starting block"!  My first week of training had me doing a 2 hour bike trainer ride along with about 8 hours of additional swimming/biking/ & running.  Each week has been challenging with approximate total training time between 10 to 11 hours.  The training fluctuates where I may be on a recovery week swimming, but have a challenging week running.  I have truly enjoyed it and am so thrilled with the coach I am using!  She is so encouraging and provides continuous feedback.

I just completed Week #6 of the training, which was Test Week!  Before I started training, my Coach had me do a swim, bike, & run test so she could design my training plan using Heart Rate & Power Thresholds.  I was amazed at the progress I have made in the past 6 weeks!  I dropped 20 seconds off my 300 yard swim time, improved my FTP on the bike by nearly 25 Watts, & dropped 30 seconds off my Long Distance Run pace!!  Now, I know I was starting at the bottom, but it is so empowering to see strides like that in just 6 weeks!

I am planning on Blogging at the end of each week of my training starting now, so I hope you will follow me on this journey to Ironman Mont Tremblant in August 2015!!

Here are a few pictures I have shared on Instagram (follow me at Marathonmatron) on my training so far:

Snow Day Fun: 2 1/2 Hour Trainer Ride, followed by Crockpot cooking & measuring snowfall amount with my favorite tool (wine)!! :-)

Day #1: So Excited!

New Year's Resolutions, what will life look like on 1/1/2016??

Finishing up my first week of training!