Week One

As my first official blog post, I feel like my day should have been more exciting. But, as I am currently recovering from what I can only assume is a bad case of bronchitis and coming off of three back to back night shifts, I spent about 10 hours today sleeping.

It has been a pretty successful first week of official training for the 70.3 Costa Rica race on June 18th. I am pretty excited about the idea of this trip and one of my main goals this year is just to arrive at the start line and not think, "I should have actually trained for this", which has historically been the case. :)

This year, Alex and I are also training for the 70.3 Ohio and Age Group Nationals (olympic distance) races in July and August. We will probably throw in a few shorter distance local sprints because they are fun and we can work on transitions. Plus, we like coming in first place even when its a field of three people in our age group. ;)

I am currently following the Trainer Road half ironman distance training plans and doing the mid volume plan. I just did my first week of base and the cycling was tough! Also got in a few swims and a few runs even though it was so cold outside that my phone turned off whenever I took it out to change the music/podcast.

I did my first FTP test at the beginning of last week and my FTP was a whopping 151. Not good. But, I have also not trained for the last four months so not entirely unexpected. I am hoping to make some big gains in the next eight weeks through this block. After the FTP test, my workouts were super challenging having me ride anywhere between 80-94% of threshold. Tough.

This week I listened to Rich Roll's podcast (as always) but listen to David Goggins and it was incredible. Very inspirational guy. Alex and I both have read the book about him written by Jesse Itzler and we were cracking up the entire time. Also, loving listening to the Trainer Road Podcast, those guys are awesome.

Books I have read the last two weeks: Relentless Spirit by Missy Franklin and finishing up The Road to Sparta by Dan Karnazes. I really enjoyed both of them and they are getting me psyched for training. Although, graduate school starts back up tomorrow and I have to spend a lot of time studying for boards the next few months so not sure I will have much more time for recreational reading!

In other random news, Alex and I got Blue Apron for Christmas and have had two of our three meals so far this week and they are awesome! Definitely will probably keep this going. We had spaghetti squash bolognese tonight and it was amazzzingggggg.

I will have to post a picture of our kick ass pain cave (we need a more creative name for it) once Alex finally (if ever) hangs the tvs. We now have to Wahoo Kickrs which is crazy but awesome and too many bikes up there but Alex insists that the perfect amount of bikes is N+1.

The Ohio State University Rec Pool--My new swim spot. 

Super excited to start week 2 of training tomorrow!