Training camp weekend

Weekend was AWESOME! Lots of running (ok, not really), biking, swiming and I might have found a husband.

We arrived to a friend's cottage on Torch Lake on Friday afternoon, chilled out for an hour and then went for a swim. Water there is gorgeous. Clean and turquoise blue. And lake is huge (around 20miles long) thus there were waves in the afternoon. I did not like it that much because I am not used to choppy conditions (I do not think that I will ever do a race where swim in an ocean swim). I liked the swim otherwise. We swam in wetsuits because it looked kind of chilly and we did around 1.45miles (one girl used her Garmin to map it).
I really need to work on keeping my head down and just keep my body streamlined. When I keep my body kind of stretched I feel super efficient and fast. Need to work on that!

Then the others went for a run while I went for a bike ride, 1.5hours keeping it at 21mph. It was like a dream. Almost no cars, smooth roads, gorgeous landspace. What the heck am I doing in metro Detroit area???

Saturday: Morning swim, same distance. Lake was mirror-like smooth. Perfect.
Then a bike ride. There were 8 of us and we had to stay together since only the host knew where we were going. So it required quite a lot of stops and waiting but me and one other girl and sometimes one guy would go ahead and turn around for the others and keep repeating it and we went at a decent clip. It was actually a lot of fun. And I would sometimes repeat some hills since I was usually the first one up, I would rode back down and then up. I loved it. I did 85ish miles although we were supposed to do 100 but the others (you know, those lazy IMen) said 80ish was enough. Slackers.
Did 20min run right afterwards and I felt great. I wanted to push it a bit and did 7:26min/miles (it was the first time I wore Garmin in like 3
months). I mean it was only 20minso why keep it super slow, right? ITB no problem.
Then I hoped on a bike again and rode another 9ish miles to the marina to catch the others on a boat. So total of 95 miles. Decent considering that I am training for a tiny Oly tri and a 5k:)

The friend has a boat so we went to hang out there. There is a place called Boat Sand Bar (or something like that) which is basically very shalow area in the lake where boaters anchor their boats and hang out drinking beers. I was a dork hanging out with protein shake:)
I drank my shake and ate two turkey sandwiches, apple and nectarine. People think I am such a nutcase. All the others had only 1 sandwich but they knew that I eat a lot so they have prepared 2 for me:) And then we went to have dinner and I had "Super Burrito WOW" with a lot of veggies. I ate that mostly because the others did not believe I can do it after eating 2 sandwiches but I knew that I could because I am always starving. Well, I was told I need to fuel well to be able to survive long training weekend so super burrito with extra veggies sounded appealing. And I drank tons of water.

I tried to be very good about nutrition. I drank 2 bottles of Powerade (or Gatorade. I do not know), 4 gels, 2 bottles of protein powder/energy drink/Powerade/water mix, 1 banana and 1 peanut butter chocolate bar. Hm, I do not know how long the ride took, I need to check the Garmin but am too lazy to get up. Probably around 5.5-6hours, so I think that was enough nutrition.

Sunday: I did the bike ride again while the others went running. 2hours of very hilly route. Michelle said that big gear intervals would lead to some good adaptations. So we shall see whether it is true.
I warmed up for around 35min and then found one hill that took me around 8min to climb so I just mashed the pedals in bigger gear going up 5 times and then cooled down for 25min. But w/up and c/d were pretty hilly as well but I took it easy.
Then did the swim. Did maybe 500m with buoy, paddles and bands but then the others came and we decided to do our usual 1.45mile swim. So I did that. This time sans wetsuit.

Overall, it was a great weekend!!! I wish I could do this every weekend!
Although it would have been more fun if I was able to run with the others but I am faster than they are so I would not be able to stay with them anyway.
I think that I am in a good shape. Not fast-IM shape yet but getting there. I am sure that even now I would be able to pull off a somehow respectable swim, decent bike split and fake the marathon. And then go get few IVs in a med tent:)

And I think that I will have a very good 5k race in October.

I will probably go to bed now.