Yoga... In India!

After an hour delay and a hellish stress to  get on the plane, 13 hours later, I'm in India!!

I'm going to do some yoga in our hotel's yoga room while Kate gets a massage. :)

When I arrived, they put a bindi on my forehead and strew marigolds around my neck. Pretty cool stuff.

Monday, 5/27

Monday was supposed to be a bike/run/bike/run brick for 3.5 hours. 

I was still feeling a bit tired so I cut it short by an hour and did it at the gym on their bike/treadmill. Since I "slept in" until 8-9am I got a late start and the weather wasn't fabulous. 

I could've spilt up the bike/run bricks into two but with the cleaning, packing and work I had to do, I didn't want to take up more coordination and travel time. 

I am looking forward to this trip -despite having to workout while there- I just need some down time!!

Wednesday morning swim 5/29

I was still feeling pretty tired but planned to go forward with my Wednesday workouts. 

My coach's told me to do the "B" swim and thankfully it was an easy workout and the yardage was low. Despite this, I actually only swam for about 45 minutes and did t even go the full yardage. I wanted to pump out a bunch of work since I was leaving Thursday (the following day) for India. 

Wednesday evening: 2 hour bike 5/29

The weather was gorgeous on Wednesday which meant that there was no way I could a long ride outside!  Unfortunately, nice weather equals thousands of clueless people on the Lake Shore path. 

Instead, I decided to try two back-to-back spin classes at the gym.  They were both 45 minutes and I hoped I could ride the warm up longer before the classes started so I could make up the time. 

The parking garage computers were down and so collecting my car took a lot longer than I had planned but thankfully I made it in time. The first spin class was perfect because it was interval training. I was supposed to start with 20 minutes of zone 1, 10 minutes of zone two and then go between high and low zone three every four minutes with opposite cadence. I didn't really do 4 minute sets but was able to go between high and low 3. I kept pedaling when the class emptied out and a few of us stayed for the second class. 

This second class didn't go as well as far as zones go since it was basically a slow uphill climb. On the positive side, I really need to work on uphold and so I spent a lot of the class fatiguing my quads standing in the climb. My heart rate zones were lower but I think it was good climbing work. I was happy to get in the full three hours on Wednesday. 

Tuesday vinyasa yoga, 5/28

Tuesday's yoga was nice because I skipped an AM workout. My delta was 18- increased- so we thought it better to take some extra rest.

Beth reintroduced me to several IT band, knee, hip, and quad openers that I should really do more of!  Cow face!!!  Impossibly painful in the best way; obviously I needed the stretch.

One hour of strength and stretching this Tuesday was exactly what the doctor ordered!

Thursday run... that became rest 5/30

I was supposed to get up early and do what appeared -from the plan- to be an easy 90 minute run. I got up early with MB but wanted to get some laundry done and finish packing before my flight. 

I had initially intended to work from the office, but decided to work from home since I would lose less time in transit. 

So, instead I worked from home until about 11am when I called a cab and headed to the airport. 

Sunday hill ride 4.5 hours 5/26

Sunday morning was brutal getting up at 5am. Unfortunately I wasn't able to sleep in at all over the holiday weekend and it was a huge bummer. 

I met up with the Max girls training for the half ironman plus a few other random individual athletes. We started the ride in Barrington/Algonquin area at Presidential Park which takes over an hour so I was in the car with my gear by 6am. 

Apparently we were going to do a similar but different route and I went along with the group. At one point there wasn't anyone behind or in front of me so I turned right where I lee to go and lost the group not was okay anyway because I really didn't feel like riding with anyone that day and wanted to think and not compare myself to others (& get down on myself again). 

I did a couple loops on my own and then managed to meet back up with everyone for a couple ups and downs on the hills before their group was done with their two hour ride. 

I went back to the parking lot, went to the toilet, refueled with water and nutrition and then set out again. I came quickly across another group of ex-Max riders with one having bike chain issues.  I did what I could to help (not much) and then started back up with a couple of them. I was staying in my lower zones and they were pushing ahead, so I just let it happen and ride a new wider loop. There were some unexpected hills but a lot distance was flatter. I was feeling better on the Barrington hills which I hope translates to Madison!

Following my 4.5 hour ride, I swung by my parents' house which wasn't far from it. The sun was out by then and I thought it'd be a good idea to wash my car in their driveway. My dad and mom came out to help me detail the interior of the car. It looked so great inside!!!  Then I stopped at Deerpark to return a couple items and drive home. 

Let's just say that by the time I got home that afternoon, I did three loads of laundry and totally and completely passed out at 6pm. I slept through the night until about 8am.