14 weeks.

With 14 short weeks to IRONMAN California, nervousness is an understatement, and I am thrilled with how training is progressing!

I am now officially a Healthy Life Ambassador for It's A Military Life, and It's A Military Child's Life. In this volunteer role, I will help develop and implement healthy lifestyle programming for our military and their families. One of the key areas of focus will be swimming, along with helping veterans assimilate back to civilian life with a supportive community built on healthy lifestyles. More to come...

I bit the bullet and upgraded my Garmin Watch to the Fenix 7 X Saphire Solar watch. In addition to enough battery life to make it through IRONMAN, this thing can stay charged for 28+ days on a single charge, my favorite new feature is the?built-in flashlight?for visibility no matter when I train. This touchscreen watch can store 2,000+ songs, so I can run phoneless, safety alerts, Garmin Wallet, preloaded maps, so I can create routes right on my wrist, Wi-Fi, the latest technology for body metrics, and a water rating of 10ATM.? As big as this watch is, it is lightweight; I don't notice it when I run.

Running: 41.6 miles this week.?

In addition to IRONMAN, I am working on qualifying for the Boston Marathon, and my splits are there. The cutoff time for BQ is 8:47/mile. I registered for the Publix Marathon in Atlanta scheduled for Sunday, February 26, 2023.?

This week I also discovered that while I can run for miles, I have no idea how to sprint. I ran one mile at 6:48. Seem to be lacking fast twitch muscles.

Fastest run?of the week was 3.11 miles (a 5k) in 23:30 @ a pace of?7:32/mile.

Longest run of the week was a very controlled 13.2 miles at a pace of 8:50/mile with a heart rate of 135. 93% of this run was in zone 2.??

Hardest run of the week?was 6 miles at a pace of 8:53 (heart rate was 140) immediately following a 76.2-mile bike ride. It was so hot and humid out, which made the run that much harder.

Not Your Mother's Spin class

141.5 total cycling miles for the week.

Longest ride of the week was 76.27 miles at a pace of 19.2 MPH.

I am now on level 25 on Zwift!

And I finally conquered the?Road to Sky route on Zwift. It took me 1h21m to ride 11.1 miles with an elevation gain of 3,478 feet! #1 on the leaderboards for women (granted only three women total!) and #10 for a total out of 100+ riders! Rumor has it that if I do this ride 24 more times, I unlock something special on Zwift. I would love to get this ride to under an hour.

Zwift?created this route using GPS data to perfectly match the incline and distance of the storied climb with its 21 hairpin turns. The climb to Alp d’Huez actually has two different finish points: the “tourist version” and the Tour de France version. Alpe du Zwift matches the tourist version, which is ~2km shorter with 40 meters less climbing than the TdF. Alpe du Zwift is 12.24km (7.6 miles) long, with a total elevation gain of over 1000 meters (3400′)!

Check out this video from GCN who compared Zwift to the real thing! Thank you Kevin Brown for sharing this video!

Swiming 11,045 yards this week.

My highlight this week was I swam??2.4 miles of straight freestyle, with no breaks, at a pace of 2:06/100 meters for a total time of 1:20:01.?I dropped 4 minutes since last week. The cutoff time for IRONMAN is 2:20, leaving me with about an hour of padding. My goal for the next 14 weeks is to swim at this same pace with less effort.

Please donate to the?IRONMAN Foundation, every dollar counts!?The money I raise will benefit community groups & organizations in our community(s) via grant funding. In 2021 alone, the IRONMAN Foundation distributed more than $2.1 million to 1,500 organizations worldwide. $100 could mean bikes for several kids, money that helps keep a community center pool open or money that goes to honoring Gold Star families, or supporting diversity in sport through initiatives like Women For Tri, an organization I am passionate about as endurance sports has dramatically changed the trajectory of my own life.