Happy first day of July! It’s hard to believe we’re already half way through 2013. Now is a great time to think about the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year and evaluate how you’re doing. Are you on track? Do you need to adjust or add to your goals? Are you doing the things you said you wanted to do for yourself and your health this year? Remember, it’s never too late to get back on the wagon if you’ve slipped a bit. I’ll be assessing how I’m doing on my 2013 race goals later this month.

In the meantime, I completed my third week of half ironman training for the Beach2Battleship Half Ironman last week (you can read more about my plan here). It was a tough week in terms of evening commitments and travel, but all-in-all, I’m happy with how I was able to balance life and training.

Here is what the week looked like.

Monday
Morning: Swam 1,600 meters:
300-meter warm up
8 x 25-meter drills with 10 seconds rest between each
6 x 100 at moderate intensity with 5 seconds rest between each
8 x 25-meter kick only with 15 seconds rest between each
300-meter cool down

Evening: Spin class with intense interval work (56 minutes, 23 miles)
I swear I sweat enough during this class to fill up a kiddie pool with water for the Fourth of July!

Tuesday
Morning: Ran 30 minutes with 3 x 30 second sprints mixed in (3.3 miles)
This was supposed to be a 40-minute run with 8 x 30-second sprints but it was hot and this was all my body allowed me to do.

Evening: Ran an easy 3.36-mile recovery group run as part of a clinic and meet-up event with Bart Yasso

Wednesday
REST

Thursday
Brick: Biked for 1 hour (20.6 miles) on an indoor spin bike and then immediately ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes (2.32 miles) after the run. I increased my speed every few minutes on the run, so my pace increased like this: 9:13, 8:49, 8:27, 8:00, 7:41.

I am incredibly proud of this workout because it started at 10 p.m. after a very long day. I wasn’t able to get this done in the morning, so it happened after work and a pre-wedding barbeque for some friends. My defining word for the year was discipline, and this was an example of doing what I said I was going to do despite the circumstances. We are stronger than we think and we are capable of doing more than we think we can do.

Friday
Less than 8 hours after my late night workout on Thursday, I was up early for a swim and bike.

Swam 1,600 meters:
300-meter warm up
8 x 25-meter drills with 10 seconds rest between each
4 x 150 meters, building for the first 50 meters and descending for the next 25, then repeating (15-second recovery interval between each)
8 x 25-meter kick only with 15 seconds rest between each
300-meter cool down

Biked for 47 minutes (15 miles or so) on an indoor bike
In the coming weeks, I’m going to need to bike less indoors and get outside on my real bike.

Saturday
Mr. rUnladylike and I spent the weekend in the North Georgia mountains for a wedding this past weekend.

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. I got a 6.6-mile run in on Saturday morning full of lots of hills. Here are a few of the views from my run:

During the fifth mile of my run, I almost stepped on this guy. I was actually glad he didn’t move while I was taking a picture. Eek!

After the run, I did 10 minutes of ab work and 10 minutes of stretching.

Sunday
REST (aka recover from the wedding)
Although I hadn’t planned to take 2 rest days this week, it’s the way it happened. I should have biked for an hour and swam about 1,800 meters on Sunday, but that is the way it goes sometimes.

Week #3 mileage total: 76.17 miles, 10 workouts, 8 hours and 7 minutes

• Swim: 1.98 miles
• Bike: 58.6 miles
• Run: 15.59 miles

With the Fourth of July holiday week upon us, my goal is to do the best job of training I can with many family festivities and traveling. I’m also running the Peachtree Road Race 10K on July 4, so I’d like to have fun and run strong.

In case you missed it …
See how Week #1 went.
See how Week #2 went.

How did your training go last week? Are you running a race on the Fourth of July this week?