The Princess Returns and The Taper

First of all, it was a really quite week in our house as Kristina was away at overnight camp but returned on Saturday.  She loved camp again!  We are so happy she enjoys it.  The camp staff all seemed to enjoy having Kristina with them this week.  When I picked her up to come home, she must have hugged every camp staffer we passed.

Here is Kristina with one of her "boyfriends" at camp.

Her is Kristina and her camp staffer Chantelle along with another camper Nicki.


Chantelle is from London and was great!  She really seemed to like having Kristina as her camper.   She followed our advice on how to deal with Kristina, but also used her own head and evaluated the situation.  We hope Chantelle enjoyed Kristina as much as Kristina enjoyed her.

On the training front, I am starting the final weeks of IMLP training.  This past week was week one of the Peak Training Weeks.  These weeks you perform four Race Prep Workouts spaced out over 14 days, each one having a different focus.  This workout is performed, then you have two days of recovery workouts.  This lead right up to race week Monday.  This section you are either working out at race intensity or in Zone 1-2.   I had the first one on Thursday.  It was a short bike, 45 min, followed by a 90 minute run.  The temperature outside was HOT and HUMID.  I must have lost 6 lbs on that run.  The rest of the runs and rides are pretty standard and in Zone 1-2 for HR.

Good news was I got into the pool three times this week.  I didn't push to hard on the shoulder.  I still can't do freestyle swimming so I guess I will be doing breaststroke for 2.4 miles of fun.  I was able to do a nice steady pace of 2:05 per 100.  I figured that if I can keep that pace 1:20 at IMLP is possible.

I dropped a few lbs the passed 3 weeks, now around 166-168.  I know during the taper I will get back to 172-175, which I think is a good race weight for me.  Below 170 and I feel somewhat weak, which is probably more mental than physical, since 5 lbs is not that big a deal.