Let the Pain Begin

After Wildflower, I thought I would give myself a week to recover. You know what recovery is, right? Laying on the couch, painting, playing with the dogs, reading a book... all fantastic ideas! But after 3 days of "recovery", which looked more like taking my friends on a hike, teaching Pilates and driving back to Oregon, I decided to stop letting time slip by and begin training for Ironman Boulder.

Coaching yourself in triathlon is hard work. When I hired a coach two years ago, it was fantastic because he would look at my ten hours of training per day and say, "Ashlee, what are you thinking?! I want you to take an entire day off." I would do an easy bike ride instead. Coach would see me and say, "Ashlee... I mean it! No working out today!" It is so much easier to recover when you are forced into it.

So today, I looked at my schedule and saw a huge gap of time between teaching yoga and meeting with Leah. What better way to fill that time than to go crank out a 23 mile bike test then brick it with a five mile trail run? Great idea!

So the IMBoulder training has begun.

STATS AS OF MAY 8, 2014

BIKE               23.1 MILES
RUN                5.0 MILES
SWIM             0 MILES
WEIGHTS      0:15
YOGA             1:00
PILATES        0:00        

Starting photos with three months to go: