The week did not involve a lot of intensity, but instead, it was a higher volume week. I hit almost 11 hours for the week. It was my highest weekly volume to date, but just by a little.
For the bike, I managed to brave 53F weather for my long ride. Typically, I would only ride outside at 60F or higher, but I could not bear the thought of a 2-hr ride on the indoor trainer. The weather didn’t turn out too bad. I kept my toes warm by using overshoe booties and for my core, I wore 2 shirts and a cycling jacket. For the second half of the ride, my head and face were cold though. I have a beanie that I could have worn under my helmet that would have kept my head and ears warm and I think that would have made a big difference.
My long run went well. It was 10 miles, my longest to date, and for miles 6-9, I managed to pick u the pace a bit. I’m happy with how it went.
This coming week is a recovery week. I still have about 10 hrs of training but the intensity is generally a bit lower.
This was a travel week with my monthly trip to FL. Most of the week was uneventful with the most interesting workouts being the long run and bike over the week.
When I first looked at the schedule, the scary workout was my 9-mile long run that was part of a BRICK session being preceded with a 30-min tempo ride. Up until then, I had only even done BRICK sessions with the run being 2-3 miles and for my long runs, I always try and be as rested as possible before starting them. I had no idea what it would like to try my longest run in about 2 years after the bike. It ended up not being bad at all. I have discovered that the key to my running off the bike is to start running slowly. When I start to the run, then tendency of my legs is to run fast sometimes at a 10 min/mile pace and if I give in to that, it makes for a horrible run. If I make conscious effort to take at slow and be in the 11-11:30 min/mile range, I feel good. For my 9-mile run, I got into a good rhythm and held a nice 11:15 min/mile pace average and my HR was locked it at a comfortable 135 BPM. My calves started to tighten a bit during the last mile, but overall, I was a good run.
The other scary workout was my long 2-hr bike ride. I try to ride these long rides outdoors but the weather did not cooperate this weekend and so I had to do it on the indoor trainer. That was torture. After my normal hour, I was ready to get off. I held on, squirming on my bike but I only lasted 90 mins. This was also a BRICK session with a 2 mile run. I did this on the treadmill rather than try and get changed to run in the cold outdoors. Like the Saturday BRICK session, my legs felt surprising good. I didn’t have that jelly leg feeling. Again, I think the key was locking it a nice slow pace on the treadmill.
The one regret I have this week is that I didn’t get to an ocean swim while I was in Florida. I tried to coordinate it for with my work colleagues, but it didn’t work out.
The fatigue is really starting to settle in now. By Thursday, I was tired and really looking forward to the Friday rest day,
I did have a few niggles this week. On Thursday, my left hamstring was feeling really tight and sore. I think it came from the strength/core workout on the Tuesday. At the end, it called for some stretching including touching my toes for 1 min. Normally, if I try and touch my toes, I can’t and I’m typically about 2″ away. But on Tuesday, with my muscles being warm and just hanging there and letting the stretch settle in, I gradually sunk further and further. By the end, I was able to go past my toes and touch the floor. I have a feeling that I overstretched my hamstrings. It is still currently sore, but very, very slightly. Even when sore earlier in the week, it didn’t cause any issues with my workouts.
The other issue I had was on the run from my BRICK sessions. I was getting some cramping in my left quad just a couple inches above my knee. I had to stop to massage and stretch it a few times. I’m wondering if this is due to being dehydrated. For my 8-mile long run, I happened to weigh before and after and I found that I had a net loss of 3.5lbs due to sweat. I don’t know if I did actually replace all of that fluid by Sunday. I will try and monitor that more closely next weekend.
The last issue I had was my high heart rate during my long run. Based on the pace I was running and my breathing (conversation pace), I would typically be at a HR in the 130’s, but for some reason, my HR was measuring high throughout the entire run. By the end, my average was about 151. Again, I have to wonder if I’m dehydrated.
I’ll be in Florida this week. I’m looking forward to being able to do another ocean swim. I hope I can make that happen.
This was the first week following the workouts and plan from my new coach. Overall, I think it went well. The most noticeable difference from my previous weeks is that the intensity was higher.
For my swimming, I had previously discussed with him that I didn’t really want to be doing complicated drill sets. I don’t think I have a lot of room for improving my speed and I was quite happy with my current pace. So in that vein, he only scheduled one workout with some speed work and the other two were my normal continuous swims.
For the speed workout, he wanted me to split it into three 500m sets with the first one easy, the next one a bit harder and the third even harder. The first set went well and for the second set, I did go faster, but it was tough and so the third set was done easy. The disappointing part though is that when I got home and looked at my times, for the second set even though I think I worked much harder, it was only about 30 seconds faster than the first 500m. That really only managed to cement in my mind that I should just accept my current swim speed especially since it’s more than fast enough to get me through the swim comfortably. In retrospect, I think the issue is that in trying to swim faster, I was losing what ever current technique I have.
On the bike, the mid-week workouts were quite complex with all sorts of intervals. I actually liked that though. I created custom workouts in Zwift and since I was constantly doing various sets and having to switch it up every 1-2 mins, it actually made the workouts on the indoor trainer much easier to tolerate. For the longer ride, the weather was very nice over the weekend so I was able to do it outdoors….always nice for longer rides.
The hardest run workout was a hill workout which I had to do on the treadmill. I hate running on the treadmill and when you combine that with a hill workout at 8-10%, it was not enjoyable.
My coach threw in a strength/core workout and I was feeling the effects of the crunches many days later.
