Weekly Review

This week started off with some bad news. The swimming pool that I normally swim at will be closed the week of March 11 for maintenance. This led me to try and find an alternative pool to swim at. Using Swimmers Guide, I was able to find a 25yd pool that is about 5 mins further than my current pool and more expensive at $5 per day. Even though I bought an annual pass for my current pool, the drop-in rate is only $2 per day. I decided to give it a try for Tuesday’s swim. It worked out well and it was odd in that the time and swim just seemed easier. I don’t know if the change of scenery made a difference. Anyway, it’s a good back-up pool and I’ll swim there while my regular pool is closed. The other thing about this alternate pool is that the lap hours are 7-8pm instead of 8-9pm so it means I don’t get home and have go to bed right away

Running went well this week with my longest run yet at 11 miles. For that run, at about the 6-mile mark, I started to get some left-hip pain. I thought it was like the previous week where at mile 9.5, everything started to hurt. But, shortly after that, I moved on to some sidewalk that was cambered the opposite way and the pain stopped. I was running on the road when the pain started, on the left side so my left leg was lower than my right leg. I spent the rest of my run looking for roads and sidewalks that would allow me to run either level or with my left side higher than my right and it turned out well. I didn’t have any pain for the remainder of the run.

The weather did not cooperate this weekend and it was cold so I had to do my long ride indoors. My long ride was scheduled for 2 hrs and 15 mins. I managed to get through most of it by watching a movie, but even then I ended up stopping at 1 hr 50 mins. I will call that a win. It was a BRICK workout so I ran 3 miles after the ride. The run felt great and I barely had a jelly leg feeling. I was sure to start off at my slow pace and not let me legs take me a higher than normal pace.

I ended the week at 11 hrs of training time

This week was a recovery week, but it sure didn’t feel like it. Thursday was supposed to be an easy 1hr ride but I just felt so drained, I only managed 30 mins. That is typical of how my Thursday’s feel, but I didn’t expect that on a recovery week.

The good thing is by the weekend I had a couple good workouts. The Friday rest day really helped. I ran 10 miles on Saturday and felt great for 9.5 of those miles. For the last 5 mins or so, everything was hurting….hips, glutes etc. I picked up the pace slightly which helped engage different muscles and felt a little better. After the run, I was out whole day at my son’s Destination Imagination event, not getting home until around 9pm. The day involved a lot of walking which didn’t allow me to rest and recover as much as I would typically do on a weekend.

Sunday was a long day. I started off by doing some scuba diving in a pool. It wasn’t really strenuous, but I had to get up early and so didn’t get as much rest or sleep as I would on a weekend. I still did my 2:15 hr long ride and that too felt good. I took 3 gels with me but didn’t actually eat any of them. Not sure if that was good or bad, but I didn’t bonk or anything.

This weekend I thought I actually had 8 weeks left to my event, but after rechecking, I realize it’s only 7 weeks away. It is approaching FAST!

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.