Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Week 17 (how perfect - the week 17 recap on the 17th) was good workout-wise. I notice the distances are increasing, which is fine by me. I was also kind of glad to see a brick back on my schedule after not having one for a few weeks. I have easily done more bricks in these first 17 weeks of training than I ever did in the prior two years' worth of triathlon training combined.
Even though I am not mentioning them here in my recaps, I am doing a lot of strengthening and rolling exercises that my physical therapist gave me. Back in the late Summer/early Fall, I was having some weird knee pain, which was really upsetting. I saw a PT who said my hamstrings were really tight, which was affecting the knee. So I went through a course of weekly sessions with her over a few months and it really helped. In order to keep injury at bay, I am doing my at-home exercises regularly. My coach schedules them in my training plan each week, too. Oh and it does not hurt to have a sister who is a massage therapist! She helped in the Fall and has offered to help whenever I need it for IM training.
Enough babble, here are the weekly stats:
Week 17:
Week 17 (how perfect - the week 17 recap on the 17th) was good workout-wise. I notice the distances are increasing, which is fine by me. I was also kind of glad to see a brick back on my schedule after not having one for a few weeks. I have easily done more bricks in these first 17 weeks of training than I ever did in the prior two years' worth of triathlon training combined.
Even though I am not mentioning them here in my recaps, I am doing a lot of strengthening and rolling exercises that my physical therapist gave me. Back in the late Summer/early Fall, I was having some weird knee pain, which was really upsetting. I saw a PT who said my hamstrings were really tight, which was affecting the knee. So I went through a course of weekly sessions with her over a few months and it really helped. In order to keep injury at bay, I am doing my at-home exercises regularly. My coach schedules them in my training plan each week, too. Oh and it does not hurt to have a sister who is a massage therapist! She helped in the Fall and has offered to help whenever I need it for IM training.
Enough babble, here are the weekly stats:
Week 17:
Swam: 1:42 hours (4,850 yards)
Biked: 3:39 hours (all on trainer, but my watch says 52.05 miles)
Ran: 2:56 hours (19.94 miles)
Workouts:
Monday - swim
Tuesday - bike with LT and "shake out" run
Wednesday - long swim with speed
Thursday - easy run
Friday - easy brick
Saturday - long run
Sunday - long bike with VO2 Max pick-ups
My Monday swim is one I've done a million times: a mix of easy long (i.e., 400 yard) intervals and a handful of shorter (100 yard) fast intervals. There was nothing remarkable about this swim: it wasn't amazing and it wasn't awful. It was ok.
Tuesday's workout was great. I needed a hard bike that morning and I got it. LT is "lactic threshold", which basically means a very hard effort where you're sweating a lot and your heart rate is very elevated. This particular workout was 20 minutes at endurance (easy) pace followed by three 10-minute intervals at LT pace. After the bike I had a 2 mile "shake out" run.
Wednesday's swim had me scared. It was a 200 yard warm-up followed by five 500-yard intervals. But, it was great. My coach broke up the 500 yards by having me do 200 easy/50 hard/200 easy/50 hard. It totally broke up those 500 yards and made it pretty fun! I always sing to myself when I do these long intervals, and in this workout I changed up the songs with each 500. I am counting down the days until I can swim outside again in Marsh Creek.
Thursday was an easy 50 minute run. I was supposed to have my 85 minute long run on this day (and this 50 minute number on Saturday), but given my work and kid schedule, I asked my coach if I could swap the two and do my long run on Saturday. He did so, but told me he didn't want me to get in the habit of having a long run and long bike back to back like they were this week. It was super cold on Thursday morning, so I opted to do the run on the treadmill. After running weeks at a time for 75 minutes on the treadmill, a 50 minute run felt like nothing.
Friday was an "easy brick" of 40 minutes endurance pace on the bike and 20 minute endurance pace on the run. This was, well, easy. I love endurance pace on the bike because I can catch up on my email and texts. For the run, I hit a wooded trail near my house, which is finally not snow covered. The trail is just over 2 miles from start to finish, so it was perfect for this workout.
Saturday. I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to my long run, which was 10 miles (87 minutes) -- the longest run I've done since the Philly Marathon. I'm always happy when I'm running (unless it is a long run on the treadmill) but my long runs outside are my favorite. I took this one to the Schuylkill River Trail, which is where I spend a lot of time training in the Spring, Summer and Fall. I love it because it's pretty, it's safe, it's flat, it's always got other people on it, it's closed to traffic so I don't have to worry about cars (but I do have to worry about bikes!), and it's loooong (it goes from Phoenixville all the way to Manayunk). After the past few weeks, I really needed to bang out some long miles, so this was a little gift.
Sunday's bike was fine. It was 11 intervals of 9 minute endurance pace + 1 minute of VO2 Max pace with a 10 minute endurance cool-down. VO2 Max is essentially all out balls to the wall effort -- it's intense and is supposed to fully tax your aerobic energy system. It really did. It was a super long ride at 2 hours. But it flew by because when I bike at endurance pace I can email and text and read, which is exactly what I did.
My Monday swim is one I've done a million times: a mix of easy long (i.e., 400 yard) intervals and a handful of shorter (100 yard) fast intervals. There was nothing remarkable about this swim: it wasn't amazing and it wasn't awful. It was ok.
Tuesday's workout was great. I needed a hard bike that morning and I got it. LT is "lactic threshold", which basically means a very hard effort where you're sweating a lot and your heart rate is very elevated. This particular workout was 20 minutes at endurance (easy) pace followed by three 10-minute intervals at LT pace. After the bike I had a 2 mile "shake out" run.
Wednesday's swim had me scared. It was a 200 yard warm-up followed by five 500-yard intervals. But, it was great. My coach broke up the 500 yards by having me do 200 easy/50 hard/200 easy/50 hard. It totally broke up those 500 yards and made it pretty fun! I always sing to myself when I do these long intervals, and in this workout I changed up the songs with each 500. I am counting down the days until I can swim outside again in Marsh Creek.
Thursday was an easy 50 minute run. I was supposed to have my 85 minute long run on this day (and this 50 minute number on Saturday), but given my work and kid schedule, I asked my coach if I could swap the two and do my long run on Saturday. He did so, but told me he didn't want me to get in the habit of having a long run and long bike back to back like they were this week. It was super cold on Thursday morning, so I opted to do the run on the treadmill. After running weeks at a time for 75 minutes on the treadmill, a 50 minute run felt like nothing.
Friday was an "easy brick" of 40 minutes endurance pace on the bike and 20 minute endurance pace on the run. This was, well, easy. I love endurance pace on the bike because I can catch up on my email and texts. For the run, I hit a wooded trail near my house, which is finally not snow covered. The trail is just over 2 miles from start to finish, so it was perfect for this workout.
Saturday. I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to my long run, which was 10 miles (87 minutes) -- the longest run I've done since the Philly Marathon. I'm always happy when I'm running (unless it is a long run on the treadmill) but my long runs outside are my favorite. I took this one to the Schuylkill River Trail, which is where I spend a lot of time training in the Spring, Summer and Fall. I love it because it's pretty, it's safe, it's flat, it's always got other people on it, it's closed to traffic so I don't have to worry about cars (but I do have to worry about bikes!), and it's loooong (it goes from Phoenixville all the way to Manayunk). After the past few weeks, I really needed to bang out some long miles, so this was a little gift.
It was a little chilly in the morning, so I wore my new SOAS arm warmers and a short sleeved shirt. These arm warmers are great - they have a little slit for your thumb and a hidden mitten that can fold over your hands if it's cold. I wore the mitten for the first two miles and then warmed up.
See you swoon,
Love the Schuylkill River Trail! That was my wife and I's first date. We rollerbladed from Betzwood Park to Manayunk and back(~30 miles?) in 100+ degree temps. Good times!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work...Only 19 more weeks to go! :)