big sur marathon training: week 8 crosstraining workouts

The close of the week saw some injury improvements in everyday life. Right now, I don’t think I’m too near running again, but natural movements are less strenuous on my calf except for ascending stairs: my foot inadvertently flexes and it takes a heavy conscious effort to relax my foot when treading up.

Sunday, I started foam rolling the calf again. I didn’t want to overwork the region when it was still really tender, but since my pain has gone down a good deal so I want to start a routine again. I noticed immediately that my gastrocnemius (that big meaty muscle) is extremely locked up and tight and some particularly knotted areas revealed themselves under the roller. I’d imagine that contributes to the limited range of motion my leg exhibits. Hopefully, continued crosstraining and focused PT work will expedite healing.

Until then, more elliptical sessions and more time in the pool. My final week in Golden yielded some exhilarating workouts and I’m content at least that I can preserve some fitness during this off period.

Monday, 2/17: 60 minute elliptical intervals + 45 min lower body strength + 1600m swim (42:24)

Punched Monday in the noggen with a trifecta of quality sessions. Still in Golden taking massive advantage of the community center’s resources: the place truly has aided in mending my sadness about not running. Not sure what the deal is as far as improvement in my leg goes, it still feels locked up and unstable. I did, however, locate a pretty big knot around my tibialis anterior that might be worth thorough investigation with a foam roller/baseball…

Elliptical:

• 10 min hands free warmup
• 2 x 5 min moderate effort (lvl 6)/2 min hands free easy
• 10 x 1 min hard effort (lvl 8-10)/1 min hands free easy
• 4 x :30 hill (lvl 14-16)/1 min hands free easy
• 10 min hands free cooldown

Lower body strength:

• 3 x 12 step-ups/leg
• 3 x 20 kettlebell swings
• 3 x 15 chair calf raises
• 3 x 15 bosu ball knee tucks
• 3 x 30 supine banded bicycles
• 3 x 15 deadlift
• 4 x 8 double pulse goblet squats
• 3 x 40 clamshells
• 10 min foam roll/stretch

Swim:

• 400m warmup as 100 breast/100 kick/100 pull/100 free
• Set 1: 2 x 400: first round 100 breast/100 free/100 breast/100 free. Second round 75 free/25 breast until 400.
• Set 2: 4 x 50 faster free
• 200m easy freestyle cooldown

Tuesday, 2/18: 3.3K swim (1:21:36)

Lordy, was this workout an ordeal. The center must’ve treated their pool that morning or the previous evening as my eyes burned like a sonofagun from the get-go. Normally my goggle-less self is okay until the later portions of a workout, but today after 100m my irises were rather miserable and my right contact decided to flip me the bird and float away somewhere. J tried to fit me with his goggles and another lady let me borrow a pair of hers, but neither suctioned to my face correctly so I ditched them and dealt with the discomfort. Most of the intervals were breaststroke with some freestyle sprinkled in, since breast doesn’t require as much time underwater. I admittedly don’t recall all of the workout specs since I spent a lot of time at the beginning stopping and starting to attempt goggles and rub the crap out of my eyes.

• 500m warmup
• Set 1: 4 x 150m/100m/75m/50m/25m
• Set 2: 2 x 200m as 50 kick/50 pull/50 breast/50 free
• Set 3: 10 x 25m fast freestyle
• Set 4: 7 x 50 alternating breast/free
• 200m cooldown

I apparently traversed 3,300m rather than my planned 3,200 since I forgot how to count during my workout. I averaged 2:28/100m which is pretty dang good in my opinion!

Wednesday, 2/19: 65 minute elliptical intervals + quick core routine

Fit in a good session before we took off for a day of snow tubing and exploring the high altitudes of Keystone and Breckenridge! Tubing isn’t exactly a strenuous physical engagement, but the speeds we whipped down the course and the elevation of the resort rendered me quite tired and breathless by the end!

Elliptical:

• 10 min hands free warmup
• 1 x 6 min @ lvl 5/2 min hands free recovery
• 2 x 4 min @ lvl 6/2 min hands free recovery
• 4 x 2 min @ lvl 8-9/1 min hands free recovery
• 6 x 1min @ lvl 10-11/1 min hands free recovery
• Cooldown to 65 minutes

I didn’t explicitly write down my core workout, but it totaled about 22 minutes of hips, abs, calves, and 5 x 5 reps of goblet squats with a 50# dumbbell!

Thursday, 2/20: 3k swim (1:17:25)

By Thursday, I began to reconsider running specificity in my rehab workouts. My leg can only handle certain intensities and certain exercises, and as I get better I want to ensure I enjoy the recovery process as best I can so long as running is not available to me.

Leapt into the pool for some intervals. I mostly used the buoy but threw in some freestyle to test my calf, which mostly doesn’t mind flutter kicking as long as I don’t flick it too hard.

• 400m warmup
• 500m straight
• 2 x 250m
• 5 x 100m
• 6 x 75m
• 150m cooldown

Friday, 2/21: 63 minute cycling: 20.1 miles, 19.1 mph average

I forget how much sweat accumulates during a biking session! Leg had a very grumpy morning: I didn’t want to subject it to the elliptical, knew the lap lanes were limited in the community center, and didn’t want to wait too long since we had a small window of touring time before our flight that afternoon. I tried to stay in the 85-90 RPM range and 105+ watts, though during some recoveries I slipped into low cadence by accident.

• 10 min warmup
• 5 x 4 min @ hard effort/2 min easy spin recovery
• 6 x :30 hard climbs/1:30 easy spin recovery
• 13 min cooldown (I really wanted to reach 20 miles!)

Saturday, 2/22: 4000y swim (1:33:50)

Colder morning means empty lanes – about 45 degrees when I started. I had the whole pool to myself and loved every second of this workout, it built so much confidence and the return to sea level made the intervals feel effortless. I wondered throughout the day whether I have a future in triathlons, not for the first time but certainly the most thoughtfully of late.

• 400y warmup
• 8 x 25y freestyle sprints
• 100-200-300-400-300-200-100 yard steady efforts, mixed pull & free
• 4 x 50y hard freestyle
• 800y steady, mixed pull & free
• 6 x 100y moderate freestyle
• 200y easy cooldown

Sunday, 2/23: 60 min elliptical intervals + 45 min upper body lift

Surprised at the quality of this workout! I train by heart rate on the elliptical and kept my harder segments at “threshold”, zone 4, letting the recoveries fall back into “aerobic.” I’m not sure if my HR zones are completely accurate on my watch, but I’d imagine they’re decently close. My leg is okay on the elliptical so long as I don’t get happy with the resistance, particularly on the ellipticals in our condo gym since I think they’re a bit harder than the ones in Golden. A solid lift succeeded the cardio, and I ended with a good stretch on the mat.

Elliptical:

• 10 min hands free warmup
• 5 x 5 min @ lvl 5/3 min hands-free recoveries.
• 10 min hands free cooldown

Upper body strength:

• 3 x 40 banded clamshells
• 3 x 20 bird dog crunches/side
• 3 x 15 hip dips/side
• :90 plank
• 3 x 12 reverse flies
• 3 x 10 single arm front raise
• 3 x 10 dumbbell jabs
• 3 x 12 chest press
• 3 x 12 kneeling Arnold press/side
• 3 x 10 single arm dumbbell cleans
• 3 x 15 triceps dips
• 6 min cooldown stretch

Total training hours: 10.8

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