week in training | 2.1 – 2.7
Good little training week! No niggles to speak of, lots of cycling mileage and one big swim that wound up being my only one these seven days but it was a nice one. I wanted to add a second on Sunday but opted to get off the downtown roads immediately after work so to avoid any potential Super Bowl rush. I moved quite a few of my scheduled bike rides around to accommodate my other obligations yet somehow squeezed them all in without much fuss!
I’ve enjoyed fewer days of running but generally longer durations, perhaps because I have a lot of ideas to sift through and stress to leave on the asphalt which takes a good deal more mileage than a normal day’s work. I still average around 30 miles a week with the four days worked in, and my body seems to be responding okay, so while my cycling mileage is reaching upwards this will likely remain my base.
Monday, 2.1: 4.37 miles, 10:19 pace + 25.01 miles, 16.4 mph cycling (1:31:30)
Windy miles with very heavy legs, though they loosened up okay by the end. A cold front brought a big shield of rain that slickened the walkways but the weather had cleared hours before and I didn’t run into any further storm issues. After, I completed a 3 x 15 minute tempo session on the bike that went okay but not great. My heartrate climbed pretty far into zone 4 – I was meant to keep it zone 3 – and I attached my toe clips wrong so the bolts fell off one by one during the session. Lesson learned there!
Tuesday, 2.2: 32 miles, 16.1 mph cycling (1:59:17) + 2,200 yard swim (43:19)
I was so chilly when I rolled into my bike shorts that I wore a cardigan the first 10 minutes or so of the ride while I warmed up, and ran the heater throughout. Comfortable zone 2 spin averaging 137 bpm with a few zone 3 pickups here and there for the heck of it. After work I braved the strong and quite cold winds for a swim, most elongated since I didn’t want to get out of the warm pool! I swam a cycle of 200 easy/100 fast, with the quicker intervals between 1:49 and 1:51.
Wednesday, 2.3: 12.74 miles, 9:25 pace
Midweek long run with some aerobic speed injection! I REALLY need to get back on the short and fast train but today wasn’t the day for that. I went through three miles before I decided I was too cold to keep running easy, so I sped up for 3 miles at marathon goal effort (8:37, 8:25, 8:22), recovered one mile, then polished off my workout with 2 miles at tempo (7:59, 7:53) before a cooldown to reach two hours. My hands froze and my nose would not stop running even when I did, but the workout went pretty nicely. I still can’t believe my tempo runs are in the 7s now!
Thursday, 2.4: 25.62 miles, 16.2 mph cycling (1:35:00) + 27.46 miles, 16.5 mph cycling (1:40:00)
Split up my planned three hour ride into a morning and midday session, and squeeze in a bit more mileage than I would’ve otherwise accumulated. Overall decent rides but I was definitely depleted from my work shift during the second one and my legs were quite tired.
Friday, 2.5: 6.38 miles, 10:11 pace + 65 minute strength
I ventured out around 4 am for this run, and a surprising flurry of activity occurred on my route! The Super Bowl credential area seems to be open 24 hours, for there were plenty of guards and workers otherwise hanging around. One of the hotels also had some sentries posted outside, which makes me wonder if that’s where the Chiefs players might be staying? I had some weird issues regulating my breathing for a lot of this run and my heart rate monitor crapped out for a few minutes, but I kept my mind occupied and the miles overall flew by.
Strength:
- 5 minute elliptical warmup
- 4 x 15 swings
- 4 x 12 side lunge per side
- 4 x 10 hang power clean
- 5′ elliptical
- 4 x 20 calf raise/15 good morning superset
- 4 x 16 curtsy lunge
- 3 x 15 standing hip extension
- 3 x 30 plank knee tap
- 3 x 15 weighted oblique crunch
- 5′ elliptical cooldown
Saturday, 2.6: 8.01 miles, 10:37 pace + 22.29 miles, 16.7 mph cycling (1:20:00)
Easy miles on very stiff legs, my heart rate graph was really funky as the bpm actually fell as I went due to me slowing down in the middle miles. I decided to plug through the warmup of the cycling workout I skipped yesterday to gauge how a tempo ride might go, and I felt okay surprisingly so I went with the scheduled session: 3 x 15 tempo. I averaged 17.2, 17, and 17 mph for the sets and mostly kept it zone 3 except for the last interval.
Sunday, 2.7: 18 miles, 16.7 mph cycling (1:04:34) + 17 miles, 16.7 mph cycling (1:01:11)
Split training with 3 sets of 4 x 1 minute zone 5 intervals in the morning and a zone 2 ride after work and before Super Bowl fun! I averaged between 19.8 and 20.1 mph for the interval sets and hit 181 bpm as my max heart rate, which for an indoor ride is pretty good.
Total cycling mileage: 167.38
Total running mileage: 31.5
Total swimming yardage: 2,200
