week in training | 2.22 – 2.28

Continuing difficulties with my Wahoo Tickr forced me to run with just my wrist-based monitor this week, but surprisingly it picked up my bpm quite well. I used to have a lot of issues with the optical HRM but perhaps it picked up patterns from my chest strap data and works better now. Not sure if that’s how those things go but I’ll take it. I’m mostly concerned with having the Wahoo work well on the bike since my Garmin will absolutely not detect any semblance of heartrate in those sessions, instead locking onto cadence. I just want some consistency, damn it!

In happy news, J got us a new bike trainer which arrives on March 1! I CANNOT WAIT! It’s a Saris direct drive smart trainer so calibration will be far easier and the wear and tire on my rear tire will be a nonfactor with indoor training. Maybe now I’ll actually have some workable data to see how I improve over time!

Monday, 2.22: 7.65 miles, 10:27 pace + 20 miles, 16.2 mph cycling (1:14:06)

Fatigue and leg heaviness made this run feel a bit more of a slog than normal, but still felt okay after 20 minutes or so. I spent the ride largely distracted by something I was trying to write, hence the miles whizzed by nicely. My Wahoo lost connection with my watch at the start, so much of my data was screwy by the end – for some reason, when my watch loses my chest strap, it detects my cadence instead – but I fixed it fairly promptly instead of allowing my whole ride to become skewed.

Tuesday, 2.23: 24.77 miles, 16.4 mph cycling (1:30:00) + 2,250 yard swim (45:00)

Today my heart rate monitor was screwed for the first 20 minutes of my ride, reading heart rates of over 200! Naturally, this quite frustrated me, but luckily this ride was a bit easier to do off effort. 3 x pyramids: 3 minutes zone 3, 2 minutes zone 4, 1 minute zone 5, 2 minutes zone 4, 3 minutes zone 3, with 5 minute recovery spins between. Brutal!

After work swim was slooooooooooow but pleasant. 2 x 300 yards, 2 x 200, 2 x 100, 2 x 200, 8 x 50, 2 x 100 cooldown for a 2:00/100 yard average.

Wednesday, 2.24: 10.03 miles, 8:58 pace + 16.22 miles, 16.2 mph cycling (1:00:00)

Copied my bike pyramid session from yesterday and translated it to the road. This workout was HARD and I missed 2/3 of my one minute interval goals, but hit the others! 3 x 3 minutes at tempo, 2 minutes at 10k, 1 minute at 5k, 2 minutes at 10k, 3 minutes at tempo, with 5 minute recoveries in between. The 3 minute intervals clocked in at 8:01, 7:55, 7:58, 7:57, 7:54, and 7:56, the 2 minutes at 7:51, 7:50, 7:46, 7:50, 7:47, and 7:50, and the 1 minutes at 7:33, 7:34, and a rogue 7:20. The bike was a nondescript hour of spinning, during which I amended my grocery list and dinner plans for the week!

Thursday, 2.25: 6.38 miles, 10:11 pace + 2,000 yard swim (39:00)

My day did not start out well, I actually put myself in a fairly bad mindset by riling myself up with fictitious monologues during my run. Thankfully, by the end of the workday things switched gears and I went to the pool with a clear head. The pool was strangely empty for such a gorgeous day, and I finished with a 1:57/100 yard average and a lengthy casual chat with the lifeguard on duty. He told me I need to start doing pulling drills if my kick is the problem with my form – which I know, but I’m too stubborn, man! One day I’ll remember to bring my board out of the car.

Friday, 2.26: 25 miles, 15.9 mph cycling (1:34:34) + 1 hour strength

I roughly recalibrated the bike last night after J switched mine off for his, so the speeds were somewhat off. The effort, however, was not. This workout was very difficult and I did not nail it whatsoever, but I kept my heart rate in the appropriate zones. 3 x :30 zone 5 sprint immediately followed by 10 minutes in zone 4. The first rep I near failed the last few minutes since the bike gear was too hard, so I shifted down to keep my RPM up. You live and you learn!

Strength:

• 5 minute elliptical warmup
• 3 x 10 hang power clean and press
• 3 x 10 barbell row
• 4 x 5 “tick tock squat” (alt. front squat and back squat, 10 reps total)
• 3 x 10 single leg glute bridge
• 4 x 5 weighted jump squat
• 4 x 5 decline pushup
• 3 x 10 skullcrusher
• 3 x 10 weighted step-ups
• 3 x 20 clamshells
• 3 x 20 band step-outs with press
• 8 minute elliptical cooldown

Saturday, 2.27: 14.34 miles, 10:07 pace

Sore and sweaty described this run, but it wasn’t overbad. For some reason I grew very hungry by mile 7 and lower on energy, but got through the workout without crashing and enjoyed a batch of waffles on the couch with J some time later. Peaceful day overall, J grilled a lot of goodies for lunches and that night’s dinner and I lazed around after a trip to the grocery store for snacks.

Sunday, 2.28: 16 miles, 15.9 mph cycling (1:00:24) + 2,300 yard swim (45:29)

Swim after work felt amazing! I actually relented and did some kick sets and they were HARD. After a 300 warmup I performed two rounds of 4 x 25 kick, 4 x 50 pull, 200-150-100-75-50-25 free, and cooled down with 2 x 100 for a 1:59/100 yard average. My working sets were all respectable splits but the kicks definitely slowed me down. Still, longer than I expected to swim particularly with how busy it was at the pool.

Total running mileage: 38.4

Total cycling mileage: 102

Total swimming yardage: 6,550