week in training | 3.15 – 3.21

I am a firm believer that the warmup period of any workout is the absolute worst. Cycling has made that quite apparent lately. I take about 15-20 minutes of higher RPE than warranted before my body finally realizes what its doing and is able to regulate my breathing, muscle power, and heart rate. Everything is out of whack before that point and nearly makes me give up each time. I’m sure I’d benefit from doing activation exercises like I’ve been trying out before my runs. Perhaps it’ll make the transition from stagnance to movement less jarring.

Almost 40 miles of running this week, including two solid workouts, and a blessed down week in the biking realm. I’ve lost a lot of motivation for the century plan I was following and more or less skip each of the long rides, somewhat because of time constraints and interest in maintaining my run and swim training effectively, and somewhat because my attention span is pea-sized on the new trainer. I do still try to get in the saddle 5-6 days for at least 60 minutes, and find that well and good for me. It’s pretty fun to see my wattage for easy rides climb up with increased use of the mechanism!

Monday, 3.15: 9 miles, 10:04 pace + 25.5 miles, 23.5 mph cycling (1:05:08)

Woke up irrationally mad about something that didn’t impact me at all on this day, so I spent the whole run letting my legs wheel until I didn’t feel like it anymore and the monologue died down. Apparently, 90 minutes was my cutoff. Jumped on the bike after for an aerobic ride made much tougher by my AC kicking off prematurely due to the time change. Need to reset the schedule so I don’t burn on my next ride! I averaged 135 watts.

Tuesday, 3.16: 38.69 miles, 24.4 mph cycling (1:35:09) + 2,500 yard swim (54:37)

Longest swim in quite some time! I averaged 1:57/100 yards and boy, was my endurance level not ready for that distance. I chose a set of 20 x 100 as my main workout and fell from a solid 1:53-1:55 pace to 1:57-1:58 by the end. My last rep clocked in at 2:00. Oops. Kept a decent 42 SWOLF and didn’t completely collapse so I’m not dissatisfied, and it was a gorgeous day to be in the water.

I switched up the ride a bit and performed 3 x 10 minute tempo efforts around 150-155W. 139W total average for the ride.

Wednesday, 3.17: 13.01 miles, 9:17 pace + 45 minute strength + 1,700 yard swim (39:15)

Surprisingly delightful run! It wasn’t pretty outside, about 70 degrees and very humid, but I felt like putting a kick of speed into my long run. I programmed a workout I loathed on the bike – 3 x :30 sprint immediately into a 10 minute tempo run – but modified my tempo pace to the weather conditions. I added about 20 seconds to my usual 7:50-7:55 paces but actually managed faster! I warmed up for 30 minutes with 3 x 1 minute in the 7:3x area, then hit 6:42, 6:33, and 6:45 for the sprints with the tempo intervals averaging around 8:03-8:05. A 40 minute cooldown brought me to 13 miles.

Swim wasn’t meant for much more than loosening the legs, and boy did my limbs get lazy. 6 x 100, 6 x 75, 6 x 50 with no real time goal in mind, averaged a 2:00/100 yard split and a 43 SWOLF.

Strength:

• 3 x 10 front raise
• 3 x 8 deadlift
• 3 x 8 single leg overhead press
• 3 x 5 tick tock lunges
• 3 x 12 bench press
• 3 x 12 hip thrust
• 3 x 12 overhead triceps press
• 3 x :40 hollow rock holds
• 3 x 20 plank shoulder taps
• 3 x 16 dumbbell drags
• 3 x 20 medicine ball jacknives
• 2 x :90 plank

Thursday, 3.18: 38.41 miles, 23 mph cycling (1:40:00) + 6 miles, 10:07 pace

I’m noticing a trend of rides feeling uncomfortable and I think much of that has to do with the increasing ambient humidity and heat. I turn the AC down quite a bit but when it becomes nastier outside the conditions inside don’t improve much even with modifications. I need to set my fan up finally, I believe. The lack of airflow is not helping my cause and getting some circulation should help. I averaged 132W.

80 degrees, 25+ mph wind gusts, and a 72 dew point greeted me for my post-work run. Not pleasant, but I managed.

Friday, 3.19: 30.61 miles, 24.5 mph cycling (1:15:00) + 2,200 yard swim (46:17)

J set up the box fan Thursday night for his own ride and what a massive difference the airflow made! I maintained a steady 140+ wattage until a final 15 minute kick at 160-170W, good for an average 143W over the ride. I also distracted myself watching cooking YouTube videos which made the time absolutely fly. I finished off with a quick core set of 3 x 40 butterfly kicks, 3 x 12 elevated bird dogs, 3 x 20 toe reaches, 3 x 10 side plank crunch to lateral raise, and 3 x 20 banded elevated abductions (adductions?)

The swim felt really strong despite my humble 2:02/100 yard pace and 43 SWOLF. I kept up my effort during the warmup and wound up with a 1,000 yard interval in 20 minutes, which tuckered me out pretty niftily so I kept the remaining sets at 400 yards or below. I haven’t swam more than a 600 yard interval in quick awhile so it was pretty satisfying to manage that distance straight through!

Saturday, 3.20: 8.29 miles, 9:39 pace + 1 hour strength

Nice switchup from weekend long runs! It’s nice to not have to bother with a 2+ hour jaunt on Saturdays and completely wipe myself out from the duration. I decided to plug in a set of 8 x :30 hill sprints to this workout as something of a neuromuscular stimulator without the commitment of an interval set. They went quite well overall, each landing in the 6:2x – 6:3x range. During the warmup I threw down a random tempo mile at 7:43 because my legs felt springy and it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Strength:

• 3 x 10 squat
• 3 x 12 dumbbell swing
• 3 x 10 bent over row
• 3 x 10 alt. sit down squat
• 3 x 12 ea. windmill
• 3 x 10 pushup SS 20 shoulder tap
• 3 x :90 plank
• 3 x 15 rainbow
• 3 x :45 side plank
• 3 x 20 v-ups
• 3 x 30 jackknives
• :90 boat hold
• 10 min elliptical

Sunday, 3.21: 24.15 miles, 24.1 mph cycling (1:00:00) + 3.38 miles, 10:20 pace brick run + 2,200 yard swin (48:05)

I ate FAR too much Guinness bread the night before and felt quite restless and unsettled most of my sleeping hours. Strangely, the bike felt worse on my gut than the run. I wasn’t intending to do the prescribed workout, which was simply a 2 x 2 minute zone 5 effort, but I got into a decent rhythm on the tail end of the session so I opted to give it a go. I ranged somewhere between 190-210W for the intervals, and probably could’ve gone harder. Total average for the ride was 140W.

Main set of the swim was 10 x 50 all between 52-53 seconds. Otherwise, I did a mix of intervals as usual and landed a 1:55/100 yard average and 41 SWOLF. One day I’ll sub-40!

Total running mileage: 39.7

Total cycling mileage: 157.4

Total swimming yardage: 8,600 yards