week in training | 7.7-7.12

This week we saw an intense heat wave beyond what is the norm for Florida summer – think 85 degrees and 77+ dew points at 5 am. Such made running pretty miserable for the most part, aside from my comfortable indoor treadmill sessions, which I’m coming to really appreciate now that our weather is taking the spark out of my training. I can tolerate heat to a point, and up until maybe mid June did fine with the increasingly crazy conditions, but now not even a breeze can redeem my morning adventures.

This week, I succumbed to a full-blown rest day on Sunday, which felt so wonderful and certainly necessary after several weeks of increasing mileage. I didn’t work this whole week, which made some longer workouts more feasible, but I think I can maintain around 40-45 miles of running relatively easily if I budget my time well.

Monday, 7/6: 32.05 miles, 16 mph cycling (2 hours) + 3.5 miles, 8:56 pace brick run

My legs barked at me through this whole ride but especially when I tried to throw in 3 x 8 minute tempo efforts – they were certainly NOT happy about this attempt. I crashed for a good 5 miles so I justified the slowness by ramping to a higher gear and “climbing” some hills. This, and the arrival of a Clif Bar nourishment, seemed to get my legs going again after a few miles of serious struggle. Brick run afterwards went surprisingly well, and once I saw the 9:09 split for the first mile I decided to descend to until the effort felt hard enough without me totally forcing it. The next two splits were 8:52 and 8:35.

I also splashed around in our apartment pool for maybe 400 yards, but didn’t keep track or take it seriously.

Tuesday, 7/7: 7.19 miles, 10:27 pace + 1,800 yard swim (37:45)

I had high hopes for the swim when I started, but those quickly got dashed with each 400 yard split. I frustrated myself enough to later take my camera out to our apartment pool to film my swimming form (and try a new pair of goggles, which I loved!) I noticed immediately how poor my upper torso rotation is, possibly resulting from a lack of elbow bend. I’d imagine one causes the other and vice versa. I also know my leg kick is fairly weak. Seeing these things in front of me was quite helpful and now I’m fairly determined to find drills and strength routines that might help this malfunction.

Wednesday, 7/8: 30 miles, 15.9 mph cycling (1:53:02) + 1 hour strength training + 4.42 miles, 10:12 pace

Kicked off the morning on Pittor for some interval fun. I haven’t done proper workouts on the trainer consistently, which sort of characterizes my training in general anyway, but I wanted to get a focused set in to see where I’m at. I warmed up for 20 minutes with 3 x :90 cadence drills, then performed 2 x 15 minutes at a tempo effort (wound up at 16.3 mph for both sets) with 10 minute recoveries. Spun for 10 more minutes, then 2 x 5 minutes at 88+ RPM (16.5-16.6 mph average) with 3 minute recoveries. 10 minute mixed hilly spin, then a cooldown to hit 30 miles.

Treadmill run came after breakfast and I’m not sure how it went, really. My HRM bugged quite early and eventually settled on a series of much higher numbers than I expected. I didn’t feel overworked except my breathing, but not in the way I normally breathe in tougher moments: it felt as if my breath was quite literally stuck and wouldn’t come out. Very odd. I’ve been fighting some brand of bug lately (still waiting to know what it is or isn’t) and wonder if its hanging around enough to be disruptive on random occasions. Either way, I kept the paces relaxed but put the treadmill on a setting to go from 0-3.5% grades to slowly introduce myself to consistent gradients.

For strength, I focused on core stability and controlled rotational movements!

Strength: 3 rounds of each exercise.

• 12 side lunge with rotation
• 16 squat twists
• 20 SL calf raises
• 15 kneeling cross-body raises (these are SO good for the glutes!)
• 20 plank rolls/10 side plank reach-throughs
• 30 weighted Russian twists/30 X toe taps
• 20 dumbbell hikes
• 20 Supermans
• 30 head-up flutter kicks
• 20 hip hikes with side crunch

Thursday, 7/9: 9.11 miles, 10:51 pace + 1,700 yard swim (34:53)

Neither of these workouts felt particularly awesome, especially the run. My heart rate and body mostly felt fine except for that odd breathing issue and some dizziness. Maybe it’s the bug I’ve been fighting, the extreme heat (it was 82 with a dew point of 77 or 78 when I started), or a combination of both. Either way, that was the slowest I’ve done in awhile and it was quite dissatisfying.

Swim went pretty well overall except the lingering run disorientation. I started with 400 yards, then performed 4 x 25 yard sprints (all around :25), another 400 interval, 4 x 100 alternating 100 pull/100 free, 4 x 50 as 25 closed-fist/25 free, and cooled down with 200 easy. I focused most on exaggerating my hip rotation and when I did it right, I felt a ton less strain in my shoulders and a much more effortless stroke. Certainly will take a lot more practice!

Friday, 7/10: 20.06 miles, 16.2 mph cycling (1:14:29) + 5.28 miles, 9:28 pace + 45 minute strength training

I fueled before the ride with a slightly higher calorie Clif Bar in Caramel Macchiato (as opposed to my usual stroopwafel), and I’m not sure if that jolted me or what, but my ride felt phenomenal! I pedaled along strongly the entire way, and even threw in 5 miles at tempo effort for the middle portion.

Since the ride went so well I chose to put a bit of speed into my run thereafter. I ended up rather disappointed with my splits, as I was trying to run intuitively and be mindful of the heat, but I don’t think I pushed myself as much as I could’ve. I ran a bit over a mile to warmup, then cycled through 5 x :90 (all within the 8s somewhere)/:30 (all within the mid-high 7s) with 2 minute recoveries after, followed by 5 x :30 from 7:00-7:38 pace with :30 walking recoveries.

Strength: Each exercise 3x through

• 10 deadlifts
• 10 single-leg deadlifts
• 2 x 10 shoulder press, 1 x 4 shoulder press (on the right side with heavier weight, couldn’t manage it on the left so I did an extra set of 8 on the left with lower weight)
• 15 chest flies
• 15 reverse chops
• 20 squat step-out press (with band)
• 15 single-arm kb swing
• 20 triceps pulses
• 15 side plank crunches
• :90 plank

Saturday, 7/11: 13.1 miles, 10:48 pace

Terrible, miserable morning. 84 degrees and a 78 dew point upon starting at 5a, and my paces certainly showed that this extreme heat is very hard to acclimate to. Still, the effort felt doable until about mile 11 when the sun came up and my body had enough, though I stuck it out for the final two miles and mile 13 actually felt the best of any before. I think I hit a black hole every run between miles 10-12, and afterwards something snaps and I have a much better rhythm. Nothing can make up for the horrible conditions, however.

Sunday, 7/12: Total REST!

This whole week my body poked me in favor of taking a rest day. I usually don’t feel the need to lay completely off workouts, since most of my sessions are rather low intensity despite their length, but the high mileage of the past two or three weeks must’ve slapped some extra fatigue on me finally. I had such an enjoyable day without training: I woke up much later (nearly 10 hours of sleep logged! Unreal), had a lovely 40 minute gentle yoga session, and cooked up blueberry buckwheat pancakes. J and I decided to cruise to a park nearby for a one hour hike, about two miles total, so I got some steps in while veering away from any formal workouts.

Total running mileage: 42.6

Total biking mileage: 82.1

Total swimming yardage: 3,500