week in training | 7.26 – 8.1

63 miles and my first 20 mile training run! The heat this week was insane – 80s nearly every morning and 76+ dew points. There’s some sort of weather phenomenon happening around the country that’s spiking temperatures up everywhere (I don’t pretend to understand meteorology so I’ll refrain from speculating) and such has made our conditions even more unbearable than normal. Lots of particularly slow miles and some trouble mitigating the impacts of summer running, but overall a solid week of build.

Monday, 7.26: 12 miles, 10:03 pace + 45 min strength

Marathon pace miles that went super well! I had a broad range programmed into my watch and hit the upper-middle edge of it, but I was more concerned about ensuring the proper effort level. I felt like I really nailed it and was strong the entire way! 40 minutes, almost 4.5 miles, splits at 8:58, 8:54, 8:56, 8:54, and the last bit at 8:50.

Strength:

• 4 x 4 single leg deadlift
• 3 x 8 curtsy lunge
• 3 x 10 suitcase squat
• 3 x 12 stability ball hamstring curls
• 3 x 8 ea. shoulder press
• 3 x 10 triceps extension
• 3 x 10 ea. standing band clamshells
• 3 x 10 alt. lateral hops with extension
• 4 x 10 bench leg drops with hip raise

Tuesday, 7.27: 6.1 miles, 10:48 pace + 1,750 yard swim (35:25)

Easy recovery miles and then I decided to wait an hour at the pool to get a lane! I wasn’t so annoyed by the wait itself than by the ladies who ignored the fact that I’d gotten there first and jumped in a lane as soon as it opened up. I guess I should expect any sort of courtesy from anyone in a public arena. Regardless, I snagged a second lane that freed right after and swam a solid 1500 yard set (29:55! Sub-30 for the first time!) and a 250 cooldown. 2:00/100 yard average and a 43 SWOLF.

Wednesday, 7.28: 9.63 miles, 9:52 pace + 45 min strength

I watched lightning streak in the distance all morning so I ran the same stretch back and forth for my intervals to make sure I didn’t go too far out. All in all I had a good session: 2 x 1 mile threshold – 7:40, 7:31, 2 x 400 – 1:44, 1:45. The second threshold mile I screwed up my pacing badly as I passed a familiar dude I see a lot on the trail and shouted back and forth with him for a second, which inadvertently caused me to speed to a sub-7 pace! It took the whole interval to moderate my pace so I sort of flopped on that front, but the split was still pretty awesome to see.

I tried to swim after breakfast but the weather did not permit such a venture. I made it 300 yards before the rain pummeled down and I jumped out of the pool anticipating a whistle from the lifeguard. The whistle came later, but the guy claimed he heard thunder when absolutely no one heard a single rumble. About 15 minutes after (I could’ve finished my swim in that time!) a huge bolt cracked nearby, but I think the guy just didn’t want to work so he cleared the pool area. Rude.

Strength:

• 4 x 5 power clean
• 3 x 16 alt. pistol squat
• 3 x 8 reverse fly
• 3 x 8 row
• 3 x 10 ea. side lunge
• 3 x 10 biceps curl
• 3 x 10 push-outs (?)
• 3 x 10 ea. windmill
• 3 x 10 ea. standing clamshells
• 3 x 30 ab bike
• 3 x 10 banded lateral hop

Thursday, 7.29: 6.01 miles, 10:57 pace + 4.21 miles, 10:41 pace

Double run day and BOTH times I managed to evade some wicked storms. The first run, as yesterday, the lightning crept closer so I rerouted somewhere with more cover in case the clouds ripped open. Didn’t happen. During the second run I watched the black masses surrounding downtown sit seemingly stagnant for all 45 minutes, and only when I finished did they proceed forth and smack the city with temporarily heavy rainfall. I was really lucky to finish when I did else I would’ve been soaked!

Friday, 7.30: 20.75 miles, 22.6 mph cycling (55:00) + 1,550 yard swim ( ~31:55)

My watch decided to randomly reboot in the middle of my swim! I saw one of the intervals but for some reason it didn’t properly record in my app, so I had to do two separate swim workout programs to get all the yardage in. I ended up probably around a 42 SWOLF and a 1:56/1:57 average. 2 x 400 – 7:56, 7:58, 2 x 100 – 1:50, 1:49, 4 x :50 – 52, 51, 50, 51 or maybe less but the last rep wasn’t recorded – 300 cooldown. Not the first time my watch has behaved like this during a swim.

The bike ride was really nice and I focused primarily on keeping my cadence as close to 90 RPM as possible. I averaged 87, which is pretty good! I performed 6 x 1 minute at 100+ RPM/2 minute recovery, and averaged 130W for the ride.

Saturday, 7.31: 20.1 miles, 10:57 pace

A 20 miler! What a day! Temps ranged from 82-85 with insane humidity and a dew point of at least 76 throughout. I think it even climbed to 78 at the end. I broke this run up into “checkpoints” and internally played the Mario level-up sound every time I finished a loop. This little mental game helped a ton, especially in the very tough final 7 miles or so. The sunrise brought a huge challenge and my heart rate spiked very early, but I kept a pretty steady effort overall with miles ranging in the 10:4x-11:0x range. I don’t even care about how slow I was. I finished healthy and undamaged and that’s really all I can ask.

Sunday, 8.1: 5.09 miles, 11:47 pace

Broke in some New Balance 1080s for this run and while the stack height is something I’m not used to, the shoes overall felt great. Slow Run Sunday averaged a 139 bpm. I was certainly not in the mood to go on the faster range of my recovery speed. My legs were much looser afterwards even though throughout the day I definitely felt the fatigue of Saturday’s long run.

Total running mileage: 63.1

Total cycling mileage: 20.8

Total swimming yardage: 3,550