So I am going to start logging my daily workouts from here on out so anyone can see what I am doing during the "Home Stretch!" I have a buddy (Dan Thomas) who is also doing IM AZ (his first IM as well) who is doing the same thing in a blog, so see my list of Blogs I Follow.
Sunday: September 12, 2010
After the Coast Ride from Mill Valley to Santa Barbara (380 miles in 3 days), I luckily got to spend a day with my family in San Rafael---thanks to my sister throwing a BBQ! Food and company was awesome, but very short-lived. I also had the day off from training! I flew back to Jenny and Sophia sunday night---I missed them tons!
Monday: September 13, 2010
Believe it or not, 2 days in a row of no training! This all stems from my testing last wednesday (blood lactate testing). The results of the testing showed that my zones are lower than we thought, but also that I was "fried" as Chris told me. Craig (who administered the test) told that I need a break--but heck, I was there to ride the Coast! So for the Coast Ride I didn't press my HR---I was out to enjoy the ride at a decent pace without worsening my "fried" condition. I monitor my resting HR and weight every morning...normal is 42 BPM, and lately I've weighed in at 175ish. From saturday to yesterday, my resting HR was around 50, so that only backed up the need for rest! My weight also went up to 179, which is expected with the muscle gains along with the immense number of calories I took in to help me recover every day. So, I got to enjoy the day catching up on things around the house and spending time with Jenny and Sophia!
Tuesday: Back into the workout routine! Chris gave me a non-descript swim workout today of 3500 yds, with a focus on low exertion, long stroke, and plenty of rest between reps (= active recovery swim)...I ended up doing 400 warm up, 3 x 400, 200 kick, 3 x 500, 200 warm down...easy! Swimming is going well, and seems arbitrary at this point! The 2nd workout of the day was 90 minutes on the trainer at sub zone 2 HR (below 108)...so I sat in the aero bars watching Planet of the Apes spinning at 85 RPM and 140w..."shaking the legs out"...no biggie here either---it's a recovery week; the first one since we started the IM prep 6 weeks ago.
Wednesday: Just one workout today, and it was another 90 minute spin on the trainer with some zone 3 work thrown in at my discretion, but with a focus on spinning still as I continue to "absorb" the Coast Ride workload. the zone 3 work is there to "wake up" my legs, and they are feeling fairly well recovered. I basically did some mile repeats stepping the wattage up and down from 140w to 220w every mile for the middle 2/3's of the workout. With the lower targets for my zones, I have a feeling my workouts are not going to feel to difficult. I am hoping this makes me much more efficient at the same pacing as before in the very near future...with the zones switching downward in exertion levels, I am worried that my goal pacing for IM will be lower than I care to go (I was going off of my previous target numbers for IM)...over time the answer to this mystery will be answered!
Thursday: Working all day and then having a Continuing Education Dinner don't bode well for todays planned workouts: 90 minutes of intervals on the bike trainer and a 45 minute run...so I moved them to later this week and took a rest day. I think after being in the cool weather of the coast, my body is taking its time recovering and is going to need some time to get heat acclimated again.
Friday: The first of 3 big swim days: today is the shortest at 3500 yds: main set 10 x 200 with 20 second rest. No big deal there! I jumped on my bike before dinner and rode easy for an hour trying to keep to my new zone 2 (aerobic) Heart Rate: I had to keep telling my legs to knock it off! They wanted to fly, but I kept the HR below 115 as much as possible (supposed to be below 108, but we think the testing done under a sluggish HR may have made the HR zones lower than they are now that I have recovered a bit from the "fried" me. I also had a 45 minute run in there--EZ. I felt great and had to tell my legs (again) to stop trying to go faster than my HR was supposed to. All in all it was a great first run in a while, Average Heart Rate was 125 and pace was 7:42...not fast, but at 125, that's about as fast as I can get!
Saturday: The first "somewhat big" test for Ironman and more importantly, my shoulder in a wetsuit for the first time. 4000m Open Water Race with DCB Adventures was held at the alternate swim site for IM AZ, so I had to go "test the waters!" My goal was to take it easy and see how it felt...i haven't swam this distance in open water since about 1997 (Waikiki Rough Water Swim). 4 laps of a 1000m course was psychologically tough! Overall, the 1st and 4th laps were easy, but the two middle ones were draining and boring, again, more psychologically than anything. I gave myself a "C" because I lost my focus at least 10 times and switched to a quick rep of breast stroke or backstroke even, and I didn't breathe bilaterally, so those two things took me down...this time. I have 2 more of these before IM, so I will get them worked out by then! My time was 1 hour 11 minutes...better than I thought it would be, but I am glad I have things to work on to get it down hopefullly to somewhere in the 1 hour range for IM (IM swim is about 3800m, so my adjusted time for IM on this race was about 1:06ish. I see lots of room for improvement, which is better than swimming my best and getting that time.
Sunday: Another longer swim 3900 yds: main set 8 x 100 on 15 sec rest, 16 x 50 on 10 sec rest, 20 x 25 on 10 sec rest. The lats are tired! I also had an EZ trail run in for today, but with the heat and being lazy and sleeping in, I ran in the 108 degree afternoon heat, and ended up making it a jog/walk to keep it in my new zone 2. The goals was to reintroduce the legs to running again, and that's exactly what seemed to happen!
I have a feeling next week is going to see my workout load double....I was only out there for just under 10 hours this week, but I have been averaging over 20 for the weeks prior (23 hours 40 minutes last week!)--it was a much needed recovery week!
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