So the highlights of last week---swimming: I had a great workout on tuesday, with a total of 4600 yards:
800 choice
4x100 - 50 drill/50 swim
800 pull
4x100 fast 50, ez 50
600 swim
4x100 kick 15 sec rest
400 pull
4x100 FAST!! with 30 sec rest - VERY fast with all this rest
400 stretch out
I gauge a swim workout by how I feel at the end, and after this one, I felt strong! My stroke stayed consistent and strong throughout, and I was able to push those 100's without feeling worn out and "sloppy." I'm feeling like I just need to bring this fitness level into the race and I'll be fine....but I'll keep pushing for more so I can get out of the water 10 seconds faster than if the race was today (yes, that's sarcasm).
The biking highlight of the week may seem odd, but it was one of survival! Saturday's ride was 6 hours with some intervals built in (an early hour in Zone 3 HR, and 2 late reps of 20 minutes each). Seemed easy enough, but Chris warned me it would be tougher than I thought...mostly because the two days before I was running and biking both days, with really tough trainer intervals for the bike on thursday (followed by an EZ 45 minute run) and 6 reps of 5 minute hill repeats on friday afternoon (with 90 minutes of EZ spinning on the bike). So back to saturdays ride....I started with my "ONE Multisport" buddies just up the street.....always a hammer fest! So after a 20 minute warm up, I went off with my new buddy Joel Gerber---AKA king of the hammerheads (going slow is a "waste of time" according to Joel!). So I rode my early hour at Zone 3 +++. After about 2 hours with the ONE guys, I headed off on my "only the lonely" ride...4 more hours totally alone (but with tunes at least). Side note: my playlist of 100 songs is driving me crazy!! So I headed down 9 mile, through Fountain Hills, down the IM course, and to the lake...which looks close to full...yay!!!! Backing up to the IM Course section, I fought the mind battle to keep going versus going home at the 3 hour point...I was losing interest and was pretty wiped out from the cumulation of the weeks workouts, but these are the days that I can pull from during the IM bike to get me through. I'm not always going to feel fresh, strong, or even wanting to be on my bike, but knowing I mentally won the "go home early" battle will help me keep moving forward. That is why this ride was the highlight! So, you can imagine, the two 20 minute reps late in the ride were TOUGH---and I learned that the early Z3+++ hour made me pay dearly. I made it through just fine, but keeping the focus going was too hard...I was searching for a "short" way home in my mind all the way home, but I made it! 120 miles exactly in just over 6 hours---not my best effort, but I'll take it!!
So for the run highlight, I'm going with two good ones: a 90 minute run including 6 hill repeats (Z3++ HR) of 5 minutes each...I always feel the instant gratification of these---they are soo hard and the EZ cool down run after is like flying because I'm running on the flats or even downhill. Also, there's always a good burn in the legs, and I feel exhausted but energized from the high intensity! The other run of note this week was sundays run: 90 minutes with two 30 minute sections at IM pace minus 10%---another one that sounds easy, but really isn't. These will become a staple of my training over the next month (versus running slow and long). For this one, I used 8 min/mile as the "IM" pace just to see where I'm at, which meant my goal pace was 7:12. The first rep was at 7:08 and the second at 7:10 (average HR for both was 142...2 beats above Z3), so I'm on schedule! I felt like I could have gone faster, but this was a good start and I'm feeling good about my run! It WILL be all mental on race day!
So there you have the long version of my good workouts of the week...let's see what I have to write about in 7 days!!
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