I like Rachel’s idea of having a training diary of sorts to look back on in a few months, so I’m jumping on the weekly recap bandwagon.
Week 1 of basebuilding had its fair share of struggles, but luckily it also came with some successes.
Some struggles:
1) Being a runner at heart, I found it somewhat difficult to let go of my running-a-minimum-of-five-times-per-week habit. Naturally, I ran five times this week, resulting in a weekend long ride for which my legs were already gassed at the start. Not a good feeling when I knew I had thousands of feet of climbing ahead of me.
2) I also failed to fuel properly for the ride, eating only 320 calories over the nearly four hour adventure. They say you’re supposed to eat 250+ calories PER HOUR during the Ironman ride, so I’d say I fell just a tad short. I also dealt with some SERIOUS arm / shoulder pain thanks to the fact that I still tense up and grip my brakes with all my might. At one point, the pain became so severe that I had to pull over and stretch my shoulders out for a few minutes. Note to self: Work on that.
3) On the swimming front, I’m struggling to find a pool that seems to be open this month. Evidently, January is when all SF pools close down for maintenance. It makes sense, since it’s probably the month during which the fewest people want to swim in a given year, but it’s really been cramping my style. Brandon and I showed up to two different pools this week, only to be denied access. Sad face frown.
Some successes:
1) Despite my legs being gassed at the start of our long ride yesterday, I managed to not die and completed the 50-mile ride (though Rachel and Travers both kicked my ass and had to wait for me at every turn. Thanks, guys!). The climbing was painful, but it was also only my tenth bike ride ever, so I should probably cut myself some slack :P.
2) I signed up for the Hot Chocolate 15K a while back, not realizing that I would be riding 50 hella hilly miles the day before. Therefore, I expected the race this morning to feel like death, especially since I was adding 5+ miles before the start in order to hit 14 for the day. My warm-up was sluggish as expected, but I surprised myself and was able to average ~8:07 pace for the race itself. And it didn’t feel half bad!
3) After the race, Brandon and I met up with my friend Julie, who’s a super good swimmer, for a lesson. She watched us swim and gave us a bunch of tips for how to improve our freestyle form, all of which were really helpful. What I was most excited to learn, though, was HOW TO DO A FLIP TURN. OMG. I tried learning flip turns back when I swam between the ages of ~5-10, and it was hopeless. I would always end up in the lane next to mine, and eventually the teachers gave up on me.
So when Julie promised me that we’d be flip-turning by the end of our hour-long session, I had my doubts. But she wasn’t lying! Julie taught us step by step, having us practice each one before we moved onto the next. At the end, we strung everything together, and voila! Flip turn completed! Of course, I will need to practice these things over and over and over, but I’m super excited that I finally know the right steps to take. If you’re reading this, thanks, Julie!
So, I definitely learned some valuable lessons this week that I will carry forward in my training. Namely, practice the drills / turns that I learned today until I finally have a swimming form that somewhat resembles efficiency, eat EVERYTHING, and stop running so g*ddamn much.
Basebuilding Week 1 Recap:
Monday: Rest (tried to go swimming, but the pool was closed. Came home dejected and just ate dinner instead. Womp womp).
Tuesday: Track - 8x400m tempo, 4x400m interval - 1:44, 1:46, 1:43, 1:42, 1:43, 1:43, 1:42, 1:42, 1:36, 1:37, 1:35, 1:33. Tempo felt great. Interval – not so much. I have work to do, but this is a start!
Wednesday: AM: Easy run (4.3 miles, no time kept); PM: 65-minute trainer ride with fast spin intervals. This kicked my ass and probably also contributed to my leg fatigue by Saturday.
Thursday: Easy run (5.4 miles, no time kept)
Friday: AM: Fartlek run (7.4 miles, ~8:09 average pace); PM: Swimming 1400 yards (We tried to go to one pool only to be denied again. So we each paid $20 to swim at the Koret Center at USF, which is amazing, but certainly not worth $20/day)
Saturday: Long ride with Rachel and Travers - 50.2 miles with 3967 feet of climbing
Sunday: AM: 5.55 mile warm-up (~8:53 pace); Hot Chocolate 15K (9.36 miles in 1:15:54, or ~8:07 pace); PM: Swimming form drills and flip turn lesson
Looking forward to week 2!
Awesome week (and yes, you'll need to run less)! After a few hundred flip turns, you'll have it down in no time. And yes, we'll need to eat way more on the bike (although I don't think there needs to be any increase on what we ate AFTER the bike :)
ReplyDeleteI think we nailed the post-ride consumption level. No changes needed.
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