Another week in the books! As much as I actually am having fun with the training (most of the time), I can tell I'm starting to look forward to (and beyond) the race. For example, I've been starting to countdown the number of days left that I have to wake up at 5 am to train (still a lot), or the number of 5+ hour bikes rides I have left (7). This week there was a little bit of lack of love for the bike (you'll see). Here's my week in review.
Monday
am- 5000 yard endurance swim. I did a descending ladder set which I'm specifically listing for Chen who loves ladder/pyramid swim sets: 3 x 500 + 3 x 400 + 3 x 300 + 3 x 200 + 3 x 100 all continuous on 1:30 base, + warm up and cool down.
pm- 1 hour Trainer Road ride (~ 15.3 miles): re-measured my FTP. 8 weeks ago when we first got Trainer Road I came in at 176, and this time I was 192 W. I don't think I've actually improved that much, I think I was just less conservative this time (it HURT at the end). The reward for this great effort is that all of my trainer workouts will now be harder. Sweet :p
Tuesday
am- 3000 yard "bonus swim". This is a bonus because I don't swim 3x/week ever. The real reason I did it is because Travers skipped his Monday swim and had to go Tuesday instead, so I figured why not.
pm- 7 mile run (7:39 avg) with 3 x 1 mile repeats on the road (6:54, 6:45, 6:42). Running felt great!
Wednesday
Bike commute, 29.7 miles, 13.3 mph (2400 ft + headwind). Travers and I were pretty lazy with our commute ride this week. I even had some extra time to take a picture. We are really lucky that 2/3 of our commute is on the aptly named "Redwood Rd"... can't beat the scenery for a commute!
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I also see this "run off the bike" concept in a lot of training plans so I put on my running shoes and went 1.5 miles when we got home from the commute (8:20 pace). My run feels fine off the bike (let's face it, I'm obviously psyched to be doing a sport that I love instead of biking), so I'm not sure this 1.5 miler did much for me. Then again, almost all the training plans have it, and what's another 13 min of training in a 15 hour week? I may or may not try this again.
Thursday
am- spin class 45 min (~12 mi) + 15 min core class
pm- 6.5 mile run (8:26)
Friday
3400 yards at master's swim practice (still my favorite workout of the week!)
Saturday
68.7 mile bike ride, 13.8 mph, 5800-6000 ft climbing (depending whose Garmin you believe). My legs were SO tired even before I started this ride, and with biking being my least favorite triathlon sport I was less than thrilled to be crushing my quads in the East Bay hills, not to mention riding in a wind so strong it was literally tossing me around on portions of the ride. Travers got this shot of me at one point while he was waiting for me during the ride (which he had to do several times, being a much stronger rider).
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Shortly after this photo was taken, I ran over something metal in the bike lane (which I often do because the bike lane on San Pablo Dam road has a lot of crap in it and I'm not that coordinated of a cyclist) and I hear the loud whooshing of air. My first flat on this bike! I yelled after Travers but he was already way ahead of me. So I sent him a text to let him know I flatted and started changing my tire. I had an unfortunate location for getting a flat on a stretch of road that had 50 mph traffic, a bike lane, then a narrow rocky shoulder with a barbed wire fence running along it. There were quite a few cyclists going by (who all offered to help by the way... thanks fellow cyclists!) so I was confined to changing my tire in the narrow rocky shoulder. So here I am, squatting on these uneven rocks with my quads already on fire, changing my tire (a task which takes me about 25 minutes). At one point I accidentally maneuvered too far back into the shoulder and got a sharp unpleasant poke in the ass with a few barbs. Seriously?!? Why is cycling even a sport?!?! Finally, my husband who eventually realized I was no longer biking with him came to help finish off the process (ie. make sure I put my wheel back on correctly so it didn't fly off as I was descending back into Oakland) and I grumpily finished the ride.
Sunday
Part of my self-imposed training plan is to do one long run each month, and since I can't do it any of the next 3 weekends today was it for May. Considering how fried my legs were yesterday, I was really worried that this would be a death march. I even tried to slow down from my last long run and chose a pancake flat route along the Bay Trail. To my surprise, when I started, it felt great!! I ran a really relaxed 20 miles at 8:39 pace. SO much more pleasant than the bike ride. (And yes, I do realize that some of the reason for my pleasant running experiences and unpleasant biking experiences is my mental attitude, but I just can't help it! And I actually do like biking, but after 2 hours of it I'm all set.)
Afterward, we had a southern brunch which I'm sure replaced all of the calories I burned this weekend and more. Whoever invented fried chicken benedict with spicy hollandiase is a genius.
Goal for next week: positive mental attitude on the bike!
Bummer about the flat! At least next weekend you'll be with a big crew crushing our quads together on Diablo :P
ReplyDeleteSounds like an awesome run, I have no doubt you will be passing lots and lots of people on the run in Whistler.
Also, that brunch looks amazing.
-Katie
It's Pican! I highly recommend their brunch (and I'd be up for trying their dinner sometime, too)!
DeleteFirst flat - Finally broken in the bike! Better now than at the race of course. Sounds like a pretty solid week of training, I'm sure all that biking will pay off come race day.
ReplyDelete-Matt
Does this flat decrease my chances of a future flat? I thought it was more of a heads/tails thing... but I'll go with your theory :) Not running over sharp objects will also help my chances.
DeleteSounds like a huge week on the bike. Congrats on the new FTP!
ReplyDelete-Trevor from TrainerRoad
That flat sounds hellish! My first one I couldn't figure out how to use my pump Bc they didn't cover that in the tire changing class I took. Eventually a random cyclist going by helped me. Good times. Do you have time for ANYTHING but training and work?? I'm amazed by this. The more I read, the more I think I need to just erase this from my bucket list.
ReplyDeleteI was actually having issues with my pump this time, too, which is extra sad because I have figured out how to use it before! It turned out that I didn't loosen the thing on the tube stem, so no air could get in (duh). But I really thought I had been tricked by the pump.
DeleteDuring the week it's mostly training and work, but there is plenty of time on the weekends for other stuff. Before erasing it from your list, check out different training plans and see if any fit your schedule. The really dumb thing I'm doing is completely making it up, and I have no idea if I'm doing too or much too little. You may have better luck with knowing what you're doing because you've at least trained for ultras! I've never trained for anything longer than 4ish hours, let alone > 12 hours!
So during my run today I realized that I trained for a 70.3, which is obviously way more than 4 hours :p But I was pretty tired at the end of that, and > 12 hours sounds a lot longer than 6 hours!
DeleteThanks for the ladder! I love me some ladders!
ReplyDeleteAnd awesome job on upping your FTP - I'm pretty sure you actually have improved (even if you did try harder this time). I think I might finally download this thing soon...
Hahaha "Why is cycling even a sport?!?!" I find myself asking that far too often these days... That said, I still wish I'd been with you during the flat so that I could help change it! Still haven't changed a flat "in the wild."
Great to hear that your 20 miler felt so good... running is the best!!!
- Chen
I think the FTP was a combo of trying harder and improving... you're right. And changing a flat in the wild is basically the same as practicing in your living room, except you might get assaulted by a barbed wire fence. But sometimes, you have to MTFU :)
DeleteWish i was there to help with the flat. Lord knowa you have helped me with plenty and i think your tire is more cooperative?
ReplyDeleteSandi
My tire is WAY more cooperative! After I got it back on, I said out loud, "that's it?!?"
Delete