Well, this entry should be short, sweet, and no nonsense since I wrote an extensive post about my major fail of the week yesterday. If you recall, last weekend was the insanely hot Mt Hamilton death ride that resulted in me sleeping 12 hours last Sunday. So I went into this week with low expectations (always the way to go!) and fortunately surprised myself. Here goes,
Monday
pm- Trainer Road Owl (60 min trainer bike ride/14.5 mi)
I like Owl because it has (short spurts (~30 sec) of high power riding followed by a few minutes of just below FTP) x 5. It's good for a day when your legs are tried but you still want to do some quality work.
Tuesday
am- 4000 yard swim. I thought my arms would be tired from basically sprinting a 2 mile OWS 3 days prior, but they felt great!
pm- 9 mile tempo pyramid that I made up while I was bored at work (see Chen's entry). Paces: 8:22, 7:56, 7:42, 7:25, 7:07, 7:24, 7:41, 7:52, 8:00 (7:43 avg). I like the "pyramid" concept because the focus is on hitting a specific pace each mile rather than just how long/sufferful the run is.
Wednesday
Bike commute- 29.7 miles, 14.2 mph, 2300 ft climbing. At first I was really unhappy that we decided to bike this day because it actually rained. I showed up at work with my ass SOAKING WET and luckily I had a meeting at 8 am that day. So that was really professional. When I left the room I moved my wet chair into the corner so that hopefully nobody sat in it too soon after. But on the way home, a miracle occurred- there was no headwind tunnel! The past 2 months there has been a regular wind tunnel that we ride straight into the first 10 miles of the ride. Because of the cooler weather, it wasn't there and it turns out the ride was way less miserable than usual. Thanks weather!
Thursday
am- 3000 yard swim, mostly easy with a few hard efforts in preparation for the weekend's 5k. (Unfortunately, some part of this strategy failed.)
pm- 7.1 mile run, 8:26 pace (my legs felt like bricks, as the constant training started to catch up to me).
Friday
am- 50 min spin at the gym w/low resistance and high cadence (90+), 11 miles (40 min).
Saturday
am- the 5k open water swim
mid-day- a quick refueling. Will a 1400 calorie lunch be enough?
pm- 63.5 mile ride, 13.8 mph, ~5400 ft climbing. On the first climb of this ride, my quads were already sore and I was really starting to regret the burger/shake combo (imagine what your stomach might feel like if you ate a rock). Luckily though, things began to click after about 2000 ft climbing and it was smooth sailing from there. Well, except for the wind which was tossing us around like rag dolls. And it wasn't coming from any one specific direction, but more like from every direction. So we'd be riding along on a straight road and all of a sudden a gust would throw me into traffic. Then I'd be in a headwind, and 30 sec later another gust would throw me toward the barbed wire fence. Between the less than ideal morning swim and this ridiculous wind, I was really just finding the whole thing comical. Surprisingly, the pace ended up being really good for the course- only 0.2 mph slower than my best time ever on it.
Sunday
20 mile run, flat as a pancake, 8:32 pace. My legs felt surprisingly good, although I have a feeling I will pay for this one.
75% there. Wow.
I just can't even.
ReplyDeleteI'm so jealous of your Habit meal! I haven't had it in YEARS. Since SB actually. I think we need to plan a meal there after a long ride or run one of these days...
ReplyDeleteAwesome 20-miler - you crushed week 18!
- Chen