Things are starting to come into focus. The race is less than three months away. I kind of wish it was tomorrow.
This week had a little less volume but a little more "quality" or intensity work in there. Up until now, most of my work on the run and bike have been steady state. This week some of my workouts had specific intenisty or wattage targets. Workload on the bike is measured in watts. Unlike running, pace (speed) is a bad measurement for effort on the bike since it doesn't take into account things like wind, hills, weight, etc. These things are factors when running but not to the same level as on the bike. So on the bike we use watts, which is a measurement of how much energy you're putting onto the road. To give an idea of how watts shake out, if you're out on a Sunday ride with your family on a bike path, you're probably putting out about 50w as an average over the ride. If you're a casual cyclist out for a nice ride, you're proably doing 125w - 150w average. If you're a pro riding as hard as you can for an hour, you're doing 375w or so. If your name is Lance Armstrong, you're probably doing low-to-mid 400s. So right now my intervals are 3-5 sets of 5 minutes each at ~250w. I can do more than this but not aerobically, so the idea here is to work at the top end of my aerobic range. It hurts but it's not to bad. Honestly, it's nice to do some harder work.
Wednesday I had a 90 minute run on the schedule with 5x5min at 10K pace. The good thing here is that I was comfortably cranking of 6:45 miles or so at an HR of 150-153, which is FAR better than I've ever done before. I've run that fast in the past, but I've been pegged doing it. The bad thing was that this run was on the first big melt day after the snowy, cold weather we've had. I'd run on the ice and snow several times and it was fine. This was tough - it was slushy, melty, uneven, and slick. After this run I started developing some pain in my right calf/upper achilles that I'm having to keep a close eye on. Ran again on Fri and Sat and it did OK, but Sunday's 2:15 run got rough after about 1:40 in and the calf was pretty sore afterwards (good news is everything else is doing well). I had another 35 mi+ week so it's not surprising I've got some new issues to worth through. After these bigger workouts, I've been doing ice baths which are a real treat. Basically you want to arrest any inflammation in the joints ore muscles as soon as possible. So you put on a sweatshirt and a hat, you get a magazine or a book, you fill your bathtub with about 6" of water out of the cold tap, and you sit in it for 15 minutes or so. The water coming out of my tap is currently about 44 degrees. Yes, that's F-ing cold. Getting into this thing involves a lot of yelping and swearing but once you're in, you get used to it. It's supposed to help with recovery, and it better work. It's not fun.
Saturday's are now my "big day" workouts. That means what it sounds like it means, it's a big day and the goal is to make Ironman a long version of your regular workout cadence. Really. So Saturday I was scheduled for 3-5 hours on the bike, a 45min run, and a 2,000y swim. I rode with the team and did a little more intensity than I probably should have. Took some long pulls at the front and there ended up being a lot of climbing. By the time I got home from the ride (4h riding time), I was pretty smoked. It's easy to fiddle around after a ride like this, esp when you're hurting but I managed to get out on the run within 5 or 10 minutes. The big upside here is that once I got rolling my run felt really good. HR was steady and pace was good, and I felt better as the run continued. After the run was a little tougher - I got some food in after the run but still it was rough. I took a bit of a break then dragged myself into the pool. The swam was pretty easy - again I felt better after the swim than before. But in any case I was pretty slow for the rest of the day - "big day" is a good description. My coach tells me that these days will scale up to a 5h bike, a 1h run, and a 3K swim (~1h), which isn't a *lot* more than what happened on Saturday. From there, Ironman doesn't look quite so scary; there's just 3 more hours of running tacked on the end, right? Riiiiiight? Anyway, I did an ice-bath on Saturday too, while I ate my Taco del Mar Super Burrito. At this point I have no pride.
As I mentioned above, my payoff on Sunday for that big day was a 2:15 run, which was bit of a slog. I really couldn't elevate my HR which means I'll need to get some rest in this week which will give me a chance to recover and pick up some fitness from this month's work-block.
| Week 15 Totals |
| Type |
Distance |
Duration |
| Stretch |
|
00:15 |
| Weights |
|
00:35 |
| Bike |
120.0 mi |
07:00 |
| Run |
36.8 mi |
05:28 |
| Swim |
8500.0 yd |
02:55 |
| Total Duration: |
16:13 | |
| Season Totals(10/02/2006) - 3(01/21/2007) |
| Type |
Distance |
Duration |
| Bike |
1453.1 mi |
90:17 |
| Weights |
|
15:55 |
| Run |
347.1 mi |
52:24 |
| Stretch |
|
03:10 |
| Swim |
117493.4 yd |
41:00 |
|
|
|
| Core |
|
00:45 |
| Total Duration: |
203:31 | |