Wow - weeks have been clicking by, can't believe it's been 4 weeks since I posted. Scott has filled out my schedule all the way thorugh race day - 5 weeks from today. Three more weeks of work, then I taper in. I'm feeling ready to race. My fitness is starting to come together, and, well this shit is getting kind of old, really. I've had enough GU's and PowerBars, thanks. Starting to think about specifics around race travel and execution. But there's still some work to be done. In any case, I'm feeling good about the race and my prep. It's been quite an experience and I don't know if I've ever focused this tightly on something in my life. Plus I need some sunshine. Seattle seems determined to make this tough on me, what with the sunny Wednesdays followed by Cyclone Saturdays.
Week 20 was the last week of the build block. The weekend workouts continued to get bigger and there was still quite a bit of volume happening. Come Tues or Wednesday of this week I was starting to slow down. The basic way you track your recovery is by watching your waking heart rate. Once you know what your normal rested rate is, deviations from that tend to mean your body is stressed, either from training or something else like fighting off an illness. After multiple hard days mine tends to tick up a beat or two a day. At some point, if you're not recovered, you're not getting the value out of the training and you're starting to risk injury or illness. Your body has ways of slowing you down. Anyway, on Thursday of week 20 I was really feeling like a ton of bricks. I'm not quite smart enough to pull the plug myself (must...complete...scheduled...work...), and fortunately Scott noticed this trend and called me on Thursday night and told me to take a couple of rest days. It was badly needed. I moved my long day from Saturday to Sunday and was able to hammer out a solid long day. The 14 hour total isn't terribly indicative of the work I did that week, it was still a tough one.
Fortunately that rolled into a rest week (21) and I was able to focus on getting some fatigue out of the system. At the end of the week I did a fitness test on the bike. The basic protcol is a 10 minute warm up, 5 minutes all out (to get you really warm and shake the "freshness" out of the legs), 10 minutes easy, then 20 minutes all out. I often go out too hard on the 20 minute part and detonate. Happened again, so my numbers were abysmal. Uncool, I think I've finally learned my lesson there. Oh, even rest weeks have Long Days on Saturday. The Long Day on Saturday was interesting, with a 75 minute run after the 5 hour bike. After this day I was surprised how good I felt. Sure, I was tired but I was by no means wiped out, I was just hungry as hell. I ate just about everything in the house, then cleaned out a local sushi joint. Being fresher from the rest definitely helped.
Which brings us to the next week, 22, and the title of this entry: Sharpening the Knife. That's how Scott calls it. Basically I've done 5 months of prep work to get the body ready for some intensity work, which I really haven't had any of. This is the beginning of Peak phase. After all the base build work, you pile on a bunch of tougher work to get your body to do some more adaptation, then quickly back it off and coast into the race. The body continues to adapt to the new work load, and the decreased volume allows time to fully recover and pack in a bunch of fuel. If it's timed right, you get a "peak" on race day. So that's the gig. Another Long Day on Saturday, but there was a problems here. This week was a busy one in many ways and I got behind on sleep. Instead of the 7 1/2 I usually shoot for, I was getting less than 7. Friday I started feeling pretty bad. Deep, deep fatigue. I got up early on Saturday and did my swim. Driving home from the swim, I didn't feel great at all. I got home, had some food and went up stairs to get my bike stuff. The weather was awful, so I was going to do the long bike on the CompuTrainer. I couldn't bear to put my short on. You know how sometimes in dreams you feel really tired like you're in slow motion? Yeah, it was like that. So I rationalized that I would do a 4-hour bike after an hour nap. So I slept for an hour and it wasn't much better. I got half way down the stairs before turning around and getting back in bed. I was really afraid that I was getting sick - I literally couldn't figure out why I felt so horrible. I took my resting HR and it was normal (43). Finally I called Scott, who talked me into getting on the bike for 90 minutes, and if I still feel bad, can it and try again on Sunday. So I soldiered up and cranked out a decent 4 1/2 hours. Doing it the next day didn't sound very appealing. I skipped the run too. Sunday I had more time on the bike. I didn't feel much better. Definitely my low point since October. My knife wasn't feeling very sharp.
My goal for week 23, was simple: get rested. I was getting worried that I'd implode, get sick, etc. So I got super focused on getting close to 8 hours sleep every night. I skipped my workouts on Monday and took a rest day, getting some extra sleep. So I kind of learned something this week in general. On top of the sleep, I blew off some of the smaller workouts in favor of rest. Even though this was a 16 hour week, it might be the best week I've had, quality wise. With the extra rest, I was able to really nail my main workouts on Tuesday (90 min run), and Saturday (Long day). Tuesday was the first real intensity I've had. I had a an interval run scheduled, which was a 90 minute run with 5x5 min at 10K pace (~160 HR), with 2 mins rest in between. Endurance athletes sometimes refer to "breakthrough" workouts where you do something above and beoynd prior efforts. Tuesday was one of those kind of days. I jogged it out for 30 minutes, not feeling particuarly fluid really, but at my normal cruising 8:40-ish pace. I hit my first interval and averaged a 6:42 pace, some of which weas uphill. Wow - that's not normal for me. What's more is that it wasn't all that uncomfortable. Walked for 60s after that interval, picked up a jog, and did it again. Averaged about 6:20, and about the same for the next two. The 5th one I started to feel it a bit, mostly because I let my HR get up a little higher and that's where I stated to suffer. After these, I jogged it back home feeling good about this work. My knees didn't feel quite as good about it by Wednesday but I tihnk I know the issue there. Saturday was a longer day with a 6 hour bike, and no run. I felt really solid on the swim, and the weather wasn't great but held for the ride.
My goal was to drive between 180 and 225 watts for the whole day, at an HR around 135. For the first few hours this was working well, I felt really solid, though I discovered my HR would wander up over 140 in the aero position (something to fix). About 3 hours into the ride though, I started to wonder if I'd been a little too aggressive and started to feel pretty bad. I got to a mini-mart out in Carnation, about 60 miles into the ride and got a PayDay bar, a liter of Coke, and some water. I wasn't too excited about 2.5 more hours feeling like I was but it turned out to be a nutrition problem. After I focused on getting calories and fluids through me I started feeling better and pretty much hammered the rest of the ride. It was great, and except for a few mintues of rain here and there the weather held. Also ran into Deb out by Lake Samammish. Funny that after 4.5 hours and 80 miles I run into her out there. With only 90 minutes to go I stopped watching my HR and kind of let it fly, shocked that I wasn't really fading all that much. Was able to drive 260-270 watts on the climbs and motor strong on the flats all the way through 100 miles, after which I sat up and spun home easy. Important lesson here: things can look pretty ugly but if you stick with it and fix the problem, you can get it back together.
Almost there, just gotta stay healthy.
| Season Totals (10/2/06-3/11/07) |
Time |
Distance |
Units |
|
|
| Swim |
61:03 |
180,593 |
yards |
|
|
| Run |
73:29 |
519.00 |
miles |
|
|
| Bike |
149:55 |
2,486.00 |
miles |
|
|
| Weights |
16:30 |
|
|
|
|
| Core |
1:30 |
|
|
|
|
| Stretch |
4:05 |
|
|
|
|
| Total Time |
306:32 |
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