Notching up the volume.

When I looked at the schedule for the week, the first thing I noticed was a slightly different daily schedule and a slight increase in the volume. (11 hours this week vs. 9:40 planned last week)


I'm writing this post on the new laptop. I got this on Wednesday and am stoked to have it all loaded with Garmin Training Center, Training Peaks WKO+, and Power Agent. I'm going to be more consistent with going out training with my G305 and Ptap and downloading to Training Peaks/Training Bible. Time's going to be tight and the expectations are high, so hoperully all the data and feedback will get me to a place where I'm making the most of the time I do train. Of course not taking into account all the time spent tweaking on the posting and data. At least I can do it when its dark and cold within earshot of my daughter. I'm sold on data.


Monday:
A great day off and I felt awesome and strong even after a slightly harder than planned. I love to ride hard and am looking forward to some long hard rides in the hills!


Tuesday:
Ride 2:00 Z1-2 (honest)

I headed out from Fiesta Island and was determined to stay within the training zones as I was solo and wanted to be disciplined. I wanted to stay between 180-210 W. Easy enough on the flats but the route included torrey grade and the del mar bump. I wanted to see how well I could control HR vs. watts on the grade and I was able to hold steady 225W with NO heart rate(138-140) variability for the 9 minute climb. What's wierd is that my wattage was in endurance zones for the ride and HR was in recovery zones. Got to ask Jim about that. I also experimented with riding some slightly bigger gears meaning lower cadence~70's.

Wednesday:
Swim 1:00

What a wakeup call. I headed to Nado 50m pool to do 1000m time trial. It was pointless. I got through the warm-up and was feeling OUT OF SHAPE. I think it was a combination of being out of the water (sick) for a week and pushing off the wall half as much. I figured I'd pace myself and suffer for the first 200m then get in a groove. Wasn't happening. I called it after 500m in 8:53.

That's what...1:47's, swallowing water and throwing cement. Determined to stay in the water for 60 minutes I went back to past workouts and did 4x100(30s) and 8x50(20s) form on EACH one. Felt good for not throwing in the towel completely, but was really shocked at how badly I swam. Swimming is the new limiter! Perfect, now I have two limiters out of three!

Run 0:50
I wasn't tired at all from the near drowning and was psyched to run 8x20s strides on a hill.
I have a perfect spot 15 min from the house. Warmed up on the run over and did some drills then the repeats. Cool down on the way home then over to the bleachers for 2 sets of 10 jumps, 10 lunges ea. leg, hopped back to start. Good Run!


Thursday.
Run 1:15 Z1-2

I chose a new flat course for these runs as I want to be able to repeat the effort and compare pace/HR. I left from the MVY, then out to FI for one big loop.

8.21 mi.
Avg pace 9:07
Avg HR 145
Max HR 165

Felt pretty beat up after this long run of the season so far. Not worried about the pace. just wanted to keep it in the Zones.


Friday.
Swim 1:00
2000m

Luckily I felt better for this swim and made it through the first T-pace workout of the season.
Not too difficult when your threshold pace is 1:47/100m. Just for comparison last year it was down to 1:38/100m. completed the workout as planned but not easily.
Time for some swim focus!

Saturday.
Run (Intervals) 1:05

First time to Kevin's workout in a long time. This is one of those workouts that you get excited about the night before and then in the morning you want to avoid like shit on your shoe. I let those negative thoughts pass on through and just show up. Kevin always gives some inspiration before each session. this time he talked about the secrets to getting faster. Guess what? no secrets! Consistency and be willing to get out of your comfort zone. This really means, be willing to get out of your slightly uncomforatable zone and into the really uncomfortable zone, that's all.

I was still a little sore from thursday's long run but fired up. after the usual "warmup" about 15 minutes. we did:

3x3minutes
1x6minutes
2x2minutes
4x1minutes Total interval time: 23 minutes

I actually spent 33 minutes in zones 4 and5
I hit 180-181 bpm on almost all intervals and my legs were definitely soaked on each one. Good session but I was cooked the rest of the day.

Sunday:
Ride: 3:11 50 mi.

Froze my ass off at 7:00am 43 degrees. It just sucks when its like that. good ride but a little boring solo especially when your constantly thinking about how cold it is. I was a little sore from saturday, and happy to keep it zone 1-2.

Going to work with Jim on the swim this morning. He's got the underwater Coach Cam. Hopefully we'll be able to "fix" something!