Steve Swanlund Micro
Hey Patrick,
I've been back at it since October and progressing well. I have been averaging 40+ miles per week for the past 8 weeks. Vdot is back up to 49.Working hard on body comp, have lost 27 lbs since October 28th and am currently 15 lbs lighter than I was on my last Ironman where I PR'ed. Hoping to loose another 10 lbs to get my w/kg to 4.0. My concern right now is that if I hit my faster work during the week, my long run on saturday feels like a death march. Then the speed work for the following week is very difficult to hit (Like zone 2 when I'm shooting for zone 4). I get a tweeked muscle in my right upper thigh that hurts after doing speed work. I am currently in the Adv Half Marathon plan with a race on Feb 7th, in addition, I have been swimming 15,000+ yards per week for the past 4 weeks in 5 sessions per week to improve my form and swim fitness (went from 1:43/100y to 1:27/100y 
). Should I reduce my swimming, concentrate on Zone 2-3 and stay away from zone 4, could it have to do with my diet restriction, or something else? I plan to start a OS/Marathon Hack on February 8th for a BQ on May 1st. "A" race is Ironman Maryland Oct 1st.
Comments
Note - I don't expect it to be 100% sustainable...it's okay to drop the swim down every 4th week just to give your schedule / life a break, for example!
Patrick- I ran on friday (13 miles with 8 @ Z 2-3) and saturday (11 miles @ easy pace) and was sore as hell again on sunday. So i have decided to stand down all this week and let it heal. I'll spend all this week swimming and get started on the bike. I haven't been on the bike in 15 months so it might take a couple weeks to be my bike butt back. I'll run again on saturday and test out some zone 2 paces. I would rather heal up now and loose 1 week of running rather than be hobbled at the race in 5 weeks.