Week 11...done and dusted!

MattAaronson · July 14, 2015 9:16PM

Week 12 wrap up. It was a good week but I had to juggle some
things around since I ended up on a business trip to the UK. Amazingly it turns
out two of my clients in the UK are bigtime into triathlon so they took me open
water swimming on Wednesday and I didn't miss getting in 3 swims that week! I've been a "road warrior" for years but this was the first business trip where I packed a wetsuit!
Plus I got in a good long run out there, 110'@6:50 pace (first 10 miles @6:40
then met up with another client of mine who runs more in the 7:20/mi range).

Totals: 8300 yd swimming, 7:26 on the bike (missed my
weekday ride but lengthened my weekend a bit), 5:01 running covering 43.5
miles. TSS of 1251.

I will say that the weekends are killing me. I got home from
Europe on Friday, went to a black tie fundraiser until 11pm then woke up at 4:20am
Saturday to bike for 4:15 so I could be home and on family duty (luckily one
duty was taking a daughter to "free swim" at the pool where I could
get in 2100 yd of my missed Friday workout). Then to bed at 10pm and awake at
4am Sunday for a 5 mile pre-run before biking 3:15. I was bagged but still
didn't get to bed until 10pm then up at 4am AGAIN for an early flight. I was so
tired on Monday (yesterday) that I skipped all of my workouts and went to bed
at 8pm…woke up at 8:20am the next morning feeling MUCH better. This was a
classic "listen to your body" situation. Today I feel totally normal
again and did a 90' run (should have swam and run 45' but a colleague wanted to run and I
enjoy the workouts so much more with company so I keep it flexible!).

Cheers!

Peter Noyes · July 15, 2015 3:14PM

I completed my last low family impact week before jumping back up in volume (New Baby). I did 8100 yards, 3 hours on the bike, and 32 miles running. I am feeling like I have finally built myself back into decent shape after my collarbone incident. My resting heart rate has dropped back to what it was, my swim pace is now only 2-3 seconds per hundred off, my bike is back, and my run is on the upswing. I think it should be fine after the coming weeks of 40+ mpw. Looking forward to doing the work for the next 2 months!

rlh2000 · July 15, 2015 3:28PM

Had my first training weekend back after IMCDA. I liked the temps in Chicago much more! Got in the Sat and Sun bikes, where I felt stronger Sunday than Saturday. I can still feel some fatigue in my legs at higher efforts, but am excited for the build to Wisconsin. I'm racing Racine this weekend, just taking Saturday off beforehand. Good work guys!

Coach Rich · July 15, 2015 4:16PM

Week 11 Summary

My 5th consecutive week of 18 to 21-22hrs.

PMC through this past Sunday

Items of Note:

Run: Didn't meet my run goal this week, but still had a pretty good run week, all things considered. Thurs long run was nice pace but a bit cheesy distance. Monday hilly tempo and Tues interval runs were good. I don't have the speed (yet?) I did in '11 but my endurance and durability is much, much better. Planning an opportunity or two to actually do a 5k test to determine VDot...and not looking forward to that at all. In the meantime I've pretty much narrowed down my goal HR's for race day and am watching pace and RPE at those HR's in training. Beginning to see a lot of correlations.
Swim: Pulled 56:57 for 3800m LCM on Friday, 1:29/100m pace. Felt pretty comfortable. I've switched around my swimming week to be (1) short intervals, as 100's @ 1:11-13 pace, (2) 200-300s, same deal, but 1:14-16 pace, and a longer interval day, or IM RR, at 1:17-18 pace. For me, swimming faster is about power and fitness, and so I'm basically in Z4-Z5 mode at least 2x per week. Interestingly, I'm seeing swim CTL's pre IMSG and now that correspond well with RR times. That is, swim CTL #xxx seems to correspond to swim RR time 5x:xx. Swim CTL at 17.x now, projected to be 34.x by race day. I'm very much aware of the marginally small ROI gains in my swim but am planning to bank a LOT of swimming in the last 10-14 days to really jack up my swim CTL.
Bike: kinda a meh interval session on Tues, testing out an additional 1cm drop on Friday (going from 13 to 14cm). Took this drop for a 112mi ride on Saturday, 4:56 @ 219w Pnorm. However, I got behind on my hydration in the last 3rd of the ride and saw some not cool HR, RPE, and watts changes. But had a great run in the evening at a very light 155-156lb. On that note, I've sensed like another running gear kick in when I run in the mid vs high 150lb's. Sunday's scheduled climbing ride with Juan V, visiting from Brazil, was cut about 1.5-2hrs short due to Di2 battery dying.
Body comp: I've been bouncing around 156-158lb for what seems like a while now. Always. Hungry or thinking about food but workouts and recovery are still great. Goal is 150-152lb, my lightest since college.

Had a great ride today, which I'll talk about next week, and based on this and ^this^ and discussions in the Heat Adaptation and 5hr Power threads, some goal numbers in my head now are:

Swim: stay consistent, focus on speed vs long endurance. Crank up the CTL in the last 10-14day and I think I'll have a comfortable :54-55 swim.
Bike: goals are 150-152lb @ 295w FTP and target Pnorm on race day of 219w. These give me Chantry goals of 325w before the race (was 312 today, did 318 on 6/10 a few pounds heavier) and these long rides focused on 5hr power in the high 220's, low 230's.
My magic HR on the run seems to 135-142 or 145bpm. Flat ground pace right now at those HRs is about 8:10-25 so that's another set of numbers I'm watching.
Heat adaptation and nutrition stuff: gonna bust out spreadsheets, have a tighter plan, and really track my stuff on Sunday 112 aero bar ride. Goal is 2 bottles per hour + additional bottles of water at 2hr and 4hr admin stops. 300-350cal/hr

Jeebus I'm fookin' hungry...again!

Coach Rich · July 15, 2015 4:16PM

Peter, I'm taking Juan up to Chrystal Lake on Saturday if you can get away.

Week 11...done and dusted!

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