Week 5/12
Week 4 accountability:
This was a testing week - FTP, 5K, T Pace. Turned out to be basically a week off from running, with full bike and swim.
Mon - Weights, travel day to Walla Walla
Tue - Run test, first time on a track (usually on treadmill or race). No different than all the others: VDOT 49
Wed - Swim per plan, bike commute home
Thurs - Bike commute to work (only 30 minutes of "work", then FTP test in PM followed by 5 mi brick
Fri - T Pace test in 25 meter pool: 1:47.5/100
Sat - 4 hour bike per plan, IF=0.78, TSS=244
Sun - Lake swim 2500 meters/48 minutes; 3 hour Sunday bike, TSS=160, did not do brick Sat or Sun, as temp was in the mid 90s, plan called it optional, only 15 minutes, I'd rather be ready for the next 4 weeks, which should be a lot of work.
Totals - 1.5 hours running, 2.5 hours swimming, 1 hour weight and core work, 10.5 hours biking.
Comments
I'm in all day meetings and training almost every day this week so a little behind.
Here is the quick summary of the last week:
Monday: Complete Day off (See other thread about rest day effectiviness on this one)
Tuesday: Attempted an FTT and blew up. Ended up with FTP of 6 watts lower. Crap brick run after
Wednesday: Crap swim, form was off and was weak
Thursday: Morning run with 3 x 1mile, WU sucked but first interval was decent and 2nd and 3rd actually went well. Moved up a lane in masters swim that night and had a GREAT swim. New PRs in 5 x 100 and 5 x 200.
Friday: Rode with Jim Hansen. It was heat index of 105 but I still crushed the 40' of FTP work. Came in at 1.075 for one of the intervals. The next hour went well but then my power started to slip. Ended up doing better than I thought though with 4:30 at 0.794. 30' brick felt pretty good considering the weather and I was starting to slow down on the ride.
Saturday: Great run at noon in the heat. Went easy the entire time and was well below EP.
Sunday: Early morning swim started a little rough but I finished up with a great last 500. Then had an awesome 3:00 ABP ride with Jim and Matt Sull. ~0.88 for 3 hours, with the last 1:20 at 0.91!
So far this week is off to a good start and I'm looking forward to a long run tomorrow.
I'm starting to work on my Race Rehearsal Plan and will post that next week for feedback as I am a Kona noob.
Week Five summary:
This week started with 90+ heat and ended with an Olympic race under the threat of rain , water 20 degrees warmer than the air (75/55).
Mon - 3 x 1 early morning on the track @ 6:49/47/39; and a weight session
Tue - 30/30/s on the trainer, followed by a 40' brick, then 3800 meters in 1:12 in the lake.
Wed - Long run - I keep getting faster in these, 13.1 mi in 1:46, HR avg 129.
Thurs - Bike commute 1.5 hours
Fri - Swim main set only in 2400 meters in 47 minutes before work
Sat - Bike 80 miles in 4:45 with my tri club; skipped the brick as I'm racing on Sunday
Sun - Olympic distance race 27/1:10/42.30 (I think the run was short by about 0.2) Forgot my helmet leaving transition, I was so tired from the ride the day before. IF was 0.904, so I couldn't have been THAT tired.
Total 16 hours, with 31 miles of running @ avg pace of 8:01 - shocking to me, as even last year I was doing weekly avg speeds of 8:55 or so. Last 4 weeks have averaged 8:09/19/06/01. We'll see of all this work works. Maybe I'll meet my big goal for the year come IM AZ in Nov: beat the BQ time for my AG in an IM marathon.
Nice work Al! :45 seconds per mile faster is a huge difference. As long as you are able to handle it with out too much added fatigue, I'm sure it is helping a ton.
Mon - AM 3 x 1mi (4') at TP. Came in about 10 seconds slow at 5:54, 5:54, 5:50 as my legs were dead from the 3 hour .88 ride 22 hours before.
Tue - 5 x 5 30/30s felt great for a change of pace, followed up with a solid brick with 4.65 miles in 30'. Masters was cancelled but I had a great swim on my own with some new PRs. It was one those days were everything just clicked right from the first lap. In fact even the 250 WU was under my T pace. Finished up with 10 x 100 M averagin 1:29. Total was 3000 M in 45:39 which is my fastest yet.
Wed - Very eventful long run with rain, humidity, major accident and traffic. I was a few seconds slow on the HMP intervals, but very close to hitting the MP. 18.38 Miles in 2:00!
Thu - easy AM recovery run since legs were dead. Great masters swim. Did almost the full 3400 yards on a 1:30 send off base. Even pulled off a 6:59 500 in the middle of the workout with about 15 seconds rest before.
Fri - AM 4 x 1mi(2') @ TP 6:00, 5:41, 5:41, 5:40. Second run at lunch for 15' to try some new shoes.
Sat - I was determined to nail a solo long ride, and I did. Easy WU, than 8,10,12,12,10, 8 at FTP averages out to about .98. Then killed myself to try and hold .85. Ended up riding for 4:29:21 and making it 98.84. I tried so hard for 100 miles in under 4:30 but the 3000 ft of climbing and all the stop lights messed that up. However, I did meet another goal of mine and had an IF of .85 for the entire ride! 316.6 TSS.
The best part was the brick after (with less than a 2' transition) felt great. Ended up going 5 miles in 33:08.
Sun - Got up and swam first. Did a 1000 M TT with no WU just to see what would happen and ended up with 15:29, just meeting my goal for the year of breaking 15:30. Now I just have to hold that for 3850 M in the ocean
My legs hurt pretty bad from the awesome ride yesterday but I gave an ABP ride my best shot. Very easy warm up for about 30' and then I was able to hold .78 for about 1:30, but then my watts just started to drop (and my quads were in a ton of pain). Ended up holding it together for 60 miles in 2:55 at .73 IF.
After riding with Jim and Matt and others, it was really tough to do back to back solo rides but a good mental exercise.
Up Next: Race Rehearsal this weekend which means it is time for me to write and post a RR plan. It seems really early to me for a RR but I'll trust RnP and try it. I checked and last year I did them 4 and 2 weeks out, but this year they are 6 and 3 weeks out.
Matt - You're certainly puttin in the work - I hope your year of buidling to tjhis training block has you ready to keep out of the hole. So far, so good, especially with the swimming.
I did the early RR for CDA this year, and I seemed to have a bit more spark going through weeks 10 and 11 then I thought I might - no real taper let down at that time, which I usually get. Maybe the earlier RRs played a role in that. And, of course, my overall time was six minutes faster on a much warmer day, even though I eased up on the last half of the run.