As readers may have come to expect from me, it's been 3 weeks since Goofy Challenge, and I am already training for my next big thing. If I haven't said it before, I love my coach, because we have a good relationship whereby I decide to do crazy shit, and he and I work out a good training plan together.
Beginning 2/11, I will be doing an indoor sprint triathlon every other Sunday for 8 weeks, so there are 4 of them. When I have done these in the past (I skipped last year, but did them the prior 3 years, capturing tons of medals, winning my age group for the series in 2005), that would be all I would do that day. But I'm preparing for Desoto American Triple T, so this time, I will do the race and then do my long run afterwards.
Coach structured last week's training and the next 4 weeks taking this into consideration. Last Friday, there was nothing on my schedule. NOTHING. A REST DAY. But in my infinite Crackheaded wisdom, I figured I could swim and get in a 5th run for the week. I did the swim in the morning, but as the day wore on, it seemed like running would not be a good idea. So I didn't. And I understood why there wasn't one scheduled. Saturday I did a 2-hour ride with plenty o' intensity followed by a :30 run (and once again I nearly fainted on the treadmill it was so fucking HOT in the gym), and then yesterday I began the pattern of training for the next 4 weeks, with a 1:00 swim and 1:40 long run scheduled.
Yesterday I figured I should swim before the long run, to prepare for 2 weeks out where I will do a race first and then a long run. I got into the pool yesterday morning thinking I only needed to swim :30, since I had added a swim on Friday, but then it felt good to be in the (relatively) cool water, and I thought it would cool me down before my treadmill run, and I was just doing drills, so I kept going and swam 2800 yards. While I was swimming, I kept telling myself to think only about swimming and not the fact that I needed to run 1:40 afterwards. After all, I do this all the time in races, right? Even though I was doing a drill workout, I thought that I am starting to see an impact of some of the things I've been doing in my swim workouts this season. I may even be getting a bit faster again!
Anyway, I get on the treadmill and it's plenty hot. Funny thing is that before I began working with Rich, I would swim about 1 hour and then do a long run every Saturday. And true to form, I was trashed most of the time when I trained that way, because I would do a long ride on Sunday (>3 hours), and that sequence just doesn't work for me (in spring/summer, my long run is on Thursday so I can ride long on Saturday and Sunday; right now my "long" ride is only 2-2:30, so I can easily tolerate a hard long run the next day. General wisdom says you should separate your key workouts by 48 hours). So I was curious as to how yesterday's run would go. As it turns out, no worries--my legs felt fine, and I even forgot what my different paces were and ended up running a bit faster than I needed to. I was careful to eat a gel every hour, so when I finished the run I wasn't quite starving. But I went home, grabbed Endurox R4, drove to Radio Shack to get a battery for my cordless phone, and during that short trip (under :30), I realized how tired and hungry I was. I went home and enjoyed some pasta (I will need to eat pasta on Saturday and Sunday for the next 8 weeks or so to ensure I am taking in sufficient carbs), put a chicken in the oven to roast, stretched, and then ate again around 7PM.
Today I'm scheduled for strength training and an easy run, but I will also do a short recovery swim. So Rich has me basically off on Fridays, and very easy on Mondays, with Saturday and Sunday being pretty difficult. Mind you, it's not like my bike workouts are in a holding pattern here--they are getting progressively harder every week, and I am now in the Power/Endurance phase of strength training, and beginning a week from Wednesday, I start doing track workouts on Wednesdays (5K and 10K intervals), so you put all that together with 4 races in 8 weeks, and that's what I call Gonzo Training.
I got excited thinking about it Saturday when I looked at my upcoming training schedule. I am excited to see how well I can do in the races with such a hard workout the day before, and to see how those long runs are going to feel and how well I will recover. And I know this is absolutely *perfect* training for Triple T (not that Goofy Challenge wasn't good preparation!), and if I make it through the next weeks, well let's just say that when I take my bike outside and start hitting the streets, I am going to be one strong mofo, or at least that's what I hope happens!
Weekly Totals 01/22/2007-01/28/2007
Swim: 9700 yards (5.51 miles) in 3.43 hours; 27% of weekly workout time; approx. 1203 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 76.42 miles in 4.37 hours; 35% of weekly workout time; approx. 2231 calories burned
Run: Approx. 24.53 miles in 3.83 hours; 30% of weekly workout time; approx. 1744 calories burned
Strength: 1.02 hours; 8% of weekly workout time; approx. 255 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 106.46 miles in 12.65 hours; approx. 5433 calories burned
Sleep: 8.5 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.75 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours
