Weekly Workout Totals 01/12-2009-01/18/2009

I had a pretty good training week, but I was really worn out by Friday, from a combination of upping my lifting to 3 sets of 20 reps and shoveling snow. I have a snowblower, but sometimes I don't feel like waking my neighbors up at 5:30AM or I'm just clearing an inch or two, and so I'll just use a shovel. I didn't add this into my strength training totals, but I'm pretty sure I did at least 3 hours of it. This week, however, I am committed to not shoveling as I am racing this weekend and have a pretty busy schedule all week long, so I'm going to try and conserve energy wherever I can.

On Friday just before noon, I decided to make up for my shortened Wednesday swim, which would push the workout to 3400 yards. No big deal, right? Except that I had lifted bis, tris and chest in the morning, then shoveled a little snow beforehand (about 1.5"), and the workout included 2200 yards of pulling! My little stick arms were hurting during the workout, but that's OK. Still, it was just one of those days where I compulsively needed to ensure I got in all the swimming I was supposed to do for the week.

After I finished swimming, I made my little Fortress of Solitude (see previous post) in my front yard, and then went inside, ate a quick lunch and all of a sudden, felt pretty exhausted. I thought I would just do a short little lay down, but I fell asleep and napped for an hour! Even still, I fell asleep early in the evening.

For Saturday's brick workout, I decided to add some more calories while I was on the bike to see whether my treadmill brick run issues were really bonkiness or something else. My legs were a little sore while biking, but that's because my hips are just starting to come around and work properly since my back is healing up. I did pretty well with my bike workout, adding 15' to it because I cheesed out on Thursday because I was so tired.

When I got to the Y, I was pretty pigged out from the bike workout, and I got on the treadmill, and within maybe 5 minutes I was feeling a little light-headed. I figured out why, though--it's not a bonk--it's because my family room is about 60 degrees, which is awesome for trainer riding (I still have a fan pointed right at me), but my guess is the Y is kept nearer to 70, or something at least 5 degrees warmer than where I bike at home. I had had plenty of calories in me, so I knew I wasn't bonking--I was becoming hyperthermic! As usual, I chuckled a little at the things my body does and how sensitive it is to temperature and nutritional changes.

I went to run my last 5' on the indoor track, and since it was just 5', I fired up the afterburners and ended up running well below my 5K pace! It was fun, too, because I was woozy from having been overheated and now running in a cooler area. I walked one lap around the track when I was finished.

Yesterday, I started my long run (1:40) at 8:30AM, and my legs were pretty toasty from Saturday's workout (and a little more shoveling before I left, damn!), but getting on the treadmill right away does not cause me to become hyperthermic. I wanted to avoid additional caffeine besides my usual morning coffee, but because I had been pushing it this week, I took a can of Coke with me, and ended up drinking that during my first hour.

The run went really well, in fact, my running is coming along nicely. It now feels bad (i.e., too slow) to run in Zone 1 and Zone 2 on the treadmill. Zone 3 feels like a good pace, and Zone 4 is becoming not so hard. But, as always, we will test out the system this Sunday in the first indoor triathlon.

My back is still about 98%, and with the intensity I put in last week, especially the extra hard strength training (last week and this week are my most difficult strength weeks in a season), it didn't get too much better than at the beginning of the week, but what's interesting is that now I am feeling genuine pain in areas that tells me that the larger complex of all the back muscles is pretty well healed, leaving all the slacker muscles that haven't been working at full capacity to bitch and moan at me! And I love it! I'm feeling my piriformis and TFL really kicking in and getting angry, and instead of my QL's making the fascia over the tops of my glutes feel all gnarly, I am feeling them right up against my spine being the usual motherfuckers they are! See, sometimes pain is a sign of healing, and it sure is in my case right now!

Today I have a day off from work (YEAH!!!), and I've got a jam-packed day planned, including 3 workouts (swim, run, lift), some sewing, maybe a mini-odyssey (Target, fabric store and hardware store), maybe a nap, and a haircut (just a trim as it's growing out to where it was before the shaving incident in November).

I'm laughing because I'm letting my house get a little messy again, in terms of crap all over the place, but it's because I started on another mini-purge--I went through all my shoes (I have way too many) and am giving a bunch away that no longer fit since I bought them before I was running and my feet got a little bigger, and I lined up several more sewing projects, but it's all good.

Anyway, here's what happened:

Weekly Workout Totals	01/12/2009-01/18/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by racing, which I officially begin this week!
Swim:	8400 yards (4.77 miles) in 2.88 hours; 22% of weekly workout time; approx. 1009 calories burned Canadian: 7680.96 meters
Bike:	Approx. 83.55 miles in 4.58 hours; 35% of weekly workout time; approx. 2510 calories burned; Total TSS=279 Canadian: 134.46 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 25.6 miles in 3.96 hours; 30% of weekly workout time; approx. 1797 calories burned Canadian: 41.2 kilometers
Strength:	1.78 hours; 13% of weekly workout time; approx. 445 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 113.92 miles in 13.2 hours; approx. 5761 calories burned Canadian: 1 kilometers
Sleep:	7.14 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.77 hours. Massage: 1 hours