Week 4 - Tuesday Basement Brick

Yes with temperatures plummeting this week I am probably going to get a lot more use out of my treadmill, this morning it was a whopping -2 outside when I woke up and let the dog out, needless to say I was a bit chilled standing on my deck in my shorts, after that I was ready for a workout to warm me up.

This week is a recovery week so time to back it off just a bit, seeing as how I'm not following an actual plan and just kind of making this up as I go along it is important for me to at least follow the pattern of 3 weeks build, 1 week recovery. That is really about as complicated as my training structure actually gets, outside of that I do certain workouts on certain days cause it just fits my schedule the best. Anyway onto the actual work done today.

Tuesday is typically my medium ride of 90 minutes but with the recovery week and all I decided to scale it back to 75 minutes than do a brick run of 30 minutes. I started out on the bike watching an episode of The Wire, good show can't believe I never got into when it was running, I didn't really have a plan for today was just going to wing. I ended up doing a 20 min warm up then 4x10 min (8 min hard, 2 min easy) followed by 12 minutes of intervals moving up and down the gear range every minute and 3 minute fast spin before jumping off to run on the treadmill.

I got bored with the run almost immediately so after the first mile I decided to do quarter mile intervals with easy at 7mph and quarter hard at 8, 8, 8.5 and 9, that got me to 3 miles and then ran easy to finish off the 30 minutes.

Ended up with 27.15 miles on the bike and 3.7 on the run.

Took yesterday off so looking forward to my swim tomorrow and lifting weights again.

Until next time...Do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.

Week 2 - Saturday daily double

Started the day off with a long run, met up with the usual suspects and a couple new faces. Head wind was rough to start with but nice on the way back. Ended up with 12.5 miles in 2 hours.

Afterwards came up did some jump ropes and core before devouring a stack of pancakes.

Did the grocery shopping, got boys lunch and a snack for me before hopping on the bike trainer. Did the following workout:

WU: 20 min progressive warmup
MS: 2x (5x1 min hard 1 min easy) staying in the aero position the during the 10 min set. Easy 2 min spin after each set.
CD: Rode remainder of time easy.

Watched part of the movie Ali while riding, good movie.

Now it's time for some playoff football!

Until next time...Do today what other's won't, so tomorrow you can do what other's can't.

Tuesday run, bike and maybe a swim

Woke up this morning ready to tackle a tempo run and then either hop on the trainer or head to the Y for a easy swim, wasn't sure what I wanted to do so I figured I would just decided after the run.

I have found recently that it is easier for me to get up at 4:30 to get ready to work out by setting my alarm for 4 instead of 4:15, makes some sense seeing as how I have a habit of hitting the snooze button, so this way I still get to hit the snooze 3 times and get up on time.

I was out the door and ready to go at 4:55, I ran the first mile plus as a warm up with Lucky, he doesn't do so well on speed days even on a nice cool morning like today, but he still got 1.4 miles in before I dropped him off and changed shoes (yes I put the wrong shoes on this morning in my sleepy haze).

The run went pretty well I was hitting my mile splits just about where I wanted to be and half way through I realized how easy the pace felt. Running when it feels as effortless as it did this morning is such an amazing thing. I'm no speed demon for sure but when I am able to throw down 8:20, 8:00, 7:50 miles and not feel like I'm putting out much effort I know running well. It felt really good to have such a great run, I have been neglecting my running lately and with a marathon coming up I really need to start stretching my mid week tempo runs and speed days out as well as my mid distance easy runs. This time last year I was doing tempo runs of 8 miles total and easy runs of 8-10 miles mid week so I am a little behind schedule. Fitness wise I'm probably ahead of the curve with all the cross training, swimming and biking I've been doing so I'm not going to worry to much about it. Just need to pick things up over the next couple of weeks and get in some good long runs which shouldn't be a problem considering how many people I know that are training for the same race.

After my run I decided to hop on the bike trainer, I actually swapped my new tri bike for the road bike on the trainer, I found last night that the road bike is slightly more comfortable to ride on the trainer so I will most likely for now just keep it on there and ride my tri bike when I get outside, which I plan on doing tomorrow afternoon. I am taking the day off since it is my birthday, my plan is to do 35 miles for my 35 birthday, plus this will serve as my long ride for the week since I'm doing the Hickory Grove Triathlon on Sunday.

Thanks again for reading and until next time...

Do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.

It's only Wednesday...

Yesterday was an incredibly long day at work, we got on the road at 8 am to make the rounds visiting stores and didn't stop until dinner, which was at 9:30 pm. I hate being on other peoples schedules, especially when they're the type that doesn't need to eat that often. I'm used to eating multiple times during the day usually every 3 hours, yesterday it was more than 8 hours between lunch and dinner. Anyway it was a struggle getting up at 4:45 this morning but I got up to battle the wind on my bike. My original plan was to try and get my long ride for the week in today but with the wind blowing out of the south and my option for bike path (after nearly getting run over yesterday I'm off the streets) heading out with the wind I really didn't want to battle it for 20+ miles on the way back. I ended up finding a nice stretch about a mile long and did intervals going hard with the wind at my back and then maintaining high cadence in a low gear coming back into the wind.

Since I cut the bike short I grabbed my running shoes after dropping the bike off in my hotel room and headed out for a brick run. The run was good to start but at 2.5 miles the suffer fest started. I could feel the fatigue of a long day yesterday and not eating like I'm accustomed to taking It's toll, I had to stop and reset. Finished the last 1.5 miles at a slower pace but o finished it. Not my best effort in training today, just didn't have today but work got done and it I didn't quit or skip out.

Until next time...do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.