Back On The Blog

Haven't written for a few days. Thought about scrapping the blog altogether, but I don't know. Part of me wants to keep (publicly) documenting my training this season. I think it's something most athletes don't (or won't) do but I think for at least a few folks out there it might be interesting to kind of 'watch' training unfold in a really transparent way and then see how it all plays out on race day. I know I'd actually be super interested to get to read accounts of other athletes daily training. I mean, I get to watch my own athletes of course but to see how someone else goes about arranging training (and hearing why!) would be genuinely fascinating to me... I don't think I have all the answers and I know there are 100 ways to skin a cat... I feel like I'm sort of experimenting on myself going with my gut all the time in my day to day training but since no one is responsible but me, I don't mind putting it all out there this year. That said...

I don't want this to come across wrong, but I'd like to note here, just for the record, that I'm not asking for advice about how I'm going about things this year. It would be one thing if I was writing things like I don't know? What do you think? Or if one of my close friends saw me going down a path that was really inappropriate or unhealthy then ok, help set me straight. But my comments page here is not a place where I'm looking for unsolicited advice from strangers. Fair enough? If you're judging me, just keep doing that silently in your own head. :)

Saturday turned out to be a lot nicer than I anticipated. I rode my TT bike out the other direction from where I normally go to ride long (mostly b/c it looked drier that direction). Indeed I only got a little bit of rain all morning and it was all right at my house. Got ~4 hours in and did it in a pretty fun way. Rode for almost an hour then hit a quiet hill for 5x3' strongish (210-215w), then rode another 90min or so HR 140's as much as was reasonable... Power was variable b/c the route goes up/down a lot with turns and wind and all that, so I focused more on steady effort and HR vs power like I do when it's flat. On my way back I hit the same hill again, harder this time, 5x3' building from 228-249w and felt good about my ability to pull that off 3 hours into the ride. Rode home then off the bike ran just 10x30" strides on 30" rest. I've started doing those right on the street out front of my house so one direction goes slightly up while the other goes slightly down. Purpose there is just to get the right running muscles firing off the bike but not actually create any excess fatigue. I find it takes 2-3 before I feel like I have any coordination, then after that they feel quite good. I do feel like a complete dork though and don't like it when my neighbors are out washing their cars or whatever and I'm running back and forth like a crazed rat in a cage...

Sunday mornings are often spent getting messages with race results, which is always fun! Because of the time change to Hawaii, it's common for races to be done or almost done by the time I wake up so I spend a couple hours drinking coffee and texting/emailing/chatting before I head out for my own training. I did walk Maia and took some time to go all my pre-run glute activation stuff, mobility stuff for ankles, hips, and t-spine... As I get older that routine seems to be gaining in importance for me. When I finally left to go run on Sunday morning, I had 3 gels in my secret bra pocket (Coeur Sport bras are the best!) and told my husband I wasn't sure how long I'd be gone, hopefully several hours... Sure enough, started easy, felt controlled, kept running, then ran some more... kept running, picked up the pace a bit, and got home 17 miles later feeling super satisfied like YES! It's been a long time since I've actually felt decent on a long run like that. My period started and while I know some women feel crappy on that day, for me it all turns around and I tend to feel pretty good once the cycle starts itself over. It's happened every month for years so I know I'm not imagining it, though I will say that the cleaner I eat, the less PMS I have. For me there's 100% a connection there.

Anyway, this morning I swam with Mark and it was the kind of swim where I purposely avoided any 'middle ground' type effort. In fact, the whole time I was swimming this morning I was either slower than 1:40 pace or faster than 1:24 pace. Nothing in between. Easy easy 1000 warm up then main set was 2x through:

6x50's MAX @:50
200 easy
3x100's MAX @1:40
200 easy

Felt decent enough on that. The hard parts were so short they were quite manageable, and with plenty of rest with the easy swimming it didn't wear me out too much. No other training today so this kind of felt like a rest day.