Bricks For Legs

Blogging less doesn't mean I've been training less! In fact it's the opposite... As I started my ride today my legs felt like BRICKS and I was like well duh I've ridden 5 of the last 6 days... and the day I didn't ride I ran 15 miles... so... That's why it was ugly today. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I meant to write about a fun day training with Heidi yesterday. It was her birthday and she took the day off work and wanted to train all day... so ok I'm a good coach like that I'll join her! We started with a 46 mile ride to Laie Point.

Then Heidi had never run in the Botanical Gardens (what??) so we drove over to the gate so we could run 4.6 miles in the gardens. Tons of pigs out- seriously we saw at least 12 pigs... This one was with a group of ~9 including 5 keiki and he came right toward us while the others walked away... Clearly the man of the family doing his job protecting his clan. You can see a few of his family members in the background...

We ran an extra tenth of a mile bc Heidi wanted to get the famous shot... so I ran ahead and we pretended she was an Athleta model for a minute. It was a fun run!

Then we went to the pool where we finished up with 46x100's. I did them all bands only because #birthdayswim and then later was plastered to the couch like OMG I'M TIRED. I have to say though, it's easier to do those when I'm not drunk.

I figured I'd be too tired to do a quality Tantalus Tuesday session but there wasn't really another place to put that key brick this week... and I missed it last week b/c of the car fiasco and next week doesn't work for it either... so I sucked it up and decided to go give it a shot today. First pedal stroke (yikes!) I knew it was not going to be a PR up the hill kind of day... I debated with myself for a bit on the worth of slogging through a longish brick on that mountain given the state of my legs but in the end decided that I'm training for an Ironman so pushing through sessions when I don't feel like riding anymore is kind of a key part of that... So my mindset became this... You've done a lot of work to get to this fatigued state so this session is a durability session just get it done and you can rest tomorrow...

So that's what I did. I still climbed the mountain 3x but didn't time any of them and if I had to guess I'd say my HR never went above 150 (it's likely suppressed right now anyway). I don't think it was a waste of time because sub-max training, if I do enough of it, has really helped me get strong in the past... Or maybe that's just how I justified my half ass effort today. I did "try" when I started the third trip up but that lasted about 30 seconds before I was like nope this is stupid and I went right back to my sub-max effort.

I got off the bike and ran my standard 2 miles up/down and I did time that b/c I was just curious. Running I felt 100x better than I did riding (go figure?). I jogged up easy 22:36 (about the same as the last 2x) and then turned around and damn all of a sudden I felt awesome?? 2 miles down in 13:45 weeeeeeee! I didn't even feel like I was pushing- just floating. It's interesting to me that I've been doing this run consistently (4 of the last 5 weeks now) and my uphill running isn't getting much faster but it's getting easier. Downhill running has gotten a ton faster though. I do think that is closely related to hip function and an increased ability to extend my hips. Plus I think it's making my quads bombproof.

Anyway, check out this orchid. I think the previous owners of this house must have planted some because they randomly pop up every once in a while in our front yard.  Stunning flowers.