It's Fine.

One last ride in the CT studio today. 75min ride as 3x15min progression at 75%, 83%, 90%. Add in 15min w/u and c/d and there you go. Not a very exciting set but got the job done and I felt fine. Have to guess that my FTP is higher now b/c 90% doesn't feel as hard as it seems like maybe it should? Just felt strongish.

My plan was to run afterward but my hip does not feel right so I skipped it. I've actually been limping when I walk and that seems like a bad thing on a Tuesday when you've got an Ironman on a Saturday. I'm trying hard to not stress about it and instead spending my time rolling and doing mobility stuff and mostly just ignoring it and pretending all is fine. #itsfine #itsfine #itsfine

I just picked up a new local athlete who has a shit ton of talent and I'm stoked to be helping her. I met her at the pool this afternoon and we swam about 2500m. She can hang with me for a 50 and a 200 but not on a 1000. That's a simple fix. It's not easy, but it's simple, and she's motivated... so I'm wondering how long until I have to use paddles to hang with her? Proves to me once again that I'm not the most talented athlete but since I've been swimming consistently 10-15k/week year round for pretty much my whole life, I can beat athletes who are more talented but train less. I told my new gal flat out that the only reason I'm faster is b/c I swim more. So now she will swim more! It will be really fun to help her get faster. :)

I fly out tomorrow. Not sure how much I'll write while I'm on the mainland?

Calm After The Storm

We had a massive storm last night. It was crazy! I've never in my life seen lightning like I saw last night. We live up high on a hill so I could sit on our lanai and just watch. I've never been mesmerized by a storm like that but I'm not kidding for prob 45min I was watching the lightning and every few minutes gasping and shrieking out loud at the massive bolts that appeared to be striking the ground like a mile from my house. After the biggest bolt I saw our whole town just went dark. Bye bye electricity... Total insanity! Wind was ripping down off the mountain and rain was coming down in buckets. I heard we got 14inches of rain and that sounds about right.

Anyway, as I was watching the storm last night I was thinking that it was prob cooling down our pool water (yay!) but that I bet the pump would malfunction (it always does when there's a big storm). So this morning I went to the pool but told Scott I'd probably be right back b/c it would likely not be open. Sure enough- pool closed- pump wasn't working! Apparently the pool just completely overflowed with water from all the rain. No worries I went home and got a bunch of work done. They managed to get the pump back up and functioning by mid-day so I went back and got my swim in by myself.

1000w/u easy 16:10
Main set all off 1:35 base with pads no extra rest between rounds. Descend 1-3 across each round.
3x400's @6:20 (6:01, 5:57, 5:54)
3x300's @4:45 (4:29, 4:27, 4:24
3x200's @3:10 (2:58, 2:56, 2:54)
300 easy c/d including some kicking on my side

Pretty standard 4k swim. I don't like to taper my swim too much before a race. This week I'm all about doing things that make me feel good/strong, and solid swims make me feel that way. I'll swim easy on Thursday and Friday though.

Darby Day

Tropical Storm Darby interrupted most outdoor plans today.

To be fair, I prob would have ridden inside even if it was dry, but the storm coming in made the trainers in the CT studio more coveted than normal. As soon as it was announced (on Friday) that the local Tinman Triathlon was postponed because of the storm, my phone went off with text and private FB messages asking if there were trainer spots available. My early morning session sold out within an hour but no worries Ben scheduled in another session right after ours so everyone who wanted to ride had the chance. :)

Fun session this morning too. Basically I wanted us to do something that included ~60 min accumulated time spent somewhat above IM race effort... Went (basically) with a main set of 5x12min on 4min rest but broke them up and tried them to keep them interesting by varying the efforts. Essentially:

~2x (6min ramp 75-90%)
~4min easy
~2x (4min 80%/2min 95%)
~4min easy
~12min ramp 80-95%
~4min easy
~2x (5min 80%/1min 105%)
~4min easy
~6x (2min hill 3% grade/1min easy)

The result was my power profile looking like this...

I felt strong/solid but was sweating up a storm. I'm not kidding, even with air conditioning and a fan pointed right at me, afterward I went outside to wring out my big cotton/terry cloth towel. It was gross. I have to say though, will all this time sitting on a trainer, my Coeur shorts have been KEY.  I've turned some of the other girls onto them as well. #noangrykitty

Followed the ride with a 4 mile run. My goal was just to click off 9min pace, and I did that, but it felt harder than I was hoping it would. I didn't wear a HR monitor but it just felt like a bigger effort than what I could hold for 26 miles off a 112 mile ride. So I think a 4 hour marathon on Saturday is rather unrealistic! My thought, really, is that I will run without a watch and go by feel because I think I am quite good at knowing what is a sustainable effort vs what is not, and I don't want to piss myself off by looking at numbers that I don't like.

I spent much of the rest of the day tracking Ironman races (GO ANN MARIE!!!!) and answering emails and being trapped under my cat. Sort of perfect way to spend a stormy Sunday.

On Confidence

Got up early this morning and drove up to the North Shore for the 4th swim of the series. It's the last one I get to do this year b/c we will be on the mainland for the last one... This 1.9(ish) mile swim from Lani's to Pua'ena has never been my favorite and today was no exception.

I thought about skipping the run before the swim (in the name of 'taper' and all) but then I've been swimming so well at these races this year I didn't want to do anything different that might screw it up! So I headed up early and trotted my 5 miles first... super easy HR <140 for the first mile and <145 after that. La la la. It was a pretty pleasant run b/c it was drizzling rain (not hot!). On my way back a dog was running around loose and he escorted me all the way back to my car (about a mile and a half!) Really friendly guy. I felt bad that he was running so far from home but he seemed like he knew what he was doing and there was no stopping him from coming with me. I sure hope he made it back home ok. He had a collar but no tag.

Anyway, on to the swim... We were all bused to the start for the one way swim return to Haleiwa. There's a tropical storm heading our way and consequently a high surf warning for much of the state, but its more the east end of the state and the east shores of the islands that are getting the biggest surf. North shore was sort of rough but not really dangerous. Lifeguards put the buoys out further than normal to help us avoid the surf and while they said it was recommended we swim outside the buoys, it was not required. So. Let the pounding begin...

Here's a file from one of my athletes... I love it that google maps shows the surf.

The horn went off and it felt like all hell broke loose and my goggles immediately started leaking (argh!). It's funny how much I feel like I need to be able to SEE in order to swim hard. I immediately lost Nalani and then got rolled over by a white water crashing wave then actually stopped to fix my goggles (which I almost NEVER do during a race!). Anyway, my biggest issue today was that I don't feel like I 'know' this water very well... meaning I don't really know where the shallow reef areas are. They pop up randomly along this coastline and the problem is that where it gets super shallow is also where the waves crash (its the reason waves break b/c of the change in depth) so you're kind of screwed when you end up in the shallow area because you can see this reef like 2 feet underneath you and then you breathe and look to the side and see the big wave that's about to crash on your head... but you can't really dive under like you normally would to avoid that wave b/c there's no room underneath you... Anyway, felt like I swam right on the middle line where the shallow reef was and consequently it was a giant mess. I should have just gone right along the coastline! Anyway, buoys were few and far between so most everyone had the same story at the end... I was all alone and saw no one around me and no buoys and I had no idea where I was... Eventually I saw a swimmer and recognized that it was my friend Kathryn (her Timex suit is the give-away!) and then saw another guy who stopped to get his bearings- so I stopped too and was relieved to see it was a guy I know named Steve... Prior to that point I'd assumed I was having a terrible swim but Steve and Kathryn are both strong swimmers and when we found each other we all felt relieved like ok we are not doing as bad as we thought... We finished together and I was just glad to be done with that one.

I won my age group again which is cool but don't feel like I really got what I wanted out of the swim. The lesson was interesting though... I had a thought about confidence while I was out there... and how when I was alone and wasn't sure I was on the right track how I was not confident enough to swim hard... but when I found Steve and Kathryn I think we all gained some confidence from that so we were able to push again. Clearly there was no physical reason why I couldn't push when I was alone- it was 100% mental and it was the lack of confidence that was the problem. I'm not sure I know exactly how to 'fake' confidence when I'm alone in the ocean, but clearly that is the key.

Friday

Yesterday was off, but today wasn't! Turned out to be quite a good day too!

Started as most Friday mornings do, with a swim. My plan was just 2k easy easy, but after warming up someone threw out the idea that we should do some relay races, and just like that everyone was on board... So we had a bit of fun with relay races today! There were 5 of us, so we made Mark swim twice... First race 3x100 I went first against Mark and he beat me of course but then Marcy and Kendra went and Kendra caught/passed Marcy... then Mark swam again but this time against Nalani (who had a lead) and he almost caught her but didn't. Close race! Next one we did was hysterical... same teams... Mark and Marcy against Nalani and Kendra and me... This time though we did it as a train so Nalani and Mark were swimming while Marcy and Kendra were literally hanging onto their feet... Marcy did the kicking on that team and I was the caboose of our team so I held onto Kendra's feet and kicked like mad (ok I did some one arm strokes too- no one said that was against the rules!). That race was super close but our team won and we laughed like mad! So funny! We raced one more time (same teams) 3x100 "Toys race" which turned out to be less fair b/c those who had fins had a pretty clear advantage! We evened it out though with some blocking (literally, Kendra and I tried to physically block Mark from touching the wall!) It almost worked but Mark is a master at getting his hand on the wall so they won that one. Too funny. So much for my easy swim session though! It wasn't a lot of hard swimming but the hard swimming was legit hard and required a full 600 easy to cool down.

After the swim I jogged super easy 55 min... No garmin on that but the effort was very relaxed and felt like HR was low for sure. I feel like I've gotten better at running truly easy in the last few months.

Later I went in to HTC and rode the Computrainer with Heidi. It was just the two of us today and it was great! Main set #1) 12x1min on just 30sec recovery spin... Main set #2) 7x2min on 1min recovery spin. With recoveries shorter than normal today I didn't expect power to be super high- was just thinking I'd go just above FTP on those and honestly I would have been happy with that... But turns out my legs were full of watts today and even with the short recoveries I was able to push good power and built my way through both sets. Last 1min piece was 295 and last 2min piece was 265 and neither of those felt like digging. I was seriously like OMG who's legs are these? But maybe that's just a result of the focused work I've been doing combined with the rest day yesterday. Either way, that was really great today- not just because of the numbers but more just how it felt.

Last thing then I went running again. My plan was to run on the treadmill but it was raining and I couldn't justify the treadmill since it wasn't hot! So I ran 2x loops that were 2.25 miles each... felt pretty good to start ran ~9:15 pace then 2nd loop stronger ~8:30 pace and finished feeling like YEP. ALL GOOD! This is the best part about Ironman training, really... The week before when you just feel like a million bucks... Strong and in control and with access to all your gears. I love this part.

Nada. Zippo. Zero.

I wasn't going to write a blog tonight because this blog is about my daily training and today I did none. That's right! Nada. I can't remember the last time I had a day with no training at all. Ok yes I can- it was the day after Honu. I don't take a lot of days completely off and I don't give a lot of days completely off to my athletes. But sometimes they're probably good for us. It was especially odd for me to take one today since I wouldn't say I feel especially tired. But the rest day fit today for several reasons so I took it. I'll take another one next Sunday. :)

Wednesday

Lectie showed up to swim this morning, which was probably good b/c Mark has been lacking some motivation lately. He hates to get beaten though so I knew having Lectie there would give him some extra pep! For me her presence meant shit I'm going to get my ass kicked today.

1000w/u felt like a pretty strong effort 15:42 as 7:58/7:44. Main set I did with paddles mostly so I could be in the same zip code as Mark and Lectie while they swam (it worked). No extra rest between rounds just straight through this 2200m set. We rarely had more than ~10-15" rest.

300 steady @4:40 (4:23)
8x50's fast @:50 (:38-40")
300 steady @4:40 (4:28)
6x50's fast @:50 (:38-40")
300 steady @4:40 (4:22)
4x50's fast @:50 (:38-40")
300 steady @4:40 (4:26)
2x50's fast @:50 (:38-39")

I was a bit of a zombie for parts of the day today. Mostly out of frustration with this PowerTap pedal situation. I did as much trouble shooting as I could and all to no avail. I did narrow it down though and figured out that left pedal works but right pedal does not. User manual says that if the right pedal battery dies that the left pedal will just double its number and display that so wondering if that's a reasonable option for me? At least temporarily? I need to take the battery out of that right one and try riding and see what happens...

Anyway, Computrainer session tonight with the group. After a warm up build, we did a fun main set that was full of different stuff.

10min as 2x (2min @105%/3min @80%)
4 min easy
5x2min at 102%/104%/106%/104%/102% on 1min easy
4 min easy
10 min as 2x (1min at 110%/4min @80%)

I'm not that creative and won't claim to have made this one up. Got it from Justin Daerr at Endurance Corner, though not sure if he's actually the one who made it up either? Regardless, it was the perfect kind of session to do with a group on Computrainers like this because everyone was working hard but at their own level. It was challenging but not killer. I think everyone really enjoyed it! I feel like I've really got the hang of how these group Computrainer sessions can run now. It's good.

Inside

It was another hot/humid day here today and I opted to train inside. I've been getting training updates from a lot of athletes recently (all who live in Kansas, DC/Virginia, Indiana, etc) complaining about sucking on the run.... so hot... so slow... dying... Trust me I get it! I used to think suck it up you'll adapt, and I think to some degree that is true, but too much exposure to conditions like that isn't actually making you stronger b/c you just can't go as hard as you can when temps are more reasonable, and if you do go as hard, it takes more out of you which means recovery is longer. So that's my current thinking.

Plus, my PowerTap pedals are still not functional so if I wanted to ride by power I pretty much had to stay inside. I called the support desk today and turns out, if you use alkaline batteries in those pedals its possible you fry them. Um, that info would have been helpful when I bought the pedals? They do have it in their user guide but who reads those things? Ugh. I'm still trouble shooting and hopeful that I can get them working again (have the recommended lithium ion batteries now) but can't get the firmware update thing to work. Ugh. Sometimes I seriously hate technology. I bought those pedals specifically so I could race an Ironman with power and now, 10 days prior to my Ironman, they aren't working. Super.

Anyway, inside on the trainer at HTC I did mostly a repeat of Sunday's 7/7/7 session. I felt stronger today than I did on Sunday. I think part of that is that when I ride on my own I don't feel responsible for 7 other people so I've got more left for myself, if that makes sense? When I'm leading a class I tend to talk and give instructions/explanations a lot, which makes my HR go up, and I don't know it just feels harder to put out power. Alone my HR is lower and I can focus on exactly what *I* am doing. Anyway, I manually bumped up my base FTP today as the rounds went on so was pushing more like 165/185/205w and that felt good. HR only went up to 155 even at the end of that long set which was maybe a function of the fact that I had not one but TWO fans pointed straight at me the whole ride! Finished with 5x2min hard/heavy gear/low cadence. I haven't seen the file yet so I don't know what my avg was for each of those but 250+ for sure. I might have pushed the last one a bit too hard because my legs felt HOT afterward- like a deep deep HOT flash but only in my quads... It was odd. The feeling went away after a minute or so but that was a weird feeling. Made me think oops maybe a bit too hard there at the very end? I wondered if I was actually tearing little muscle fibers or something?? I guess I'll find out if I feel sore tomorrow. If I am I'll shake my head at myself. No need to do that to myself at this point in the game. #wheresmydiscipline?

My plan was to run off the bike but there was no chance of having a reasonable run in Kailua at 3PM today so I drove over to the gym and used the treadmill. As if treadmills aren't bad enough, I was stuck on one that was in front of a TV set to Fox News and ugh Paul Ryan and Chris Christie were giving their speeches and ugh I guess that's what I get for wimping out and running inside. Anyway, I ran 4 miles at a relaxed aerobic effort then (mostly out of boredom) I broke it up and did a little set where I ran 45" quicker on 15" rest... 8 of those at 8min pace so nothing crazy just a nice little change of pace to allow me to focus on something other than the RNC. I'm sure I could have run the whole mile at 8min pace but my goal today wasn't to run hard, so that's why I inserted the 15" breaks... Those short breaks kept it from turning into an effort that was actually hard. Jogged easy until I got to 50min and called it good.

Monday Matrix

Pool water was a bit cooler this morning which was a relief! I hadn't picked out a main set before warming up because I didn't want to force myself to work really hard if it felt like a hot tub. It didn't, and warming up I felt pretty good (8:00/7:46) so I decided on a solid main set. We haven't done a lot of repeat 100's recently so that's what we did today. 27x100's Matrix style done like this:

1/1/1
2/2/2
3/3/3
2/2/2
1/1/1

Send offs were 1:40/1:35/1:30 (using paddles). It was a great set and I felt very much in control throughout the whole thing. I was holding 1:29-1:30 for the easy ones, 1:25-1:27 for the moderate ones, and 1:22-1:24 for the faster ones. Last one 1:21. It was just one of those swims where I felt like I had access to all my gears. It was satisfying.

I wasn't going to do any other training today, and I didn't really... but tonight while Moana was doing her Tri group training thing I had some free time so I took Maia for an easy jog. It was only like 20-25min (I didn't time it exactly) super relaxed trotting. I think my running tends to feel better when I do it more often. 20min super easy like I did this evening doesn't hurt me but I think it has potential to help me feel better. Normally I don't think I'd go out for only 20min but doing it with the dog made it easy! She was happy happy happy to go!

Moana was also stoked when she got done with her training. The kids got to ride on the Computrainers tonight and since her bike is like a little Barbie bike, she was put on a kids sized road bike on the trainer and she called that her "Dream Bike"... Yep, keep dreaming about that! Too funny though I asked her tonight if she learned how to shift gears and she said, "No but I learned how to make it easier to pedal!" Lol.

Weekend

I feel like this weekend was really light on the training. 2 weeks out from an Ironman is tricky and I waffle back and forth all the time asking have I done enough? Am I doing too much? Should I back off? Should I do more? All the questions. I'm trying to shove them out of my mind and just be confident in the work I have done.

Yesterday I rode ~3 hours. I tried to use the data (power + HR) but the batteries died in my P1 pedals. I replaced them and it seemed like everything was fine (got the green lights, calibrated) but it was showing my power way way low... like climbing hills at 53watts kind of low. I calibrated 3x trying to get it to show more reasonable numbers but it never would so finally I just turned it off b/c seeing incorrect data drives me absolutely batty. 100% I would rather ride with no data b/c seeing numbers that don't make sense messes with my head for sure. I did have HR and HR seemed pretty low throughout the bulk of the ride (like 125-135 and only hitting 140+ if I was climbing). At one point coming home I was passed by a few friends of mine and I couldn't help myself- jumped on to their train and right away HR was mid 150's and even 160+ climbing a hill with them so I took that as a sign that I'm not overly tired, my HR is not depressed, I was just riding pretty easy and that's why my HR was low.

Afterward I did 10x30" quick strides. Felt like ass to start but then way better at the end, as is normal when I do those.

Today I rode again inside on the Computrainer at HTC. Had a full house again which was fun. We rode for 2 hours with a 63min main set that went 7/7/7 at 75%/85%/95% (x3) so no real 'rest' in there but it wasn't outrageously difficult either. For me those watts were like 160/180/200 and it was reasonable. Finished up with 2x7min "hills" at 4% grade using heavy gear low cadence... Mine was like 55-60rpm on those and I was pushing 180-185w not crazy hard just strongish.

Moana did her kids tri group thing while we rode inside... Afterward I told her she was going to get to ride some bonus miles with me while I ran! I just went for 30min and did a slight progression starting at 9:08 and finishing at 8:41. I'd say I felt pretty good but it got hot and I was thirsty and felt like I would have needed more food if I was going to go any longer.

My 'taper' plan is to do 2 strongish days followed by a very light/easy day, so tomorrow is easy swim only. Basically, my Ironman build was ~4 weeks of 20-23hours training... This past week was just under 19 hours, and this next week, if I do it as planned, is only ~14. That scares me to have a week that light but the objective me says that's about right so I'm going to try to convince myself to not do any panic training. #NoPanicTraining

Friday

With the dead winds and high humidity the last few days, pool temps have gone way up. I remember this from last year and it sucks but it is what it is so our only option is to figure out how to deal with it. I brought a couple of bottles full of ice water and had them in a little cooler bag at the end of my lane and between sets would squirt myself down and stuff ice in my cap and down my suit, etc. It's not as nice as having cooler weather but it does prolong the time to overheating so it's better than nothing. It's amazing though how much slower I swim when the water is hot. Granted, my effort was low on my 1000 w/u, but still... it was like 8:25/8:21. Almost a full minute slower than 2 days ago when the water was only just starting to heat up. I do think with water temps like ours right now (I don't know exactly what the temp is but I'd guess like 85?) that I can completely cook myself with a long hard effort and I don't want to be cooked right now. My plan was to do 50's anyway, so that worked out well.

Main set 5 rounds:
2x50's @:55 as 25 sprint/25 easy
2x50's @:50 sprint
100 easy @2:00

They key to that set is full on MAX efforts on the sprints. There's not that many in a row before you get a break which means you can really go hard without draining yourself much. I didn't time those but I did feel like I was able to put in the right effort and that's what mattered. Long and very easy c/d 500m including some mix strokes and kicking. No other training today.

Bipolar Running

This morning I was standing in my kitchen at 7am dripping with sweat. Like literally it was dripping on my kitchen floor while I was making a shot of espresso. Obviously I should have taken that as a sign like Don't go run outside today dumbass, but I didn't. For whatever reason I still thought I could knock out a 90min hilly run in the gardens and keep it 'easy'. Hindsight is 20/20 of course.

I left to go run at ~8 and it was already blazing hot and super humid. I don't even want to get into how bad it was. Let's just say #RunFail. I felt like I was suffocating and I ended up walking a whole lot in the last few miles. At some point I stopped timing myself because, really, I just didn't need to know how long it was taking, but I didn't get home until ~10am so was out there for 2 hours even though I covered less than 10 miles. At one point while I was sitting under a tree in the shade I thought well this isn't the first time I've stopped running to sit under a tree, and it won't be the last... That's Hawaii summer for you.

I got home and wasn't sure what to do. I felt cooked. So I spent the day in front of a fan, mostly with my feet up working and watching the Tour (crazy stage finish today!!). I debated with myself all day about whether I should go ahead with my planned 2nd run or not. Part of me was like hello, um no don't be a dumbass again... But then part of me thought that if I had air conditioning that things might go differently. I've been suggesting to some of my athletes to take their runs inside when it's stupid hot out. Time to follow my own advice. I went to the gym with a very loose plan in mind of what I might do (tentatively 6x4min strongish on 1min rest) and figured I'd take it as it comes and if 15min in I felt like garbage I would stop. I looked at it as an experiment of sorts.

And wow what an interesting lesson. I mean, I've learned this one before (last summer) but I had to learn it again today. Turns out, I don't actually suck at running. I just suck when I'm overheating. Give me some air conditioning and I'm all good! I ended up doing 8x4min intervals on that treadmill, starting at 8min pace and descending by 2 down to 7:41 (I didn't plan this ahead of time was just going by feel during the run). Plan was to take 60" recovery after each but I didn't need that- 30" was enough every time so that's all I took. But seriously I was shocked that I could run <8min pace and have it not feel hard- no breathing hard, no high HR. Crazy. Don't get me wrong- I was still sweating like a fountain. After 30min the belt on my treadmill was so wet that it was almost slippery. The treadmill next to me was getting wet and a puddle had formed at the back of my machine when I was done. BUT, I wasn't dying!

The fact that I had two such absolutely polar opposite runs in the same day is telling. It's just confirmation that yep, when I want to do some muscular work I have to put myself in a situation where I'm not limited by HR that is through the roof because I'm boiling over. It also pretty much confirms what my gut has been telling me recently about how I'm not getting better by spending more time in the heat... I'm getting worse. I think 11 years of it has been too much.

I'm Too Tired To Think of a Title For This

Yesterday (Tuesday) I stuck to my plan of a recovery day even though I really didn't feel as bad as I anticipated I would? Vineman is in less than 3 weeks now though so I need to start thinking about not just loading loading loading but also unloading at some point. So yesterday was about unloading. Maia loves those light/easy days because it means she gets to go for a walk in the woods.

With my free time yesterday I went in and had some blood work done. It's been a while since I've had any blood work done but my doc ordered it just as a precautionary thing. He checked all the basics (and my mom will appreciate this!) it all came back looking good. Liver function, kidney function, blood sugar, cholesterol, CBC... all good/normal! For once my iron wasn't even on the low side (was 12.9 which is about as high as I've ever seen it?). Hematocrit was on the low end of normal at 38% but that's pretty standard for me so while maybe not ideal as an endurance athlete, I'm not sure there's anything legal I can do about it so it is what it is.

This morning we swam. Water was warmer than it's been which is not my favorite. I swam pretty well though until I started to get too hot/nauseous. 1000 w/u 8:05/7:47 so I was moving along pretty well there at the end but it didn't feel that hard. Main set:

200 fast @3:00
300 relaxed @5:00
500 fast @7:30
300 relaxed @5:00
200 fast @3:00
300 relaxed @5:00
500 fast @7:30 (felt nauseous after this one b/c so hot!)
300 relaxed @5:00
200 fast @3:00

Funny thing about that set is that it showed me that my fitness is completely skewed toward endurance vs speed. Going into Ironman I think this is completely fine, but just interesting that I was only able to hold 1:25 pace for the 200's (2:50 felt like max today) yet I could hold 1:26 for both 500's (7:11/7:10). Given that, clearly the path forward for me is a bunch of sprint 25's and 50's, but I hate those, so I don't know that I'll actually go that route. My swim is fine as it is and my energy is better spent elsewhere. Oh who am I kidding? I'll prob do a bunch of fast 50's on Friday.

Group Computrainer session tonight while Moana had her kids group training. Turns out, my bike and her bike both fit in the back of my car! Yay Nissan XTerra!!

I had some technical difficulties with the programming of the group session tonight. I was creating my own session for the group to do but I was saving it incorrectly so it wasn't loading us up right when it came to the 'hills'... Mid-session trouble shooting isn't really that fun and I never really did figure it out but I grabbed another pre-programmed session and we did that instead. 6x3min HARD and we did it HARD. Was fun though smack talking b/c at the end of each interval, everyone's avg watts for that piece come up on the screen for everyone to see... #5 I avg 239 (that's about what I'd been doing for the first few as well). Jerry was 240 and Zen was 241... So of course I started the smack talk... I don't think Zen can do that again... blah blah blah. It was fun! So last one I was killing myself and avg 250w... thought that would be enough to beat Zen but he avg 251 (and Jerry was 260+!). So I'm learning how to push their buttons and make them work. It's def a good time doing that kind of session together vs alone.

The Big Day

My plan was to have a big training day today. But then yesterday I was clearly super tired so I thought maybe it would be better to scrap the big day and just swim/rest instead. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but figured I would swim and see how that went and then just take it from there.

Swim went well! Easy w/u 8:11/8:03 then Mark and I did a main set of progressive 200's that I love. I used paddles.

4x200s@3:10
100 easy
3x200's @3:05
100 easy
2x300's @3:00
100 easy
1x200 MAX

I told Mark we start strong but leave some room to get faster. First one came in at 2:55 which honestly I thought was a pacing mistake (too fast!) but it felt controlled so ok let's see if I can hold that. I did and went 2:55, 55, 54 for the next 3 before we got a little break. Set of 3 off 3:05 we managed a nice descend 2:52/51/50. 2 off 3:00 we held 2:48 for both. Last one max effort 2:43 left me shaking for probably 30min post swim. So I guess 2:55 wasn't too fast to start today after all! I was pretty stoked about that swim and I gave myself a green light to proceed with my big day.

After swim all I did was eat and walk Maia (then eat again!) then I was off on my bike. I rode for just over 5 hours (as I felt no garmin). Found some hills to climb and overall pretty happy with how that went. I've been riding a lot but I haven't been riding long so I was a bit nervous about that. Based on how I felt today though I think riding 5x/week with a long ride of only 4 hours might actually be enough for me- like I can get away with doing it that way vs putting in the really long 100 mile rides? In the last 1/2 hour today I put in a 7min climbing effort in my big ring- cadence was prob ~50-55rpm... I was actually trying to see if I could make my legs cramp but they didn't. I drank 10 bottles today (it was hot/sunny) but never peed. I think that amount of fluid was about right though (certainly not too much anyway) because I finished feeling good. And in a very pleasant surprise, at a 7/11 stop an older man pointed out that they were giving away free slurpees today so... #yesplease! That seriously hit the spot.

I got home and had enough time to drink a recovery shake, take a quick shower, eat a bit more, then pack up a ton of shit before going to pick up Moana. While I was out riding Ozzie (our oldest cat) apparently caught/ate a bird, which I figured out because he left a bunch of its feathers on our bathroom rug.  Actually what caught my eye was all the chicken feed all over the rug. That bird must have been having a feast in our backyard when he got caught by the cat because there was a ton of chicken feed in its belly. Ozzie ate the entire bird minus the feathers and the contents of its stomach. So yeah. I didn't have time to deal with that so I just folded up the whole rug and took it outside. #damncat

Moana and I hung out and played in a park for an hour or so then she had her kids triathlon training session tonight in Kailua (super cute to watch these little kids practice flying mounts and dismounts on the bikes!). So while she did that I went running. My thought was that I would feel like absolute crap but it would be good mental training to run when I didn't feel like running, but damn if I didn't feel quite good? Shocking. I took care to just jog (with all of Moana's triathlon stuff I had to pack I forgot to bring my garmin) so the effort was really relaxed but I'm sure I progressed it a bit. Not having a garmin was probably a blessing in disguise tonight because I might have ended up racing myself some had I had numbers to look at. I think the key to feeling good tonight was that I fueled/hydrated really well all day, and the sun was not beating down on me. That makes a huge difference. HUGE.

Anyway. So 7+ hours training today. I'm not sure I've ever had a training day that long? I would not do that on a weekend or even a normal week day because it's too much time away from my family, but today it worked b/c Moana had her summer camp thing all day then the evening triathlon practice so I could get all that in without really putting anyone out. And I know I have several athletes who are going to send me an email tomorrow morning begging me to put The Big Day on their schedules (I know who you are and yes you can do it at some point!). #teamBSC It really was a fun day and since (except for the swim) it was really just aerobic volume, I don't think it'll take me too long to recover from. That said, tomorrow will be a recovery day just a walk in the woods with Maia on tap. :)

Sweating The Small Stuff

Definitely feeling a bit back on the grumpy side today. To be fair, it's almost certainly a PMS symptom... I think I managed the day ok but a whole lot of little things irritated me. This blog is usually pretty positive so today I'll keep it real and list out my irritations.

~I led a Computrainer session again this morning. For whatever reason, my trainer was the only one that wasn't picking up as part of the group session. I fiddled with it for a while but eventually just gave up and rode the whole session manually in ERG mode. Not really the end of the world but before it occurred to me to do that I started feeling quite pissy about the possibility that I wasn't going to get my ride in today!

~Main set was 8x4min 3% grade hill at strong effort shooting for 105-110%ftp. I started failing that after #5 and had to lower my watts. Ugh. No power this morning. That's pretty common right before my period starts- it happens most months so I'm trying to not stress about it. But still.

~Came home to work and was using a program that required Adobe Flash and it wouldn't run until I downloaded the latest version, but ugh I did that like 3x and had to restart my computer before it would work. Wasted at least 30min b/c Adobe feels the need to upgrade their product like all the time.

~I went to Costco which was the dumbest thing I could have done on a Sunday afternoon when I'm PMSing and lacking patience. Our Costco has been ranked busiest in the nation and honestly its simply a ridiculous endeavor to attempt shopping there. No parking. Can't maneuver your giant cart around everyone else's giant cart. Takes 7 trips to unload all the groceries into the house. But hey, dinner is going to be easy for the next few nights. #brightside

~I'm going to have to #unfollow a lot of people (and @nbcolympics) soon because it bugs the absolute crap out of me to see results from Olympic Trials posted online before I get to watch it! #NoSpoilers #FFS

All of this is small stuff and I try so hard most days to not sweat the small stuff. Today that was harder than most days.  Let's end with something positive, shall we? It was #NewBikeDay for someone in this house!

Grip It & Rip It!

Yesterday morning I woke up sad. Mostly b/c Thursday night I was obsessed with Twitter following #dallas just eyes wide open in disbelief. I try not to be political on this blog but GAH the hate and tension in our country is palpable and it's scary. I didn't swim in the morning as usual but instead took my dog for a walk in the woods. It was so nice and peaceful back there and I had the thought that if everyone had a dog and took daily walks in the woods, I think there would be a lot less hate in this world.

Anyway. I did swim on Friday, but did it later in the day and had about zero motivation. It was just a flop recovery type swim but even then I only made it through 1500 very easy/slow meters and called it enough. I don't think physically I was actually that tired but our brains play such a giant role in how we physically feel, that physically I felt tired even though really it was my brain. I gave myself a pass on it and prepped my brain to be ready to go hard today.

This morning I was up early and drive up to the North Shore for swim race #3. As has been my routine this summer, I jogged a super easy 5 miles first. Capped HR at 145 and after ~3 miles had to run stupidly slow to keep it low (~10:30 pace). It's so frustrating to think I'm 'not fit' because I can't run with my HR low... I still lean toward thinking that my body just gets hot and that's a stress that it doesn't deal well with? Maybe I'm reaching with that. I don't know. 145 is pretty low HR for me, but still.

I was worried that maybe I'd have a crap swim today too since that run was kinda crap. But I found my friends and we got bused to the start and made our way out to the start line. This swim is historically quite hard... It's a one way 1.6ish mile swim, typically against the current and also against the wind chop. For a second I let myself dread the effort it was going to take to swim well, but then on the start line I reminded myself that I thrive in these conditions... I mean really, relatively I handle them better than most/many so I decided that I was going to love it.

And indeed, it was a battle for every stroke out there this morning! I started hard on the front line and found myself side by side with a couple of teenage girls (could tell by their Aulea team swim caps)... I was working very hard and we were stroke for stroke so after a few minutes of that I eased off the gas a bit and got on one gal's feet. She had a strong 6 beat kick so for the next 30min or so that's all I saw- just white water from her kick. We had a single file train going for a while b/c I could feel a gal touching my feet repeatedly over and over and over and over but eventually she dropped off and I didn't feel her touching my feet anymore. I really liked the effort I had to put out to stay with my 6 beat kicker friend, but I couldn't help but think we were too far out/wide... I prefer to stay closer inside and we were def out way further than I would have wanted... but I liked the effort enough that I opted to just go with the outside line and stay with my kicker gal. At least I stayed with her until we got to the rocks...

Coming into Waimea Bay we have to navigate these big rocks (pictured above)... it gets sort of shallow on the inside with big rocks right underneath you, but if you're brave enough to swim right over them, it's faster to stay inside (far left on the picture above). I opted to leave my lead out gal and went after it solo for the last ~800 meters. I could see a few folks up ahead of me and little by little I bridged some gaps and felt supremely happy with my effort. It was good that I navigated that last part solo- I put a full minute on my 6 beat kicker friend just coming in from the rocks so she was definitely taking it out too far. Funny though afterward as I was checking results I was trying to figure out whose feet I was on... Turns out she was just 13!!! Ha! Love it. Pretty impressive swim from a 13year old and I'd say she gets a pass for not (yet) being awesome with her navigational skills. I ended up winning my age group again and was 13th female/37th OA. Really happy with that!

You can tell by the results that the head current and chop seriously separate the really strong swimmers from the simply 'decent' swimmers (even more-so from weak swimmers). A bunch of wind chop and a head current make for some legit separations in the ocean. I was thinking about what makes someone better in those conditions and I came up with a few things:

~You have to genuinely embrace the conditions. I think the only way to learn to truly like them is to be confident in your abilities in them, which means you need to expose yourself to them so you can practice and get better. When I first moved here I despised wind chop and got my ass kicked a lot when it was choppy. I hated that! But the friends I swam with told me in no uncertain terms to quit bitching and get over myself and once I did, I learned to like the chop. If you can't practice in the chop a lot, well, fake it til you make it I guess. But if you live in a place where you have access to choppy open water, put yourself in it as often as you can.

~Keep a positive mindset. I can say today I didn't have a single negative thought about how the ocean was beating me up today. Not one. Not even when I was being smacked in the face/mouth with salt water and missing my breaths... Instead I focused on the feet in front of me and staying on them. That's it. No other thoughts in my brain.

~Technique-wise it's most effective to keep a high turnover, don't try to reach and glide. My mantra in chop is Grip it and Rip it! Meaning, just get my hand up front as fast as I can every stroke cycle and make sure each pull is as strong and effective underwater as it can be.

~This might come as a bit of a surprise or be a bit controversial, but I would suggest sighting less often vs more often when its super choppy. Especially in a straightforward one-way ocean swim like this one. First off, you're not going to really be able to see anything anyway unless you just stop and really look. It *really* helps to swim around other people as much as you can and just follow them. With the initial group of 4-5 I was with I swear I never once looked up to sight and yet I ran smack into the first orange buoy along the course. It actually scared me because I hit it with my hand/shoulder before I saw it! To just swim without looking up takes some confidence I guess in those around you (that hopefully they know where they're going!) but also just trusting that you're generally swimming in the right direction... So when I was breathing to the side I could see the shore and could tell how far away we were from it (which is why I thought we were too far out) but I didn't spend much time with my head up looking around. It just slows you down a ton to do that. I guess I should mention as well here that I use the Roka R1 goggles and the field of vision you get with those is awesome. Plus, the water was pretty crystal clear today. So, take this advice with a grain of (sea) salt.

I didn't run immediately after the race like I have the last 2 races. It was just so hot and I just didn't think that suffering out there slogging along at 10:30 pace while dehydrating myself was going to be beneficial. Instead I came home and waited until late afternoon when it had clouded over here at home. Ran in the Botanical Gardens so got in a solid hilly effort. Negative split 45:48/42:27 and felt strong enough. You know you're Ironman training when your husband asks if you're going for a long run and you say No just an hour and a half or so... ;)

The 'Mama Special' Hip Hop...

I woke up this morning and was pretty grumpy. A sign I'm near the edge and ready for a recovery day or two... But then as is pretty standard, I went riding and after ~30min felt good. I was outside in the sun and unplugged from any data just riding as I felt... and I felt happy! It was windy but that was fine. It was so pretty I even felt compelled to stop and take a picture(!). Maybe all that indoor riding has helped me truly appreciate how great it is to ride outside. ;)

So I rode for 4 hours today and felt strong. Off the bike ran hill reps in my neighborhood... 6x1min up/6x1min down... But alternated those so it was 1' up, recover, 1' down, recover, repeat repeat repeat. The hill between my house and the pool is absolutely perfect for this session. I felt so spunky after this that I ended up totally embarrassing Moana when I went to pick her up from her day camp thing... They were playing some funky music for the kids so I started dancing my very own (Mama Special!) version of hip hop... Moana was grabbing my leg and begging me to stop but I couldn't help myself... They were playing great music and is there anything better than embarrassing your 7yo by attempting mom style hip hop in front of all her friends??? Ha! Don't worry she talked me into taking her to frozen yogurt on the way home so I have been forgiven.

I'll take a recovery day tomorrow. I promise. Easy swim only. It's super hard for me to 'rest' when I feel as good as I did today but I'm trying to not be an idiot. I reprimanded a couple of my athletes recently for going too hard on their easy days so I should probably listen to my own advice at some point!

Work It Wednesday

I keep waiting to wake up one day and feel like crap but hasn't happened yet. Solid swim this morning with Mark and Nalani. 1000w/u neg split 8:11/7:56. The warm up set we did could be repeated multiple times and called a solid speed session. We just went through 2x though today:

2x50's @:55 as 25 sprint/25 easy
2x50's @:50 sprint!
100 easy @2:00

Main set I sort of adopted based off the bike session we did yesterday. We did the 100's off 1:40 and the longer swims off 1:35 base. I used paddles for the whole set which turned it into a strength endurance set. All the swims were pretty much done at fastest sustainable pace, and we were able to sustain a pretty fast pace bc the send-offs gave plenty of rest- like at least 15" after every swim.

4x100's/400
3x100's/300
2x100's/200
100 easy rest extra 30"
500 TT

I pretty much held 1:24's for all the 100's and then 1:27 down to 1:25 pace for the longer swims. 7:09 for the 500 which is ~1:26 pace. Pretty happy with that as it was a solid amount of work done at a pretty hard effort and I felt like a machine.

Led another group session at the Computrainer studio tonight. We did the same main set as I did on Sunday... 3x15min as alternating 4min @90% with 1min @105%. It's the 3rd time in the last 7 days I've done a set like that. I bumped my FTP up to 210 so my watts% were based off that tonight. Def carrying some fatigue b/c that felt pretty damn hard, but my HR was high and responsive, not depressed as I normally would expect when carrying a bunch of fatigue. So that was interesting.

Factoid of the night... I suck at picking out playlists for these ride sessions. Ben has a bunch of Spotify playlists to choose from but I don't really know what any of them are so I sort of choose randomly. The first one I picked was too mellow and Marcy was like Michelle you need to fix this... But then we ended up with a very angry one with some guy screaming DIE MOTHER FUCKER DIE, which apparently Marcy preferred over the mellow music but I can't stand that angry screaming that tries to pass as 'music'... then we ended up with some weird random one. I spent my 3min breaks between 15min hard pieces at the computer trying to find something decent to listen to. Clearly I need to work on this going forward!

If you happen to be local and reading this and want to come to HTC and suffer with me for 2 hours on Sunday morning (7-9a) shoot me a message. We can make that happen.

The Tuesday Thrashing

Seems like Tuesday is a day that Ben likes to try to kill his athletes. I've sort of stumbled my way into their sessions the last 2 weeks, and today could be considered one of the hardest efforts I've put out in a long time. Not that top end power numbers were that big, but there was just a lot of total work done today. It was a 2 hour session with a 90min main set that looked like this...

All those spikes were heavy gear efforts where the CT was set to give us 4% grade and we just stayed in a big gear and grinded it out as strong as we could. The longer 7min pieces (at the end of each round) were done at a higher cadence. I've done this set before on the road but had never attempted to go through it twice. I had to laugh a bit though- my normalized power for the middle 90min was 205w. My tested FTP (3 weeks ago) was 206w. I think by definition of FTP (and an IF above 1!) it's fair to say that based on today's ride, my FTP has gone up!

I don't think I'll bother to actually re-test it anytime soon. I don't get totally wrapped up in FTP numbers. But with the way some of these CT sessions are done, it's important to have it fairly close so when it's giving you a goal % that you're in the ballpark and consequently doing the right work.

My plan was to run OTB but, um, I was thrashed (that session was a lot harder than I was planning!) so I thought it better to come home and work for a few hours and run later. I did get out the door for a 6 mile progression run before I had to go get Moana. I ran from home so it was hilly. Neg split avg 9:27 first 3 miles (avg HR143) then avg 8:53 coming home (avg HR 153) and that felt solid. I really had to hold myself back in the beginning b/c my inclination was to hammer it out.

At some point I'm going to need to take a recovery day, but it doesn't feel like I need one quite yet. Maybe I'll take one on Thursday? When I'm on a roll like this I find it hard to pull back the reigns on myself. This is where an experienced coach would come in handy. It can be hard to be objective with yourself.

Outside on the 4th

It was a nice day to go riding today and I actually got outside for a change! :) Took my road bike out for ~4 hours no garmin just as I felt. I was prepared to go quite easy but I felt a lot stronger than I thought I would so parts of the ride today were fairly strong effort. ~45min into it I came up on a big group of riders so joined with them for maybe 1/2 hour and that was pretty fun, though it's been a while since I've done a big group ride and I felt anxious with the company. They were riding shorter though so at the top of one climb they turned around and I continued on my own.

3+ hours in I opted to ride in the Maunawili neighborhood which is a bunch of pretty steep hills. Legs held up just fine which was confidence building. I don't feel like I need wattage numbers to tell me when I'm riding strong.

4 hours doesn't seem like it's long enough to be considered a long ride when Ironman training, but it's the 4th of July and I didn't want to spend the whole day away from my family riding my bike. I guess in good news, it didn't feel long. Like- my brain didn't process 4 hours as a long time to be on a bike- so that seems like a good place to be mentally.

I've done so much indoor riding in the last few weeks I was sort of curious how it would go outside. It was fine. I think that as long as you have really good skills and confidence on the road, then you can do a lot of quality riding inside and it will transfer over to the road. If you don't have a deep background in riding outside, then the strength you gain from indoor riding can be lost in translation when you take it outside (due to excessive nerves or lack of skills or confidence or whatever). I see this in some of the athletes I work with- GREAT power numbers inside but then they go outside and it just doesn't translate... In those cases, I urge the riders to get on the road more often.

Off the bike 10x30" strides and those felt good. Hip is pretty much fine. Its not 100%... I still need to manage it as if it's truly hurt but it's def good enough to run on.

I didn't slow down enough on my ride today to take any pictures (so does it even count?) Happy 4th!

20 Miles (Take Two)

Hip held up and let me run long. Woot! I got out sort of early Saturday morning (~7AM) and ran 2x loops ~10 miles each with my car at one end and a 7/11 at the other. Setting it up so I had access to ice every ~5 miles was key (miles 5/15 at the 7/11 were all about stuffing my bra full of ice!). It was also good to know that I had a reasonable bail out point in case my hip didn't wasn't cooperating. I started out super easy/slow and cautious b/c I wasn't confident in my hip at all. I was hoping I'd be able to get 20 miles in but promised myself that I would only do it if I felt like I wasn't hurting myself.

I guess overall it went better than last week. My body didn't seize up cramping afterward and my brain did a better job managing the distance. It was slower than last time, but the route I chose today was hillier so maybe the avg pace is neither here nor there. I negative split it by ~5min, but given how slow I started that wasn't hard to do! For whatever reason, I felt like my limiter today was heart rate vs muscular/legs. After all the aerobic training I do it seems downright silly that my heart rate would be out of control... Ok it wasn't really out of control but it was higher than it's been which just meant I had to run slower than normal to keep it <150. While I was running I had the thought that I feel like my body doesn't regulate itself in heat very well, which again seems silly because I should be used to it, but I do wonder if maybe after ~11 years of training so much in it if my body has actually gotten worse at dealing with it? I don't even know if that's even a thing, but when the sun was beating down on me ~14 miles in this morning I was wishing for air conditioning, and wondering what it might be like to run in 60 degrees??

Anyway, the bigger story might be how I managed to make my hip happy enough to allow me to run so long today... Couple of things:

~My hip thing isn't really an 'injury'. Nothing is truly injured- it's just muscles that are tight and pissed off and not functioning correctly, which causes pain. I probably could turn this into a legit injury if I were to not actively go about fixing it and yet run hard on it when it hurts, but I think shutting down that run last weekend when I started to feel real pain (and then not running for several days while actively trying to fix it) was key into it not escalating into anything bigger.

~I went to chiro to get my pelvis straightened out. If I'm out of skeletal alignment then muscles will absolutely have to work in weird ways. I have an appointment every week now so won't be skipping that for a while!

~I didn't just focus on the muscle that was hurting- I went after all the muscles in the surrounding area and worked them all out. I have found that spending 5min 3x day rolling is better than doing one long major rolling session. But I didn't just work on TFL and glute medius... I worked out lots of tight spots all through my glutes (there were many!) and upper quad as well. I think upper quad played a bigger part in that TFL pain than I originally gave it credit for b/c getting that area loose reduced a bunch of pain straight away.

~I loaded the ice and ibuprofen for ~2 days. Again, I've read the evidence against using those modalities, but when what makes sense in theory doesn't match up with what works in practice, you have to wonder. In practice, ice and ibuprofen take the pain away which allows me to run without limping. I haven't taken ibuprofen since I ran today but I have put an ice pack on it a few times already and that def makes it feel better so... I'm going with what I'm finding works.

~I did a few short sessions focusing on hip strength and mobility this week (not just rolling/massage). Exercises I like are hip hikes, standing stork hold, crossover lunges, step-ups, and pistol squats. I'm sure there are others that are good but when I do all those, my hips feel solid and strong and functional. Couch stretch and lunge pose are my 2 favorite hip opener/mobility stretches.

Anyway, so that's my hip management routine. It's working! I'm not sure if I'll attempt another 20 miler before Vineman? Maybe? I still have time I think... I could do one again next weekend b/c that's still 3 weeks out. We'll see. If not I suspect I'll do a 20 mile day but split up into 2x runs vs one long one. Physically I think those double run days are quite good. But I think the straight 20 miler is better brain training.

Today (Sunday) Moana started triathlon 'training' wth the kids group at HTC. I wasn't sure she was ready but she wanted to do it and Ben said sure let's try so I took her and her bike/helmet/cap/goggles/run shoes and let her join the group. She had a blast! I had ~2 hours on my own in the Computrainer Studio while the kiddos were out doing their thing. Can you tell what workout I did?

Main set 3x 15min as 3x(4/1) at 185/215w. My legs felt pretty fatigued when I woke up this morning so I wasn't sure I'd have any power to actually ride but once I was on the bike I felt quite strong so this wasn't crazy hard. Pretty stoked about that! Also stoked that my hip feels almost completely fine? I expected it to hurt at least a little this morning but it really doesn't. Phew!

Long Swim

I felt like I wanted to challenge myself in a new way this morning in the pool. It's been quite standard recently to swim ~4k with a long main set that involves a bunch of strong swimming. That's great, but I feel like I've adapted to that pretty well and would likely benefit from switching things up a bit. In this scenario I felt like I could switch it up by going shorter/faster OR by going longer/easier. With an Ironman 4 weeks away it seems like opting for the longer option made the most sense. So given that, my goal was to accumulate some fatigue in the water today without going hard but by going long. I didn't think 5k would be enough... But thought 6k would do it. So that was my thinking getting in the water this morning.

Did a 2k warm up and it was relaxed/easy. I timed it but not because I was trying to see how fast I could go, but more so I could zone out and lose count but be able to figure out where I was by looking at my watch. Turned out it was easy to figure out bc I was dead on 1:40 pace the whole time (15min at the 900 and 33:20 at the finish). During the w/u I came up with the main set... had several possible versions in my head but this is what I settled on and the reasoning for choosing this one was that it made the math really easy (each 1200m round would take exactly 20min). Basically I did it all off 1:40/100 base send-offs. I used paddles for the longer swims and swam the shorter ones no pads. No extra rest between rounds.

600/2x300's
600/3x200's
600/4x150's

Got to the end of that and wasn't feeling the fatigue I wanted so went one more round 600/6x100s which made the main set 4800m. 200 c/d gave me 7k total for the morning. I left the pool feeling satisfied like cool... consistent 4k strong effort swims allows me to pop off a 7k whenever I want without really feeling bad at all. I think if I had a gel I could have gone another 2-3k no issues so that felt good! I'm not going to start swimming 7k every session or anything but once in a while challenging myself with something bigger like this makes sense to me.

Day off for the legs- no bike or run today. My hip actually feels pretty solid which makes me happy and bodes well because this is what's on my schedule for tomorrow...