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.