The long winter...

So it's becoming a long winter and it's only February.
I don't mind the cold at all, in fact for the most part I like it. But snow on the roads and sidewalks gets me upset because it makes running outside tough. I'm always afraid I'll fall and hurt something...which is pretty typical for me.

A couple updates.
Weight today was 211. I dropped 6 pounds last week. Not exactly sure how I did that. I did cook all my meals and only had 1 bad dinner (gyro). I had almost no soda or diet soda and did some really solid workouts. Overall I felt really good considering the amount I lost. If I can manage another week or two like that I'll hit my goal weight way ahead of schedule. During IM training I got down to about 208, so I could just be losing the easy pounds right now and 208 - 195 will be tougher.

My workouts went really well.
I got in 4 swims totaling 2:05. Nothing compared to my college days, but I got in about 7,000 yards. I'm sure that will go up once my shoulder is fixed.

I got in 5 bike rides for 7:45. I got in 3 solid interval rides. 1 endurance ride and 1 recovery ride. Saturday was a 2:30 ride of mixed intervals and endurance sets.

I managed 6 runs. Short runs were 20min, medium runs were 30 min, long run was 35 min. Still breaking in the legs and feet without the orthotics. Next week I will only bump this by 10 minutes making the long run 45 minutes. After that I'll be bumping up 10% each week. I can feel the calves and hips tighten up without the orthotics, so I did take some extra time to stretch and use the foam roller. Seems to be working itself out pretty well.

Overall not a bad week, got in 11:40 of total training time. For the off season that's not too bad.

Originally I was going to take this week (14th - 21st) as a rest week and do some basic testing. I know my bike power is higher based on my sets. But I decided to make this week a longer training week (15 hours) instead. Starting next Saturday I have to take an all day Saturday class for 4 weeks. So I'll have to shift around my longer rides. Won't be able to do the masters swim either.

I am doing this week as a longer week because yesterday I had a holiday. I thought I'd get in a longer day of training since I'd have the house to myself. My plan was to do the following set.

5x3min @110% FTP - 60s rest interval.
3min recover
3x5min @110% FTP - 90s rest interval.
3min recover
4x1min @130% FTP - 15s rest interval.

So on Saturday I did a long interval/endurance ride. Then on Sunday I did an endurance ride at the upper end of my aerobic power. So when I got to Monday for some reason I thought I could manage to do a set like that.
For those that don't understand FTP here is a brief explanation.

Power is a measurement of the watts you produce when biking. It is a very quantifiable measure unlike HR. You get instant feedback...and it is very simple to figure out your sustainable power output. An FTP test when done correctly essentially tells you the wattage you can hold for a 1-hour (40k) Time Trial. It is an all-out pace and extremely hard.
My current FTP is 300watts. So 110% of that is 330watts and very challenging to maintain. Especially when your legs are already beatup from hard workouts the previous 2 days.
Unfortunately I was unable to complete the set as written. But I did learn a LOT. First it showed me just how much impact rest (or lack thereof) can have on upper end power. Second, it really showed me that my upper end power needs some work. Sure I can hold 260-280 watts for 20 minute sets no problem...but my legs are suffering after even a couple minutes when above my FTP (and tired legs).

Since I plan to take next week as a rest/testing week I am going to spend this week doing upper end power intervals like that. I'll be doing them more often as historically I haven't done them as much. I need to look up some more sets like that to make it work. Especially since that set above has very little rest and I'm not sure I could finish it even fully rested.

Alright, that's it for now. I will have much more to say next week once I've done my testing. I don't know that I've ever really focused on swim or run testing, only biking. Typically I just swim and run. To get faster I'll need a little more focus.

For the run testing I am going to be using my normal loop in my neighborhood. It's about 3.5 miles and hilly. I am going to use that time to guage progress over the next few months.
For swimming I'll be doing 10x100's with 10s rest and taking the cumulative time. Over time I'll bump that up to 15-20 100's.

Thanks for reading.