Friday, August 20, 2010

The quest for the right training mix

So me efforts to find a really solid training week continue.  This week has been pretty good.

So last week I took it pretty easy.  I did all my hard workouts, intervals, long stuff, etc.  But decided to cut some of the filler completely to see how I would recover.  As it turns out I recovered very well and had some solid workouts.  I did make a change due to the heat/humidity and swapped my long run from Thursday to saturday with a short ride and then followed it up with a long ride/easy run on Sunday.  While that worked well I could feel it in my legs on Sunday.  But it wasn't all bad.  I did my first 30 miles at 270 watts and then lost it a bit and my average dropped to 260+ for a final number.  Overall not bad at all.  Had I been fully rested I may have been able to run well after that.  But due to my long run the day before and the riding my legs didn't have it.

This week I added back the filler workouts and have done some really hard sessions as well.  Monday was a swim/ride.  In an effort to keep myself under control I stayed in the small ring for the entire ride and only rode for 45 minutes.  Average power was just under 200 watts.  That's actually zone 2 instead of zone 1, but I still recovered pretty well. 
Tuesday was my interval day, TimeTrialPalooza.  I stayed aero the entire time and finished with 296w, 306w, 311w, 320w.  With my new FTP of 305, this was actually a really good set.  I'll keep working to bump that first 20 minutes up.  I have to admit, it is disheartening to see numbers this low when a few months ago my FTP was 325.  :-( 
Wednesday was a swim and easy run.  Again I had to really focus on staying under control.  That wasn't too hard as I was pretty tired.
Thursday is long run day.  I managed 2 hours at around an 8:30 pace.  Felt pretty darn good the whole way and didn't tighten up until about 1:30 into it.  But I still felt pretty good and when I focused I could pick up the pace without any trouble. 
Today is a swim day and an optional easy ride which I doubt I'll have time for.

With this schedule I've been feeling really good.  My one complaint was swimming today.  I felt pretty beat up this morning.  And for whatever reason my neck and shoulders are really knotted up.  Perhaps I slept funny.  As a result swimming hurt with every stroke.  After 15 minutes I went to the hot tub but am still pretty tender.  Desk jobs suck...as I am sure that is most of the cause for this.

Anyway, I'm happy with the plan.  I'm happy with my times and speed.  The one change I might make is the Friday swim.  Instead I may just move it to Thursday morning.  I'll be pretty recovered thursday morning so a good swim would work in the plan.  Plus swimming really shouldn't hurt my long run that afternoon.  That way I can sleep in on Friday and not be so wasted.  Plus I am doing masters swimming on saturday.  I won't be such a wreck for that either.
In total I'll put in about 13-14 hours this week.  It had a nice mix of intensity and recovery.  So I am pretty happy.  I'll make a few tweaks and see how things work out.

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