Training thoughts

Swim
A bit more than planned at just over 14K. I was generally tired in the water all week. Tuesday I swam a bunch of 500's and I feel the distance was too long for me to swim fast enough. Maybe 300's would be better. 500's are allmost 9 minutes long and 300's are around 5 minutes long. Taking 30 seconds between them the workout should only take a few minutes longer. The reason I wanted to swim long straight sets was just to get in the laps in as little time as possible and still be able to swim fast enough to stimulate improvement.

Bike
I got a little bit extra time but not the 5 hours that I wanted. Everytime I was on the bike I felt really good. In fact, I was on my bike at home on saturday and felt really comfortable putting out 160 to 170 watts. That's my preliminary goal for IMMoo as it is about 75% of the FT I will need to achieve. I figure 160 to 170 watts will be close to a 5:30 bike ride or around 21 mph for 112 miles.

I am so much further ahead of last year at this point and I feel it is due to the quality of the bike riding I've been doing at the spin classes. Some people think that spin classes are bad cuz the instructors push you too hard. That's not the case with the classes at LTF. All of the instructors want you to stay riding mostly in zone 2 (although they define it differently than I do) so I'm not killing myself with their rides. Most of my target HR's for the classes (which they call AT* and I call AeT*) are just over 140 bpm. That keeps me riding in an easy training zone. Sometimes they bring us up above the AT* for a few minutes and sometimes we stay below for the whole session. It's mixed up and stays interesting, without it I wouldn't be riding at all.

Today I forgot my HRM but had my transmitter, I used it (the transmitter) for the runs since Astro's walker (treadmill) picks up HR and give you the average at the end of the workout. The spin instructor noticed I didn't have mine (watch) with me and loaned me hers cuz she thought I was going too hard. Turns out I was a bit higher than I should have been. That just shows that these instructors do care about the people in their classes and how they are training. I thanked her for letting me use it, I would have gone way too hard without it.

What I need now is a longer ride, I'm planning on trying to get that in on Saturdays from now on. Maybe this saturday will see a 2 hour ride or maybe even friday since I won't be swimming then.

Run
Running went well too, 46.65 miles in 8 runs over 6 days was fairly easy. The second run on thursday was a bit short but still there, I tried to run it too fast and burned out early. What I was trying to accomplish was to get a 10 beat HR differential from the earlier run. Sunday's second run was easy and completed the week's planned running milage. I had a couple runs that were faster while the rest were done easy at 8:20 to 8:30 pace.

I don't feel blasted this week despite going overtime on 2 of 3 disciplings. I had a lot of sleep this weekend as well as some quality healing time during the week and last night* Overall I haven't been this happy for a very, very long time and I expect things to get better.

Planning for next week is close to this week but it should be warm enough to run outside at least 4 times as the temps will be going up to the upper 30's. If it's dry enough I may even get back to the hilly run. Going to seriously try to get 5 hours on the bike with a 2 hour ride on saturday in addition to the spin classes. If it gets over 40 degrees I may get the bike on the road. I want to bring swimming back to 12K and used the extra energy for cycling as that is growing in importance.

Totals
Swim 14,050 yds - 4:35
Bike 73 miles (roughly) - 4:05
Run 46.65 - 6:34:44
Total 15:14:44