Chain line on The Evil Twin

Time to take a little rest

I've had 12 solid weeks of training dating back to the first week of January and I'm in the place I'd hoped to be.

The swim came back a little this week,  I felt fairly strong on Friday and Saturday.  I'm not 100% but expect to be stronger after taking it easier this week.

I backed off of the bike intensity again this week.  I really didn't feel like riding long on Saturday so I only road 30 some miles.  This week I'll probably ride 30 on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The running this week went well with Wednesday running 2X20'(10) and a long run on Sunday.  I felt fairly strong on the Wednesday run and finished the week with a 15 mile easy run with friends on the Hilly Northville loop.

Over all I'm healthy and ready to back it off to be completely recovered for the training Camp in Georgia.

Some more ramblings...

3 weeks done in the third run phase and I'm feeling OK

Two weeks ago I felt really good in my running and completed all the workouts as scheduled.  I was surprised that I warmed up quickly and got into the intervals on that Sunday's workout so quickly, normally it takes me 3 to 4 miles to get warmed up.  I thought the mile repeats on Wednesday would be more difficult but they went very well.  Everything went as planned and I finished the week strong.  

This past week went well too but didn't feel as strong as the previous week.  Sunday I completed on schedule but needed 3 miles of warm up instead of two, and I held the M pace better than I expected.  Wednesday I did the 2X15'(3)+10 and those intervals went on schedule as well.

Biking is going well, two weeks ago I finished the 2X20(5) to end the rotation of threshold workouts and did 3X20 SST on Thursday.  Last week I started the rotation over again with 8X5'(2) and moved Thursday to 4X20 SST.  Saturday the mountain route opened on Zwift so I did that, I kept the pace reasonable and finished just over 50 miles in 3 hours.

I thought swimming was coming back but am still tired.  Last Saturday I lead Dave in the workout where he's been leading for the few weeks before that.  I was able to put in some decent 100 repeat times but nothing extraordinary.  I still feel that I'll be able to swim much better when rested and am just going to put in the work now.

This week I'll be back up near 50 miles of running 6 to 7 hours of biking and 3 to 4 swim.  After that I'm taking it easy for a week to rest up for Georgia.  I most likely will not be running long on that Sunday or riding long on Saturday. 

After the first week on the third phase of running program

My legs still feel pretty good and my swimming is coming back.

It's taken a while but I've finally got more energy for swimming.  Swimming 100's on 1:40 is not a chore anymore and might drop back to 1:35 soon.  I've been consistently swimming 4 days a week near 12,000 yards.  All of those weeks with high volume without a break was just too much for me.  If I do another swim block like that I'll make sure I get an easy week every once in a while.

The bike is coming along well too.  I've been going though my regular rotation of threshold workouts and found doing them twice a week is a little too much for me right now.  I did the 5X8 on a Tuesday and Thursday, on the Thursday I had a difficult time on the last 3 intervals.   The following week when I did 3X10 on Tuesday, I did 3X20 SST on Thursday and felt much better for that workout as well as the weekend.

This week I had the 3X15 and felt pretty good.  My workouts for Wednesday to Friday got jumbled around because of a personal issue so Thursday's bike workout was only an hour which allowed me to ride a little longer on Saturday.  Overall the week was still productive.  Next week I'll do the 2X20 on Tuesday and 3X20 SST on Thursday.

I finished the faster stuff on the run in the last two weeks and moved on to threshold runs.  The faster stuff I was able to get near 6:45, a little short of the 6:30's I really wanted to be at but I'm training for what I'm capable of and not the goal pace.

Now I'm on the longer threshold stuff so it's a little slower but much longer.  This week was 4X10'(2) near 7:30's, next week has some mile repeats and then to 2X15 +10.  I've done all of those before and feel pretty good about them.  What I need to do is a 5K race to see what I'm capable of to reset or confirm my training efforts.

I'm still not running on Mondays, I think it's the right thing to do because the rest of my week feels so much better and is more productive.  Even though I'm taking that day off I'm still running the recommended weekly mileage, I just double on Tuesday.  Monday is just a swim day now.