Catching Up Tues. & Wed. 07/12 & 07/13

So, I've been slacking on the blog for the last week. Not as much on my training though... I have to work everything into a nice little routine somehow... That includes my sleep schedule. For some reason (partially due to work). My sleep schedule has been out of whack lately. I get to bed at 4 or 5 am... later a few times and then don't wake up until the afternoon. Or I wake up early forcefully and then can't make it through the  day without a nap. This of course also throws of my eating...ugh... Anyway...

Tuesday's Workout: 

OYO Bike 45minutes or spin class

This is a RECOVERY week. That means all workouts will be done at a lower intensity.

Bike 45-60mins in ZONE2 of your HR monitor. If you do not own a HR monitor this is a nice easy effort, flat course effort 4-5 out of 10. Stay in small chain ring and keep cadence >85.

I woke up Tuesday and was quiet sore from the activities (swim torture) of the day before. I decided to postpone my ride to later in the evening. Well.. the Florida weather had another plan and rain ruined that idea once more... I suppose I could have ridden in the rain but... who wants to do that? I decided to make Tuesday my rest day.

Wednesday was a late start... rough night with the sleeping thing but I was determined to do a bike/run. I had a plan to do it during the day but my backup was the bike in my gym because I have no lights or reflectors on my bike. I discovered that riding for 45 minutes continuously at the same cadence is not as easy as it sounds... Your legs naturally want to slow down, even if you are not tired... If you take your mind off it for a second, they slow down. I pushed through telling myself, "Just 30 minutes more... Just 15 minutes more... Just 2 minutes then cool-down." I made it through, pushed the cadence over 100 at a few points and had to change gears even.

Wednesday's Workout:

Run 30 minutes

Recovery Run.  

This run is at LONG RUN (Recovery) pace.  Keep HR in zone2.  Effort level of 4-5 out of 10.  Hydrate.

I jogged to my apartment as a cool-down and grabbed something to eat, replenished my fluids and waited a few minutes for my neighbor to join me for my run. Our apartment complex is set up in a loop; each loop is approximately .85 miles, if we run all the way to the front of the driveway it's almost exactly 1 mile... pretty convenient. We set a pace for 10 minute miles and within 3 minutes, the workout tracker on my phone was yelling at us that we were ahead of schedule (6-7 minute miles). We tried slowing down, but have you ever tried going slower when you want to go faster? It's even more work! Try it... try, say chewing slower than normal... make a conscious effort to slow down your chewing... It feels so much harder! We ended up doing high knees for a 1/4 of a mile to slow us down a bit. At the end of the workout we were still a few minutes ahead, averaging 8-9 minutes per mile... Oh well.

I made plans with another neighbor and friend of mine "T" who had recently informed me he had been swimming almost every day at the pool to swim together on Thursday morning.

07/10 Bike/Run Brick

After Saturday's... fun you can rest assured that I had no desire to be out of the house never mind working out. However, we had another epic practice day... 30 mile ride followed by a 2 mile run... at 7am!

Again, I am fairly strong on the bike and this ride, though the West Orange Trail is hillier than the roads we rode the week before, turned out to be a fun ride. The coaches and a few teammates brought some SaltStick and Endurolyte capsules and they DEFINITELY helped with the cramping. I was able to maintain a good pace of somewhere between 16 and 20mph the entire ride (I hit 24 on a few downhills) and did not cramp or feel fatigued the entire way... until the run that is. I stretched and walked a little to relieve the cramping and finished strong.

It turned out to be a great practice for me, and the entire team ROCKED it. Truly an EPIC weekend.