Monster week…

With three weeks to go before race day this was the last build week my so called “Monster week” before I ease off and downswing into taper. I had the target of 15 hours training, 100 miles on the bike, 50 miles running and 2 miles in the pool. Monday was Columbus Day in the US and I was fortunate to have the day off from work, that tied in really nicely as the weekend prior was spent wandering around Sea World in San Diego and had had to miss my long run so I just spilled it over into the Monday…that and the fact that my wife and kids did not get the day off.

So Monday I was up and out early a’la my usual 5am start and hit the local sidewalks for a 15 mile long tempo run

15m @ MP+15 (7:24)

With two days off, albeit walking around Sea World this was solid run, was "within" myself for the whole run which is displayed in my average HR data

After a quick clean up I headed out on my bike riding a favorite loop that has some steady climbing; 41 miles and 2:28 later I switched bikes and headed out on my new slice for a quick hour to start the transition to aero, here is the new steed, I still need a few bells and whistles but there is no rush. Suffice to say it feels very very different!

With that done it was off to the pool, I had hoped for 2100 yards but as is often the case I was short of time so I had to cut it in half…Day 1, 71 miles!

Tuesday I had Intervals, a nice sensible set of 10 x 400s the actual full set was 2 m w/u 10x400@5:40 w/400mRI 1m c/d
After yesterday's big day I knew this was going to be hard...and I wasn't disappointed! Only one sub 6:00 split everything else was around the 6:15 mark, it was a long hard set and I was happy to walk most of the rest intervals!

Wednesday back on the bike for an early ride, 28 miles done and home by 6:30am, the full moon added some much needed extra light but I was ginger on the descents, finally with enough sunlight I could pick up the pace and push a little harder on the flats. I was working at my local office which is 6 miles from home and 6 miles from my gym so for lunchtime I ducked out and hit the pool for a quick 1050 yards.

Thursday I eased right off the gas and took a recovery run for time, 9 miles in nearly 90 minutes, like they say make you hard days hard and your easy days easy.

Friday back on the training plan for a short tempo (although some might argue 8 miles is not a short run) 8m @MP (7:09) The numbers don't really reveal the level of effort needed for this, it was way harder then it should have been, a good sign that the week was catching up with me! But that's the whole point of training right...train hard - race easy!!

Saturday back to the pool drills and laps for 1250 yards some even without all my floaty bits; fins, paddles, pull buoy etc!

Sunday…oh Sunday, I started to not look forward to this from Thursday onwards, 20 miles at MP +15 which equals 7:23. I fell asleep on the sofa and finally went to bed around 11:30 with the alarm set for 5:30, the plan being out the door by 6:00am and back by 8:30 for present opening for our 4 y/o whose Birthday it was today. I hit snooze once too often and got out at 6:10am, two hours and twenty one minutes later I walked back in with 19 miles on my Garmin, those snoozed 10 minutes my nemesis. To avoid a complete hard stop (and evitable lock up of everything below the waist) I put my bike on the trainer and jumped on for a quick 45 minutes and a slow 10 miles just to flush the junk out my legs, which worked as I got off feeling 100% better than when I had gotten on! Here’s the 20, 19 deets:

As you can see I was 3 seconds off my target pace per miles but the good news was that I was 10 seconds faster than my last 20 miler two weeks ago and I was well within myself. So here is the final tally for the week:

59:38 miles run in 7:55

3300’ (1.875 miles) yards swam in 1:40

92.36 miles ridden in 5:59

All in 153.61 miles in 15:42, right now I feel pretty good, maybe better than I should but whose counting, I would say that my idea worked and while I missed a couple of my goals it was only just and I more than made up for them on the sidewalk!

Next week my wife is out of town so it’s going to be bike heavy with lots of trainer miles and squeezing in runs at the gym when I can, but with three weeks to go till race day it’s time to start the downswing, I don’t do that well with tapering usually but right now it’s looking pretty good!