Monday, April 30, 2012

Week in Review: Apr 23 - Apr 29

Another solid week of base building training with a bunch of variety!  I love these weeks of training.

Swim: 1250 Yard / 26 Minutes
Bike: 33.62 miles / 2:11 Hours
Run: 13.37 miles / 1:43 Hours
Weights: 1 Hour

Totals  47.7 miles / 4 Hours 20 Minutes

I only got one strength training workout in this week but that's because I was fitting in my cycling and an actual swim in!  I am signed-up for one triathlon (so far) this year, so don't want to end it in the first discipline.  I could tell it's been a while but that's fine.  I'm not that far off my time from last year. Until I join a Masters swimming class (which I sort of know the instructor for), I'm going to live with that.

My bike miles are based on two rides.  One of 17 miles and one of 16 miles, which was actually a commute into work on Thursday last week.  Sweet!  I love riding to work and, thanks to some completed construction, is a little safer now.  I did not commute back home because we had some plans that didn't allow for it, so TKB picked me up from work.

I should mention that the swim and ride to work happened in the SAME MORNING!  I love that my YMCA started opening at 5:00am instead of 5:30am this year.  So now I can ride to the gym in my tri shorts, get a swim in and then bike into work without being late!  This would have been used so much more last year but I'll do it every time I can this year (even though I'm not focused on triathlons).

I also got in a "pace" run this week as well.  I'm planning to run Hospital Hill around an 8 minute pace, so I'm doing a run at that pace in order to get used to running that speed.  That's faster than what I've been running in the previous 4 weeks (around 9:30 - 10) as I was just focused on building miles and strengthening my right knee so it's ready for the high mileage weeks that are coming.  This coming week I will start adding more interval type of training.

Now that I'm adding in some speed work, my weekly training plan is based on getting certain workouts in.  When they actually occur isn't set.  I'm trying to juggle hard sessions with light sessions so as to not add to much stress to the body.  This last week was no exception.  I did a 5 mile pace run Wednesday morning, weights Wednesday night, then my Swim/Bike brick on Thursday morning.  During the day on Thursday my knee was starting to give me the stink eye so I rested the next two days in preparation for Trolley Run.

With Trolley Run, I started my string of 6 events in 8 weeks.  Next up is the Corporate Challenge 5k.  I'm being very careful not to make the knee cranky again, so for this week and possibly next I'm shifting my training schedule to do my long run in the middle of the week and turn these short distance races into tempo training runs.

While there seems to be many different definitions of a "tempo" run, I consider it a run that is faster than a "pace" run.  Many say  to run at your 10k pace (which looks to be at 7 minute mile pace for me).  The goal is to get your anaerobic system used to running at a speed to remove the lactic acid buildup more efficiently.  This will make it easier (read: less painful) to run at that speed as you continue to train.  So my hope is that in July or August, my system has improved so that I could run a 10k at 6:30 pace or faster.  You get the idea, right?!

You might have noticed that I said I have 6 events in 8 weeks.  In last week's weekly training report I said I had 7.  I got moved into the backup role of the KC Corporate Challenge Half-Marathon in favor of a faster runner.  I had the option to say "no" and keep my spot but deferred.  Doing that half on May 19 made me worried that I was "crashing" my training plan so I was happy to give it up.


Enough of that, lunch time is over so back to work!!

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