Training Recap – Shifting Focus

Training Recap – Shifting Focus

With the excitement of the Allatoona Sprint Triathlon signed up at the last minute and its aftermath, and then the Peachtree Road Race, I completely forgot to do a training recap for the past two weeks! All races done (for the time being), back to focusing on what was accomplished during the week and how it helps me towards my goal of Divas Half Marathon, Ragnar Napa and then the Dopey Challenge!

Monday

After the long weekend, which left me begging for one last day to recover from the long weekend, I slept in. I was running low on sleep with late nights and early mornings over the weekend and I slept from 9:30pm – 7:30am! Only woke up because the kids were up getting ready for summer camp! I must’ve really needed that sleep badly!

Tuesday

To be a runner I need to run, I said. And so continuing with the theme of running, I met up with friends for a steam bath 5mile run at my favorite trails.

12:02 (no stops), 13:05 (others joined in and started 2:1), 12:48, 12:24, 12:12

The best part about the day, totally unrelated, was realizing that there was a YMCA at less than half a mile detour on my way to work. Which meant that I could run and shower on the way to work instead of having to head home again and scrambling to get to work!

Amazing how runners will come out no matter the temperatures and humidity!
Amazing how runners will come out no matter the temperatures and humidity!

Wednesday

Instead of track wednesday, I had a double workout planned – CrossFit and Swim. I find that swimming after CF soothes my muscles and I’m not as sore as without swimming. But for that to work with the new workplace, I need to be in the 5:30am CF class. Yaaawwnnnn.

I dawdled and ended up leaving home at 5:30am. So instead of going 10-15min late and missing the entire warmup, I decided to swim first. It felt like a great idea at that time, but at my slow swim pace (ha!) it takes me 40min to get to 1200yds. So *just* when I was starting to get warmed up and my strokes were smooth, I had to jump out and rush to the 6:30am CF class.

It was a good WOD, but I still was unsatisfied at having to cut short my swim.

10 dumbbell press (10lbs each) 
20 Rope pull up (Can’t do this properly. More like jump, hold rope and drop) 
30 over the box jumps (2 sandbags) 
40 burpess 
50 situps 
60 one arm kettle bell swings (10lbs – could’ve used higher) 
70 lunges 
80 double under (finally got some DUs!)

And then I got into a nightmare of traffic on the way to work. So – inspite of waking up at 4:50am and getting done with 2 workouts by 7:30am, I still ended up at work at 9:15am. And THIS is reason #2 I don’t feel I can complete a long distance triathlon. Sigh, a working mom who wants to be train endurance sports can never catch a break.

Thursday

Since I have been following the Runner’s World SmartCoach Program (for now), the week called for mile repeats. Also, I’m supposed to run a 5k sometime in the next 5 days “as fast as possible” and I reckoned that mile repeats would be a good way for me to remind my legs on how to run fast and my Dopey buddy gamely joined me.

Now that I’m finished and done with, I can safely say that I had a good run and finished each repeat with just a little bit left in the tank. Although, at that time the only thing I kept thinking was “I have to do this without any break for 3.11 miles?? And all alone?!!”

1 mile warmup 
2 x 1 mile @ 11:14, 11:10 with 800m SUPER EASY run/walk 
1 x 800m @ 10:20 because I suspected we were running out of time. But not really. Oh well. 
1/2mile cooldown.

 

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The “I-can’t-open-my-eyes-because-sweat-is-rolling-down-and-it’s-burning” face.

Friday

The original plan was to go for CrossFit, but I ended up working early and late and instead went swimming. It was an easy swim of about 30-40minutes, I estimate I swam about 1000yds.

Saturday

I met with a friend at 5am to run 8 miles before the regular group run at 7am. We ended up running 7.7 miles in oppressing humidity. But starting the run under full moonlight was worth the shock of getting up at 4am!

The first mile was slow and cautious. I could’ve gone faster the first mile, but trying to watch for sidewalks in the dark slowed things quite a bit (13:49). And then there was the weird thing I was trying to do – watch my heart rate. That was putting off as well.

After getting back up a monstrous hill (I’m not kidding – its a steady “mountain” of 0.5-1 mile!!), my legs felt heavy to turnover. I had attempted to run up atleast part of the hill in 30-45 sec intervals. Last mile picked up as we were being overtaken by faster runners from the group – need to at least pretend to look good even if legs were heavy!

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Absolutely gorgeous morning!

Sunday

Wasn’t training, but absolutely exhausting with fulfilling promises to kids! Bike rides, playgrounds, splash parks, kids triathlon training, swimming! Whew!

Can I have another day off to recover?

Why yes, I can! Monday is rest day according to Training Peaks?

Training Peaks what?!! Since when did I give into “TP”, the tool that drives my user-experience mind to nuts (to be fair, they have been working on improving the user interface)?
Well … I will be sharing the news shortly! And until then, will be learning to navigate through Training Peaks!



 
 

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