Training January 24-30, 2010

Sunday:
am) Bike: 81 miles 4:06:34    Long Ride

Monday:
am) Swim: 3200 yards 1 hour
pm) Bike: 33 miles 1:41:19    Moderate

Tuesday:
am) Bike: 30 miles 1:31:36    Moderate
pm) Bike: 25 miles 1:16:28    Recovery Weight Lift: 45 minutes

Wednesday:
am) Bike: 30 miles 1:31:36   Moderate
pm) Pool Run: 1:20:00

Thursday:
am) Swim: 3100 yards 1 hour
pm) Bike: 30 miles 1:31:15   Long Intervals

Friday:
am) Run: 5.5 miles 49:09   Recovery

Saturday:
am) Run: 20 miles 3:04:54   Long Run

Totals:
Swim: 6300 yards 2 hours
Bike: 229 miles 11:38:48
Run: 33.5 miles 5:14:03
Weight Lifting: 45 minutes

The theme this week was the bike.  I was trying to rest my heels to see if they could heal up a bit.  After a week of no running I didn't get any reprieve which was a bit frustrating but I tried and now I'm not going to worry about them anymore.  As long as they don't get worse I should be able to survive.  The gels cups have made a huge difference to the point of them being tolerable and I'm able to walk after running so no more complaining from me. 

So instead of running I biked more.  Did a long ride on Sunday, 4 hours on the trainer.  That is a dang long time, let me tell you.  I enjoy the trainer and feel like I get a good workout but that's long.  Did a double bike day on Tuesday with a recovery ride before lifting weights.  Jeff lifted with me and did pretty well for his first time.  Wednesday I did a good solid moderate ride in the morning and then pool ran at night.  Wow, is that a good workout.  In the water you don't feel like you did anything and then you get out of the pool and your legs feel like they weight 1,000 pounds and you can hardly walk.  I really make sure I focus on my form, keeping my posture straight up and running with high knees.  This is probably something I should do every couple weeks to give the joints a rest from the pounding.  Thursday did some longer intervals on the bike and felt really strong.  Friday's recovery run was cold.  Temps were -3 with wind chills at -13.  Asher was totally pumped to get out though, first time for him this week.  I had a really hard time keeping my heart rate down for this run.  It was almost 10 beats higher than it should have been so I was disappointed about that.  It was a tough week of training and I was tired so I'm sure that contributed to it.  Saturday was the long run.....I hate to even re-live that 3 hours but I need to fess up and deal with the bad run.  I felt bad, really bad.  My heart rate was high almost from the start and I was low on calories and light headed for a big majority of the run.  Not sure why either.  I ate about the same as I always do on Friday so I'm not sure what happened.  It was about 0 for the whole run so my handheld water bottle that I carry was frozen and slushy so I didn't drink as much as I should have.  I pretty much had a honey stinger chew in my mouth the whole run too but that didn't even help.  A couple times I had to stop and drink and eat because I was so light headed.  Not good.  But we got through it and made it for our first 20 miler of the year.  Asher did 16 with us and did great.  Mark and I ran the first 6 miles (picked Asher up 4 miles in) and then came back to Voyager and picked up Steve, Mike and Erik.  It was a good group for it being so cold out.  The trouble with that cold is how to dress.  I brought enough clothes to change part way through and that saved me big time.  It's awesome to put dry clothes on half way through. 

Overall, even though I didn't get my heel figured out this was a pretty solid week of training.  I missed running but supplemented the time in ways that gave me the same aerobic benefit so I was pleased with that.  Also the weight training seems to be going better too.  I added some more weight this week to a couple exercises so I feel like I'm making some progress.  I would like to get one more day in so I might try that this week.

Also as a side note, Happy Birthday to my dad today.  The big 59!!!!