Tomorrow will be the end of two hard weeks...not really in terms of volume, but intensity- especially on the bike doing several efforts at above race pace, and a couple of bricks. Thursday I turned the track workout, which was supposed to be at SMU at 6pm (in the cold and rain) into a treadmill workout. I emailed Ahmed about doing it earlier on my own and avoiding the wet chills so he replied with instructions to do another speed workout (not the track one). Well since I had emailed Todd (who was leading track due to Ahmed being out of town) to give me the track details, I thought it would be a great idea to just do that on the treadmill as I'd be able to see the distance and control my pace. WRONG! Coach wasn't happy.
Apparently my stubborness on the treadmill to keep at a pace that perhpas I'd slow down on outside could lead me to injury, overtraining, and make me slower in the long run. Never, ever, ever, ever do a track workout on the treadmill again! And, more importantly, do what he said to do.
Ok, lesson learned...it was true that I pushed a pace I probably would not have kept outside, and sure enough the next day I was dying on the first hour of my 2hr ride trying to do the sets of 4mins at second-half of race pace. Even though I had a great swim at noon, I was pretty mad at myself yesterday since besides that treadmill session I've been nailing everything and recovering perfect.
However, today was phenomenal!! There's nothing better than ending training knowing and feeling like things are right-on and the body is adapting well to the stress and gaining from it. I did the 11am swim with DAM at SMU, which I love because it's at the outdoor 50m pool, and then had to go to a 90min run immediately after. Swimming was awesome, I felt just as fresh at the end of the workout than I had at the start. But the run is really what made me uber happy. I was worried the legs would be heavy and it would take a good 20-30min to get into rythm but from the very beginning it was effortless. I was right in the middle of training zone holding a decent pace and then the second half (I ran from SMU to White Rock and turned around at 45min) picked it up and it felt just as smooth. I came back with 10min to spare so ran around campus.
Now I'm actually dreading recovery week. When training is going so well it's kind of a hassle to have to back things off...even though, yea, it's necessary.
Oceanside 70.3 #14
1 week ago
