Week in Review

Okay, kiddos…here’s the dirt.

Some modest disappointment with my volume last week, but there were some key workouts accomplished and I think it was a perfect time (in retrospect) to scale back for a recovery week. I think my body needed it. And maybe my head, a little, too. No dramatic breakdowns, just a stressful week that I didn’t allow my training to make an emotionally disastrous one. And a nap on Sunday...not usually my m.o., so my body was saying something.

And, you know, (and this is totally an aside, but I think many of us grapple with the problem) I really believe that training hard or fulfilling your schedule’s plan when other stressors are begging your attention doesn’t pay off in the end. For me, at least, if I feel like I have to force a session in, I find the workout is always sub par and I mildly resent the process.

Here’s the numbers

• Actual Time: 6 hours 00 minutes
• Swim: 1600 yards
• Bike: 26.8 miles
• Run: 16.63 miles
• Strength: 1 session

Impression: light on all, but no one discipline suffered. There were a couple of important things that went down last week worth mentioning…

1) Money, money, money!! I was just ridiculously excited when we got our first contribution last week for the IM Able/Canine Partners for Life campaign!! A massive THANKS to Iron Jenny for taking the lead and making a wonderful contribution toward the work CPL does. And if you haven’t yet made it over to the charity site…GO THERE!! This organization does truly amazing things every day.

2) Garmin – I finally (!) got my Garmin software downloaded to the junk PC we have in the basement. (I’ve been fully converted to a Mac at home thanks to Mighty M’s persuasion and, in their infinite wisdom, Garmin doesn’t think it’s a financial priority right now to push their Mac software through the pipeline. Grumble.) I was actually a little disappointed in the interface – I thought it would be a little more fancy looking. Ah well, we can’t all be fancy. ;) It was fun looking at the elevation changes for my hills session and my bread and butter 5K in the neighborhood. Beeerie interbesting…

3) A new convert?? The scientologists would be so proud of me…I think I managed to spread the triathlon bug to a friend of mine, Beanie!! (Hi, Beans!) We had brunch at the diner from The Blob – no, really, this is right down the street from my house! – and I brought all my fanciest colored triathlon books and a couple starter books with beginning plans. And somewhere in the really fun three hour brunch, we managed to squeeze in a little tri talk. In fact, there was a guy who was sitting behind us who saw the books and asked about them. Turns out he’d done a triathlon a long time ago. How fun.

4) Key workout – Hills. You know how great it is to find that perfect route that fulfills one of your training needs…and it’s right around the corner? Yup, I founds me’z some HILLS!! There’s a beautiful easement near my home and it turns out to have some really good hills to train on. It’s just shy of a 2 mile course and has two 50-75 ft inclines that are pretty steep. All I know is that the first time around I couldn’t finish either one without stopping to walk, so this will be a great challenge for the future!

5) Key workout – Swim Time Trial. I’ve never done this before, and it was really informative. (Go figure!) Turns out that my average was about 2:23/100 meters, once my aged brain figured out the math. I’m going to work this in every four weeks or so to see how my speed progresses. I thought I was swimming faster, but turns out that I was just picking the wrong times on which to base my sets. My only concern was that this TT was during a week that I kind of kicked my own butt in the weight room and felt it for the rest of the week. A possible influence? Maybe, but in a way, who cares.

___________________

So, the plan for this week? This will be my embarkation to BASE LAND! This week is Base Week 1 and will include the six key workouts you would expect – an endurance and a power/speed session for each sport. I’m still working on how to plan the week so that I don’t set my schedule up for failure. There are just some things I can’t seem to fit in without some serious hurting going on. For example, Monday morning anything. My sleep is so completely messed up on Sunday nights that attempting to do an AM session the next day will never work. Why bother to pack the bag? It is, of course, still sitting in the guest room…now waiting for tomorrow. So, time for a little reality to settle in.

Oh, yeah...and posting more!

Be well, guys and gals!