posted by Lee@Tri*Inspired*Life on Ironman

I am pleased to say that I have another good week of training in the books.  This is how the week progressed:

Monday:

AM – 50-minutes on the bike trainer:  HILL REPEATS at 5:15am!!  (What a way to say “hello Monday”!)

PM – Swim…This swim workout was very similar to the one I had done the day before with a focus on endurance at moderate to easy efforts.  This session was a total of 2100 yards.

Tuesday:

AM – 30-minute treadmill run at a “steady pace” (slower than tempo but faster than race pace); this is my first early morning run in a while.  It is hard for me to run this early, but I know that I must start trying to get used to morning runs with this IM training.  Average pace: 8:36 for 3.49 miles…this pace was in the range of what I was hoping for.

PM – Swim again…The theme of the week is endurance swimming.  This workout was 2200 yards which includes a main set of 3×10 minutes steady swimming with 1 minute rest between intervals.

Wednesday:

AM – 55-minutes on the bike trainer.  This session was intense!  The focus was multiple sets of “max effort” for varying periods of time.  I was a drippy mess after this workout and ready to tackle my Wednesday after this morning’s booty-kicking!

PM – Training planned for morning due to evening meetings.

Thursday:

AM – 30-minute recovery run on the treadmill.  The focus of the recovery run is getting a good run in, but keeping heart rate down.   This is a good morning workout since you don’t really have to push yourself.  Average pace: 9:37 for 3.12 miles.

PM – Swim – 2500 yards of endurance swimming.  This was a repeat workout (same as the prior Sunday with a bunch of 100 and 200 yard sets with little rest between intervals).  Getting in solid yardage!!

Friday:    REST DAY!!!

Saturday:

BRICK!!  For those that might not be familiar with this term, a brick in triathlon training refers to doing back to back workouts of different disciplines with little or no rest in between.  This brick was a bike to run brick, which is the most popular for training purposes.  I have heard that this type of training is called a “brick” because your legs feel heavy (like bricks) when you get off the bike and start running.  I don’t know if this is really how this term was chosen, but I do know that your legs can feel that way!

For this workout, I biked for 90 minutes on the trainer (relatively high intensity session) but it had lots of gear shifting and different sets to focus on, so time went pretty quickly.  I got off the bike, put on running shorts/shoes and ran outside for 35 minutes.  The goal of the run for this brick was to just get the legs going and maintain good form, despite feeling fatigued.  The course in/around my neighborhood has decent rollers, so running from the house is always interesting.  I ran a total of 3.71 miles at 9:26 pace.  Lesson learned:  I had enough to eat/drink on the bike, but I did not take in enough to sustain myself well for the 35 minute run after.  At the 1.5 miles mark, I realized that I should have eaten more.  I will make adjustments for next time!

Sunday:

First Outdoor Ride of the Year  2 hours 46 minutes; 46 miles

 

A couple of things that make me smile about this week:

1 – I successfully woke up early on four mornings and trained before work.  For this girl (I am not a morning person), I am proud that I conquered the early morning!

2 – Three swims in four days of training!

Totals:

Time: 11 hours 3 minutes

Swim: 6,800 yards

Bike: 87 miles

Run: 10.32 miles

Stretching/foam rolling:  Some, but not enough!

Tags: Ironman, Training