08 September 2013

26 August - 8 September Training Log

This is the written portion of my past 2 weeks of training logs. The workouts are often missing - yes, a time crunch...
Aug 26 - Sept 1
I had challenges and successes during the last week of August.
Successes: Coaching Team Challenge and seeing the progress and breakthroughs that so many are making as they get close to their race is very gratifying. My walk/run training is progressing nicely. Volume is good as I work on building my base while avoiding injury. I've experimented with the walk/run time interval cycles. A 2 min walk / 1 min run was what I've been doing for a while now. I also did a 1/1 which also seemed fine. I feel like I don't want to run more than about a minute and a half without a walk break so I've sort of settled into a 2/1 or a 1m30s/1m30s cycle. I don't want the math to get too hard so that I'm expending mental energy on this during the race. Those 2 cycles mean I run every 3rd min. on the clock, so as long as I remember my 3 Times Multiplication Table I'm fine. Fortunately I spent 7 years substitute teaching in elementary school so I'm pretty much a genius! And the 1/1 cycle would be even easier since I'd run on every even minute.

The question becomes why don't I just start running longer and longer and dump these "stupid" walk segments? I have to consider my own situation and history. I have a very large aerobic engine built up over the past 5+ years. However I do not have the durability to handle the pounding and the muscle and joint movements that are necessary. I have to keep a historical perspective on what I've done previously and that means 2 things. I need to build my aerobic capacity specifically for real running. More importantly I need to build a base of road miles that cause my physical body structures to adapt to the specific movements and impacts involved in switching from predominantly elliptical machine training (and at times water running) to actual running on the road (or dirt paths). Frequent walk breaks with short bouts of running will allow me to do this relatively safely, limiting risk for injury, while causing my body to make adaptations to the stresses I'm putting on it. I'm not in my 20's or 30's anymore - I'm 57 (in triathlon age). I can't just throw things at my body and expect it to quickly adapt. (FYI - this stuff also applies to a 20-something person. It's just that very often they don't want to take the time. Understandable, at least to me.)

Challenges: Swimming has become a frustration and a concern. I have become noticeably slower  over the past many months, especially recently. I don't know what to attribute it to. One guess is fatigue specific to swimming, including strength training. Another guess is stroke mechanics. I've worked at improving them but can't help wondering if this has led me in the wrong direction. Another guess would be age but that's not acceptable. While I always say to trust in the taper, a taper is a long way off. With a decline of nearly 10% in some respects, that is an awfully sizeable decline to overcome with a taper. I feel like I may be too close to this and maybe shouldn't be coaching myself for it. A more unbiased viewpoint might be helpful.

In the mean time I've dropped the speed/tempo workout on Tuesday for the next 2 weeks and making it an aerobic/recovery swim to see if changing it up will make a difference. I'm hoping that my body needs that short break and will adapt better as a result.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday
am - Strength train - power phase
pm - :50 Elliptical - tempo run 
Tuesday
am - Swim 3200 yd; finish strength training; 
pm - Coach Team Challenge pool swim
Wednesday
am - 1:57 Walk/run 9.19 miles
WU walk :11+
Run 2min/Walk 1min 1:43 - 12:14 ave pace/mi
:03 cool down
pm - None - work late; coaching obligations
Thursday - sleep 7 hrs (cancel/move a.m. workout)
am - none
Sat -
pm -Swim 4800 yd; Elliptical run :60
Sun - 
am - Did a long ride with 3 x 20 min hard efforts. The fastest repeat was faster than the previous Sunday repeats by a good 5%. Of course it could be that it was a calm day and the wind was a factor. But it still felt good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sept 2 - 8
Monday was Labor Day so I took advantage of the morning and did my long walk/run for the week. It was planned to be 2:20 but when I saw the distance after that period of time, I kept going so I could reach 13.1 miles (a half marathon). It felt like a great accomplishment to reach that distance, including the warm up and cool down, in 2:42. It's been years since I've been able to go that long during training.

I followed through with last week's promise of cutting back on volume and speed on my Tuesday swim. Then, for the first time in I can't remember how long, I forgot to set my alarm (or plug in my phone) on Thursday night. Friday's swim had to be missed in favor of doing part of strength training and finishing that in the evening. I suppose the alarm foul up was one way to get my attention - and give me 8.5 hours of sleep! Maybe it was my inner coach speaking. It showed when I swam 5000 yards on Saturday afternoon. My pace was significantly faster than in recent workouts, only declining about 2/3rds into the workout. And even then it wasn't horrible. Due to a coaching commitment I couldn't do my elliptical run after the swim so I altered my Sunday brick a little.

Sunday I rode lots of hills, doing a 4:33 ride and going 65.1 miles. Lots of red traffic lights, as well as a water stop at a convenience store. Instead of hard tempo efforts there were some very steep hill climbs. Followed that with a 1 hour brick walk/run (including ~10 min moderate cool down with the dogs) for a 5.1 mile effort.

It's time to move into 4 weeks of a "chisel phase" with the strength training starting next week. Will cycle through that for 4 weeks, go back to power for 4, chisel for 4, and then it will be full on taper time.

Aside from strength training my plans for training will be to shift back to Maffetone heart rate for most of the bike sessions, especially for the long weekend rides. When I do speed or tempo it will be done on the trainer and will build toward a peak, along with the volume. Speed work in the next few weeks will likely be done only if I can't get a longer (2 hour +) week day ride in and will serve as a substitute. All running will remain in Maff zone as well. As discussed last week, I need to build endurance and durability. Speed work is the last thing I need right now. Since Saturday is Yom Kippur I won't be swimming or running that day.

No comments:

Post a Comment