#120 - This was only a test, now back to our regularly scheduled WINTER, extended play

After today, I was SURE you owed me one....undoubtedly my complaining about the weather had FINALLY resulted in changes from upper management.....with no help from that over-grown hamster in Punxsutawney, PA. Two days of sunshine in a row.....yep, I was beginning to think someone important was reading this blog and maybe even taking a few of my suggestions to heart.....but then I looked at the weather forecast - Nope, foiled again - single digit lows for the next several days....looks like the folks out in Gobbler's Knob (still not sure what exactly that translates to) were right....and these couple of days of warmth were only a tease.

Oh well - I hope you lived it up while it was here.  I tried to.

This week:
Training this week, although still not clicking on all cylinders, was much closer to desired....

Monday - Treadmill + Bike trainer = terribly boring, but solid.
Tuesday - Pool + Bike trainer = getting there in the water, bike miles ratcheting upward
Wednesday - Pool + 0 = skills & drills....need to keep building
Thursday - Outdoor run = so nice to get outside.  Solid run too (which is nice).
Friday - Day off (#PTPubNight) = decent fish tacos & good conversation
Saturday - Long Bike + 10K hilly run = tired legs, but wasn't trashed....things looking up.
Sunday - Longer Bike + shorter run = run on tired legs, but able to push pace

It's so tempting at this point in the training season to either not be patient enough and ramp up too fast or go the complete opposite direction and procrastinate because things are still "so far away" (the big race is still nearly 5 mos off).  Of course, it's never as far away as it seems (racing season will be here before we know it), but I tend to do both: procrastinate and then try to make up for it with harder sessions.  

Don't get me wrong, pushing higher training intensity is not a bad thing, but it toes the "recover" line closely while trying to increase the total volume as well. So the thing I might be most happy with right now is that I'm bouncing back quickly from the harder sessions.  I still need to get my volume up higher, but right now I'm handling things and there's no significant pain to speak of....cool.    

Where from here?

Swim: This coming week I've got to start adding in longer swimming sets to begin to build endurance there.  My pace is improving, but I don't have the upper body muscular endurance that I'll need to maintain the pace. Of course, I still need to emphasize form & skill in the water, but I don't really expect that need to go away any time soon.

Bike: Volume, volume, volume.  It is hard to put the hours in on the trainer, but I can see the results each week.....so nothing special here - just keep turning the dial upward.

Run: I worked on frequency this week and got 3 runs in without any real static from my legs/feet......but I need to bring the per-session miles up.  Although starting to incorporate bricks in has me running on tired legs, which is much more realistic, I haven't had a true "long-run" in a while.....and I need to.  Of course, this brings me back to the weather - which includes snow and lows that are too damn cold (did I mention that?)....so my expectations that this will be my breakthrough week for the run is sort of low.

I'm sure there's a silver lining in here somewhere.....maybe we'll have a really short spring and click over to an insanely hot and humid summer right away?  Oh well.....no sense whining....again.

One foot in front of the other,

Mike E.