Monday, January 23, 2012

January 15-22: What Ice Means for Training

Another not-too-notable week of early season training. Except for the impact of the weather.


As many DC-area runners and triathletes have lamented, training outdoors this weekend was rough. Weekends are usually the best time for long bike rides and long runs, since it’s difficult to find a large enough block of time during the week. This little ice incident made biking impossible on Saturday and ill-advised on Sunday, and made running treacherous on Saturday and annoying on Sunday, as running on slippery surfaces kills your calves.

So how did it all go?

Monday: Mandated rest day.
Tuesday: 1 hour of stretching and lifting, focusing on glutes/core/upper body in the morning, frustrating and disjointed 4000 meter workout with DCRP Master’s team in the evening.
Wednesday: 5 mile track workout in the evening, with 1x1600 and 2x800 at lactate threshold and fast 400s at the end.
Thursday: 3700 meter swim in the morning, including a 5x400 meter set trying to maintain half-ironman goal pace with 5-10 seconds rest between 400s (mission close to accomplished). Dry needling treatment in the mid morning.
Friday: Technically a rest day (AGAIN?), but the PT ordered 20 minutes of super easy spinning in the morning to facilitate dry needling recovery.
Saturday: 90 minutes of biking in upper zone 2 on the trainer. No breaks, no intervals. It would have bored me like crazy, but I had company from my very kind significant other.


He kindly sat there and pedaled away, watching a movie and not complaining when I interrupted to whine about how hard it is to keep my heart rate in a narrow little range.
Sunday: Early morning 10 mile long run on Beach Drive at just under 9:50 pace, slowing down often to avoid wiping out on icy patches.  10 minutes of very easy spinning on the bike trainer to loosen the legs at night.

Worst part of the week: TWO &)*%!& rest days.
Best part of the week: Hanging out on the trainer, away from the ice, with the exceptionally supportive significant other not mocking my Nuun addiction (often).

9 comments:

  1. oh I'm jealous! jas and I only have one trainer so can't ride together. Also I don't think we have room in our house for two :(

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  2. What a romantic saturday. *sigh*

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  3. You should be happy you got outside for that run. If you had dreadmilled it on Sunday I would have defriended you on facebook.

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  4. We had a very similar Sunday. I ran 9 miles slowing down for icy patches on the Georgetown Branch Trail, Beach Drive, and Cap Crescent. Unfortunately my pace was way off. It's hard work running up a gradual incline on packed snow/ice!

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  5. I am already behind in the "swim as much as Victoria" challenge. And you even took 2 (!!) rest days. Sigh.

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  6. This weekend was one time I benefited from traveling up north - just as much ice, but it wasn't actively snowing during my run. Do you watch TV on the trainer? What zone do you have to keep your HR in?

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  7. I've just discovered your triathlon blog... I look forward to read about your experiences!

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