September 17-23: Continuing to Solve the Recovery Puzzle

In the four weeks since Ironman Louisville, recovery has slowly progressed, as evidenced by higher intensity and longer duration workouts slowly working their way back into my schedule. Last week, most of it was back in the picture - the swim speed sets, the threshold track workout, the long run, and the 3+ hour bike.

I was happy to see it on the schedule, but wasn't sure about how it would go given some residual fatigue that still has me napping a lot on the weekends. This left me puzzled about how it would all go.

(You didn't think that the alpaca blog appearance was a one-time thing, did you?)

It wound up all going alright, even the 8-mile run Sunday morning, which wound up being the fastest long run I've done since the spring. I am therefore tentatively declaring myself recovered.

That will probably bite me in the ass this week, but that's OK.

Monday: Rest day, desperately needed after a full week of traveling from city to city.

Tuesday: A 45 minute strength training session in the morning, 3700 yards of swimming in the evening with a bunch of 200 IMs included for variety and/or fun.

Wednesday: A 5.37 mile track workout of 2400 (13:00)-2000 (10:46)-1600 (8:44). Relatively speedy for me at this point, which was reassuring.

Thursday: A 45 minute strength training session in the morning, and a long nap in the evening.

Friday: 3 hours of biking on Skyline Drive with Beth and Tim.

I did a route similar to what I did in June, and managed to register a full mile per hour faster this time around. Progress. Minor progress, but still progress.

Saturday: 3400 meters of swimming with DCRP masters.

Sunday: An 8 mile morning run, with a negative split and sneaking in just under 10:00/mile average pace.