Wednesday, April 17, 2013

April 8-14: So Maybe That's Why I Feel Terrible

I was back on the road last week, which I really, truly, tried to manage in a way that didn’t result in running myself ragged again. I got as much work as I could done in advance, communicated with my coach about my work and travel schedule constraints, and drank a lot of water.

That last point is key.

But, there’s only so much you can do when things look like this:
  • Tuesday, 1 pm EDT: Leave for Greensboro, NC
  • Tuesday, 4 pm EDT: Take work conference call from the car
  • Tuesday, 6 pm EDT: Arrive in Greensboro, NC, coach
  • Tuesday, 9 pm EDT: Bed
  • Wednesday, 4:30 am EDT: Wake up, run
  • Wednesday, 7 am EDT: Begin coaching at national meet (just a little stressful)
  • Wednesday, 4:55 pm EDT: Swimmers finish competing. Run to airport.
  • Wednesday, 6 pm EDT: Flight from Greensboro, NC to Charlotte, NC takes off.
  • Wednesday, 7 pm EDT: Flight lands in Charlotte, NC
  • Wednesday, 8 pm EDT: Next flight leaves Charlotte, NC for Phoenix
  • Thursday, 1:30 am EDT: Land in Phoenix
  • Thursday, 3 am EDT: Finally get to hotel, sleep
  • Thursday, 6 am EDT: Wake up out of habit. Work.
  • Thursday, 11 am EDT: Begin all day meeting, including presenting in front of 50-some fellow engineers
  • Thursday, 8 pm EDT: Finish all day meeting. Aimlessly wander "downtown" Tempe
  • Thursday, 11 pm EDT: Go to airport
  • Friday, 1 am EDT: Board flight for Denver
  • Friday, 2:30 am EDT: Arrive in Denver
  • Friday, 3 am EDT: Leave Denver for Charlotte
  • Friday, 5:30 am EDT: Arrive in Charlotte having slept possibly 25 minutes total on previous flights. Work during layover.
  • Friday, 7:30 am EDT: Finally board flight back to DC
  • Friday, 9 am EDT: Land at DCA
  • Friday, 10 am EDT: Get home, just in time to start running teleconferences and responding to work email.
  • Friday, 12 pm EDT: Get violently ill. Hard to say why.


And I wonder why my body is giving out on me

Anyway, here’s how the training fit in there.

Or not.

Monday: 4000 meters of swimming, swum as 4x1000 (long course meters) in 16:08-15:47-15:48-16:18. Because that 4.4 Mile Chesapeake Bay swim isn’t getting any farther away.

Tuesday: In the morning, a 90 minute trainer workout with 45 minutes at tempo effort (168 Watt average) and 3 2 minute VO2 max intervals done at 250-252-252 Watts. The target range for those was 240-300 Watts, which seemed a little to challenging to me in advance, but I just went for it because, what the hell.

Of course there is a graph. 



Otherwise, there was no point in hitting those VO2 max intervals so precisely. I mean, except for the fitness gains that come from them, which are obviously secondary to the goal of making pretty graphs.

Wednesday: Early in the morning before coaching at Junior Nationals in Greensboro, NC, I hit up the treadmill for a 1 hour progression run, moving from 9:23/mile to 8:42/mile for the middle 30 minutes. Then coached the whole day and spent the entire evening flying out to Phoenix.

Thursday: “Rest” day before the hellacious 3-leg redeye home.

Friday: Spent most of the day sick and/or running teleconferences for work. In the evening, stumbled over to Wilson for 2800 meters of easy swimming to make myself feel human again.

Saturday: About 25 miles of easy riding at Hains Point around sunrise with Rachel. No exciting power graphs, just a fun morning workout that left me free the rest of the day.

Sunday: A run-brick-run workout done with Rachel and Mia as follows:
  • 3.35 miles of running at 8:55 pace
  • 24 miles of biking at an average power of 158 Watts, including 30 minutes done at “race pace” (19.5 mph, 168 Watt average)
  • 4.08 miles of running at 8:34 pace. This is OBVIOUSLY totally appropriate, since we’ll DEFINITELY be going and dropping some 1:51 half marathon splits after biking 56 miles this weekend.


6 comments:

  1. Sounds like a "Stadium Pal" might come in handy if your schedule is that crazy and you're drinking lots of water. :)

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  2. Holy crap. You need to slow down. Race this weekend, right? Then rest? Good luck.

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  3. Just reading that breakdown makes me tired. You are officially super Ironwoman!

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  4. What the heck. I would die. I would have passed out like 20 times. I can't even comprehend.

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  5. That travel schedule would kill me. But you survived! And I expect you'll surprise yourself this weekend. The illness could be that bit of rest your body needs.

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  6. There are plenty of great triathlon coaches out there. Many of the professional triathletes are coaches. So do some research, go visit their sites and learn more. I'd recommend narrowing your list down to about 3 and make sure you speak with all of them.

    triathlon coaching

    ReplyDelete