Two Weeks of Workouts Between Two Races

On Sunday, June 14, Matt and I did the Capitol City Tri. Here are the 2 weeks of workouts that follow that:

• MON, 6/15: Core. Just a bit before we got kicked out of the Y because Charlie was being a crab back in the "kids care" area. As BFFFN Devon told me regarding kids, "sometimes you get a dud."

• TUES, 6/16: 9x200 swim, and a little legs. This was my FASTEST 9x200 EVER - I averaged 2:57.71 for the 200s, with only 5 (of the 18) 100s being 1:30 or slower. (I have 2 more "fastest ever" swims coming up later in this post.)

Let's talk about this for a moment... this was the 10th time I did this 9x200 swim since November of last year (when I started swimming more). The first 4 times I did this swim, I averaged between 3:09 and 3:01. In late January, I finally had an average that was sub-3:00 (2:59.72). Over the last few months, I think my average barely dropped below 3:00 another 1 or 2 times (out of another 5 or 6 times of doing this workout). Then 2 weeks ago, I beat my PR for this workout by 2 full seconds.

Some days, I head to the pool thinking it will be a "lazy" day in the water, but then I totally kill the workout. Other days, I go for a hard solid swim, but it just sucks and I can't get moving. Day-to-day or even week-to-week my swims can fluctuate. But when I look longer term, I've been getting faster. And that's due to 2 simple facts: I've been swimming MORE, and I've been swimming at different speeds. Before last November, my workouts were basically 1200-1700 all out, 10x100, or 3x500 (with most being the steady swims). Now (and as you'll see in this "2 weeks of workouts" post), I do a mix 50s, 100s, 200s, 400s and 500s. No fancy workouts, just different distances and different speeds (and different rests).

• WED, 6/17: 28 mile bike ride, and some core. The ride was nothing special - just a moderate ride early in the morning. Legs felt good 3 days post-race, so it was time to "ramp it up" again.

• THURS, 6/18: 4x1 mile at the track, and 3x500 in the pool. Pharmie didn't work, so it was my chance to get to the track with the gang for their Thurs morning intervals. A lot of people were doing FIVE 1 mile intervals, but I didn't want to kill my body too soon after a race. (I usually do 3x1 mile, and I do 4x1 mile when I'm feeling really good, so I wasn't about to try 5x1 mile as my first run just 4 days after a race.)

My "race buddy" James from the TC 10 Mile this past year was there to run, and we had the same goal: 85 second laps (that's 5:40 miles). We took off together, but I took off kinda hot - lap 1 was around 75 seconds (5:00 pace). Oops. James backed off, and I did a bit too. But on interval #2 and #3, James was with me the entire time. On #4, I pulled ahead a bit, but James was doing a 5th, so he wasn't going to kill himself on #4. These were my half-mile splits for my 4 miles:

2:43, 2:50 = 5:33
2:45, 2:47 = 5:32
2:46, 2:47 = 5:33
2:47, 2:43 = 5:30

I was happy with those splits! And James was too! (James went sub-5:30 on #5!) Here are a few people chatting on the Mpls South High track as soon as I wrapped up #4:

Kinda beat-up track, but it gets the job done! And that's our leader Laurie on 1 leg.


Post-interval selfie, still breathing hard.


James and his beautiful stride half-way into his 5th mile repeat.

(You can see lots of photos of James running with me in my TC 10 Mile race report from last year. We met during the race!)

Then a few hours later, I did 3x500 in the pool. That's a good swim without being TOO intense, so it was good for a "2-a-day" workout. I swam a 7:36 average, so I was happy with that!

• FRI, 6/19: nothing. Drove out to WI to go camping (seen in this post).

• SAT, 6/20: 7.05 mile run with Charlie on a trail in WI. Here are 2 photos from this post that showed part of our run:

Straight, flat trail out of Sparta WI.


Smiley guy as we finished up 7 miles. (He just woke up.)

We covered 7.05 miles in 48:48 (6:55 pace), and we did the middle 3 at 6:12.3 pace (6:17, 6:16, and 6:04). That was fast and a little hard, but not "all out" by any means, because I didn't want to overdo it just 2 days after the 4x1 intervals.

• SUN, 6/21: nothing. Packed up, left the campsite, and drove home.

• MON, 6/22: 45x50 in the pool, and some core during the boy's nap. I posted this on twitter just after my swim:

The big news was announcing our relay team at Life Time Tri!

Devon did some backstrokes along with me for 5 of my 50s. Really. He can backstroke at (or faster than) my 50 free pace. I snapped this photo of the majestic beast before he left the pool:

Good luck at Ironman Coeur e'Alene tomorrow, good friend!

• TUES, 6/23: 65 minutes on the trainer, and 40 mins of legs at the gym. Got in a good spin with some longer efforts while the boys napped.

• WED, 6/24: easy 5 mile run, and 4x400 in the pool. These 400s were the fastest I'd ever done this workout. I first averaged around 6:14/400 the first time I did this workout in November, and times have been dropping a bit since. Usually (in the last few months), they average a few seconds slower than 6:00, with maybe 1 or 2 of the individual 400s dropping under 6:00. Well on Wednesday, they were all between 5:51 and 5:54 with a 5:52.9 average! Another solid swim workout PR!

• THURS, 6/25: a short easy spin, and a bit of core work. I Instagrammed this photo after my spin:

"Henry said I looked hot and sweaty on the trainer, so he walked over with the
bike pump and started blowing air in my face. #ILoveThisGuy"

• FRI, 6/26: 20x100 in the pool. Yep, another PR workout. Back in November, I was doing 10x100 around 1:30 pace. Then I started doing 16x100. Lately, that workout has been done around 1:25 pace. Well, yesterday's swim was 20x100 done with a 1:22.70 average.

p.s. If you're interested in some of the simple swim workouts I've been doing, check out this post from November. I'm basically still doing some version of these.

p.p.s. As I noted in a "update" at the bottom of Thursday's post, today's "By George" triathlon got canceled 2 days ago. But Pharmie and I found another tri tomorrow. So I think I'll have a race report shortly...