Recent Training

I was planning on posting about some progress in the pool. But then I had a good run on Monday and a fast bike yesterday (Tuesday). So I guess I’ll write a little about swim, bike, and run.

SWIM:

I posted some swimming theories a few weeks ago and received some good comments (here on my blog and on twitter) about making sure to keep “mixing up” the workouts. (Someone suggested more speed workouts which I’d LOVE to be doing, but my swimmers shoulder still doesn’t short/hard efforts. Soon, I hope!) One of the workouts I noted in that post is something I’ve been doing about once a month (I’ve done it 4 times so far this year). It’s a simple ladder workout with short rest. A week ago, I had my fastest version of that workout:

Ladder with 20 sec between sets: 100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100.

1:26.45
1:28, 1:30 = 2:59.10
1:28, 1:28, 1:28 = 4:24.88
1:29, 1:30, 1:28, 1:28 = 5:56.65
1:29, 1:30, 1:27 = 4:27.30
1:27, 1:27 = 2:54.47
1:24.14

23:32.99 for the hard 1600 of swimming!

I’d never kept EACH set under 1:30 pace before! My longer sets have never been this fast. Starting in January, I’ve done the 1600 of hard swimming in 23:44, 24:09, 23:59, and now in 23:32.

Also, on Sunday, I did a simple 10x100 workout, and I average 1:22.08. Nearly 2 months ago (the last time I did 100s), I did the same swim with a 1:22.93 average. Progress.

Oh, and a few weeks ago, I tweeted this:

Again, more progress.

BIKE:

Yesterday, because of all of the miles I’ve put on this year, I set a big bike PR. I did my “go to” loop between classes for a quick lunchtime workout:

Note my average speed in that screenshot. I’ve been doing this loop for 12 years, and just about 2 years ago I was able to crack 20.0 mph. Until yesterday, my PR was from over a year ago (shortly after getting my new bike) at 20.6 mph. But yesterday, until a final hill into the wind just before home, I saw a 21.1 mph average. I ended at 21.0 mph and was thrilled. (This loop is done counter-clockwise which includes a climb up Ramsey Hill with 4 miles left.)

RUN:

I’m still taking it easy for the majority of my runs, but after a “hard” effort (not even CLOSE to a “race” effort, and even a bit easier than a “tempo” effort) at O’Garas 8K over a week ago, things still felt OK with my legs and knee. So I pushed the effort on Monday in a stroller run with Charlie. We did 5.4 miles total, with the middle 3 at a hard tempo pace:

My knee got a little achy after that, so now I’ll take it easy again for a few days. The good news is that I could run HARD for a few miles without totally blowing up my knee, so it looks like the Falls Duathlon in 3 weeks is ON!