SOLID Training Week

Last week was a NICE week of training! Here’s what it looked like:

• MONDAY: longest run in years! 12.15 miles! I posted a bit about this at the end of last Tuesday’s post. I did 6 harder miles in the middle in 6:15 pace. Overall, I did 12.15 miles in 1:24:08, which is 6:55/mile overall.

• TUESDAY: my 2nd “two-a-day” in October: 3x500 in the pool and a trainer ride. I had done 3x500 as one of my first swims back in the pool in late September, but I didn’t have those splits in my memory, so I just swam hard last week. I had abut a minute rest in between them, and here’s what I swam:

1:36, 1:38, 1:37, 1:36, 1:35 = 8:04.4
1:33, 1:35, 1:36, 1:34, 1:32 = 7:53.2
1:34, 1:36, 1:34, 1:32, 1:30 = 7:48.4

It turns out that was a bit better than a few weeks before where I swam 8:04, 7:59, and 7:51. (That’s a minor difference of about a 1/2 sec/100: 7:58 average a few weeks ago, and a 7:55 average last week.)

Then after my class, I hopped on the trainer for an easy 70 min spin.

• WEDNESDAY: easy run.

• THURSDAY: 4x5 mins on the trainer. This wasn’t too hard. I was planning intervals the next day, so I didn’t want to totally fry my legs the day before.

• FRIDAY: 2x2 mile intervals. I posted about this over the weekend. I went out a bit hard and the first interval put me in a nice hole before starting the second. My half mile splits looked like this:

2:55, 3:02, 2:52, 2:53 = 11:43.54
2:56, 3:00, 2:54, 2:56 = 11:48.05

It’s a bit unusual to have a slower 2nd interval, so I was hurting a bit. But my legs (meaning “injuries”) all felt fine! And it felt good to be doing some effort on some hills (even if they were minor hills).

• SATURDAY: 6x3 min on the trainer. Nothing fancy. Wanted to go longer, but ran out of time between school events, church events, and Halloween parties.

• SUNDAY: long run of 11.16 miles. My long runs are USUALLY Monday (with Sat and Sun my “rest days” from running), but sometimes I bump it to Sunday if need-be (with Mon and Tues as my “rest days”). I didn’t like doing another long run 2 days after intervals, but my legs still felt good, and Monday was going to be a big day of helping out at my boys’ school and doing lots of my own school work. So I got up early and got in 11 miles before the sun was up!

I made this a bit “easier” by just running 5 harder miles in the middle instead of my usual 6, and I was content doing just 10 miles. But my legs truly felt fine, so I ran an extra 1+ mile cool-down around home at the end. And my middle 5 miles were still nicely fast: I think my 6:11/mile average pace was my fastest all year! Overall, it was 11.16 miles in 1:16:46, which was 6:53 pace.

• OVERALL: my week shows 35.26 miles of running, but that contains an extra long run. (This week might just have 11 miles of running as the 11.16 miles on Sunday are essentially this week’s miles.) But still the 24.10 miles I covered in my first 3 runs last week puts this as my biggest week since a 24.28 mile week the week of the 2019 Goldy's Run 10 Mile which was 2.5 years ago. (And I nearly hit 24 miles the month after that with this long stroller run with Charlie followed by an easy run at a photo workshop I was doing.) That week 2.5 years ago was the only time in the last 4 years (since Oct 2017) that I'd been over 24 miles besides this past week!

About the only thing lacking all week was that my strength work was just OK - I wanted to do a longer day on Saturday but ran out of time with all our Halloween parties. And I didn’t have a GREAT trainer ride all week - they were all just moderately OK.

After a week with 2 solid long runs and an interval day, I’ll be taking it easier running this week. Hopefully I can work in a solid trainer ride or 2 instead. And get in a solid upper body day.