Two Solid Weeks of Training

Here's what the last 2 full weeks looked like:

• MON 3/27: shorter long run, biking with the boys, and leg exercises. The short ride was just to get out with the boys, and my shorter-than-normal "long" run was because the Hot Dash 5K was 2 days before that. Nothing fancy that day.

• TUES 3/28: 6x upper body and some broken 400s and 200s in the pool. Just a decent day.

• WED 3/29: moderate 6 mile run and some good legs and core. Just my 3rd outdoor run in MN all year.

• THURS 3/30: quick 4x upper body and 8x5 min efforts on the trainer. A busy day, but fit it in.

• FRI 3/31: an easy run with lots of stairs, and then real good legs and core! I started running some stairs on my early morning run, and then I got in over 100 flights on my Garmin for the day. And then on top of my normal "un-sexy" at-home leg workouts, I also swung by the gym at the U and did some leg presses, hammy curls, ad and ab machine, and quad extensions:

• SAT 4/1: solid 8x upper body circuits and 8x3 harder efforts on the trainer. A nice day! But between walking a lot, shoveling heavy gross snow, and the stairs the day before, I had some foot pain sneak in that evening.

• SUN 4/2: core. My normal rest day.

• MON 4/3: 11.2 mile (treadmill) long run and leg exercises. I wasn't sure about that foot pain, but the run helped it! Actually bumped up the speed more than normal, so I did the middle 6 "faster" miles with half mile splits of 3:17, 3:15, 3:12, 3:10, 3:07, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 3:00, 2:57, 2:56 and 2:53 to total 36:59 (or 6:09.83/mile!). Yes, it's a treadmill run which is "easier" than running outside, but anything around 6:10/mile for my "faster" miles is always a great day!

• TUE 4/4: quick 5x upper body and LONG SWIM. At 2700 yards, this was my longest swim in YEARS! I went back through my log over the last TEN YEARS, and I didn't find a swim over 2600 yards!! (But to be honest, I need to start swimming SHORTER and HARDER, so I maybe shouldn't be proud of this. I KNOW that I've been too "endurance minded" over these last 2 years.) I'm usually limited by pool hours and school drop off for my boys, but I dropped them off WAY early so I could go farther. I did a longer warm-up, then 7x200 averaging 3:05, then some kick drills, then busted out some 50s for some speed. I ended with some pulling with a buoy and a cool-down:

Pace chart: WU, 7x200, 4x75 kick drills, a 100, then some 50 drills, some pulling, and a CD.


Heart rate looks similar.

• WED 4/5: easy run and leg exercises and core.

• THURS 4/6: 5-6x upper body and 3x10 min efforts on the trainer. Nothing too hard about the trainer workout. I was saving myself for a hard run the next day.

• FRI 4/7: 2x2 mile intervals and good core and leg exercises. I posted about that run here: I was pretty happy with my times of 11:42 and 11:38.

• SAT 4/8: quick 6x upper body circuit and easy spin on the trainer. This was all done early before running to my mother-in-law's house for Easter. I spent the night at my parents house, so I just had a few hours in the morning to do my workouts for the day.

After hiding eggs with my brothers-in-law, here's me looking for eggs with the kids later.

• SUN 4/9: core.

ALL IN ALL, I hit 10+ hours of strength work in both of these weeks, which MIGHT be the first time I've had back-to-back 10 hour weeks. And 20+ mile running weeks even though the first week started 2 days after a race is good. These 2 weeks had decent pool time/distance. And better trainer workouts the first week than the 2nd week, but OK saddle time. Not bad!