Biggest (Riskiest) Post-Race Week!

This past week was a good week of training, and I think it goes down as my biggest training week the week after a race! I'm chasing dreams at the upcoming TC 10, and I've been feeling good lately. So I pushed it a bit this past week:

Sunday, Sept 10th was the Square Lake Triathlon, so this starts just after that.

• MONDAY: legs. Just a good/normal leg workout like most Mondays. (But most Monday's contain a long run, so that was the big thing missing from the week.)

• TUESDAY: pyramid swim and decent upper body. 2650 in the pool is a bigger swim for me, and then I did 6 sets for everything for my upper body afterwards at home. Nice workouts.

• WEDNESDAY: easy run and strength work for legs and core. A pretty normal Wednesday for me.

These next 3 days are the ones I was worried about: a hard ride, a track workout, and another hard ride. I didn't want to injury myself and I wanted to make sure I was getting the rest I needed as well...

• THURSDAY: 20 mile tempo (34.7 miles total) and decent upper body. I didn't go SUPER hard for the tempo ride as my legs were a bit tired from the race 4 days prior. But I finished 20 miles with 13 of those into the wind with a 20.6 mph average (while not shying away from hills). By the time I rode some more hills on the way home, I finished those 35 miles with a 19.9 mph average.

• FRIDAY: 12x400 on the track and strength work for legs and core. Usually I wouldn't do intervals just 5 days after a race, but I was feeling good and I wanted to get in some more speed work. I looked back to my weekly interval workouts and saw I hadn't done the 3x (4x400) interval workout that I did in April since then. So I thought I'd try that again! It's a workout with a minute between the 400s and then 3:00 between the sets of 4.

I hit the track really early (like 5:30 a.m.) on a rainy day - that stunk. I actually had to put a folding chair up next to the start/finish line otherwise it was hard to see. I thought it was going to stop raining early in the workout, but it only let up for like my 2nd interval - then it picked up again. By my last set of 4, my shoes were heavy and my feet were sliding around in them. It wasn't fun.

Last time I did this, I negative split the 3 sets of 4, averaging 1:18.85, then 1:16.88, and finally 1:15.48 for each set. I was hoping to be a bit faster this time. I glanced at my watch every time I crossed the 200 meter mark, and it ALWAYS read either 0:37 or 0:38 (mostly 0:38). But then I encountered a headwind on the homestretch of each lap.

I descended the first 4 perfectly (which wasn't the goal):

1:17.3, 1:16.3, 1:16.7, 1:15.9 = 1:16.55 average

I was aware of my times from last time, so I knew I was off to a better start (in WORSE conditions in the rain!). My 2nd set was a bit more all-over-the-place, but times were good:

1:17.0, 1:15.3, 1:17.0, 1:15.7 = 1:16.25 average

So I was still getting a BIT faster. I told myself to keep them all at 1:15 or faster for the final set of 4. I did all I could with these splits:

1:14.6, 1:15.8, 1:15.2, 1:15.8 = 1:15.35 average

So not as big of a descend as I did in April, but each set was a bit faster than 5 months ago. Not AMAZING, but a good workout with decent splits.

Yep, this looks about right.

• SATURDAY: 3x5 mile bike intervals and good upper body workout. I wasn't going to do anything TOO hard on Saturday, but again, my legs felt good. After starting my ride, I decided I could hit the Greenway and do some 5-mile efforts. So that's what I did. They descended nicely:

- 21.5 mph, 13:47 (20.9 mph at half and 21.1 just before that), mostly into wind - west

- 22.4 mph, 13:24 (23.0 halfway, then turning into the wind for the last bit)

- 23.3 mph, 12:53 (22.7 halfway and climbing, riding with the wind through the end

And my upper body workout earlier in the day was 7x circuits of: 32 pushups, 20 dumbbell rows (per side), 8 pull-ups, 32 bicep curls, 32 tricep dips, and 12 shoulder flies.

• SUNDAY: rest day - just core.

So like I said at the beginning: I think this was my biggest and most productive post-race week ever. I'm chasing non-defined dreams for the upcoming TC 10 Mile... curious what I can do after a great summer of training! (But no specific numbers goal... as of this moment.) My long run later today will be a big test as well - a test for making sure I'm not injured after a race and a big week of training, and also a final test going into race week next week! Mentally, I'll feel a lot better if this run goes really well!