BIG TRAINING WEEK!

This past week was a HUGE training week for me! I've got nothing particular on the horizon, but it just worked out where I was able to get in a LOT of time training. My normal Garmin "intensity" minutes for a week are usually around 1500. I've had a number of weeks in the high 1700s, but I'd never cracked 1800 before. Well I bypassed the 1800s and the 1900s, and ended up with 2041 minutes last week:

A BIG last week of intensity (after 2 decent weeks)!


The last year: easily the biggest week ever last week!


Weekly steps: 154,000+ is only behind our Yellowstone trip in the last 52 weeks,
and 4th biggest all time (also behind 2024 Jamaica trip and 2023 Italy trip).

So how did this happen? The first half of the week was pretty normal, but the last half was extra big. I went for a long ride on my birthday. Then I took my family to the airport on Friday SO I'VE BEEN HOME ALONE SINCE THEN! That afternoon, I fit in an extra workout by biking to the pool, getting in a nice swim, and then biking home because it was a record-breaking 75 degrees that day. Then a solid Saturday and a decent Sunday too!

Here's what it looked like:

101+ miles biked outside in a week in mid-March! THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE!!!! And 14+ hours of strength work is also a weekly PR.

• MON: "fartlek" long run, good legs, and easy mountain bike ride along the river. I was getting sick of my old "normal" long runs, so I busted out a fartlek version I do now and then: I did efforts of 2x (3 mins, 2 mins, 4 mins, 1 min, and 5 mins all with 50% of "hard" time as easy running). Here were my efforts out-and-back along the river:

Red efforts first, turn-around at the south, then blue efforts.
The numbers are how many minutes the effort was.

I covered 3.57 miles in the first half, and 3.60 miles in the second half of this workout. Add in a warm-up and a cool-down, and I had a pretty normal 11.5 miles for my weekly long run. NOTE: I did pretty much the exact same workout about a year ago, only I gave myself a BIT longer to run easy back then. Not surprisingly (because of slightly longer rest AND because of just being in a bit better shape), the distances I ran during the "efforts" averaged a BIT farther than this time.

• TUES: good swim and solid upper body. Just a standard "broken 3x400 and 3x200" in the pool, and then 8 solid sets of upper body later.

• WED: easy run, good legs, and good core. Nothing fancy about this, but solid overall!

• THURS: long birthday ride and OK upper body. I posted about my 44 mile ride for my 44th birthday over the weekend. And I just did a slightly smaller upper body routine.

• FRI: easy run, good legs, good core, bike to/from the pool, extra legs at the gym, and 10x100 in the pool. Thurs and Fri were the days that put last week over the top. My run on Friday was normal, and my legs and core were both slightly on the longer/better side. Then I biked to the gym, did a long warm-up (starting in the "warm" pool in Cooke 10 because Cooke 15 wasn't open for another 12 minutes, and I got a short lane that was more like 23 yards), and then did 10x100 with 0:30 rest in the "normal" pool. I was DYING in the last 2-3. My 100s were:

1:28.0, 1:28.1, 1:27.7, 1:28.4, 1:28.8, 1:28.8, 1:28.2, 1:26.9, 1:25.4, 1:24.3

= 1:27.46 average

Being this was an "extra" swim for the week, I didn't really have any goals. I was happy none of these were slower than 1:30 (nothing slower than 1:29 even).

Before biking home, I did 3 sets of hammy curls, quad extensions, and leg presses in the gym (which I haven't done for maybe a year!). So Friday was like a mini-triathlon with a swim, bike, and run.

The 100 yards is a "real" PR from the time swimming with this Garmin. The 500 yards
is NOT (that was in the other pool that was short before jumping into the regular pool).


People love to sit on their phone on the quad machine (and not use it). Found
this sticker on the floor telling you to get off your phone when on the quad machine.


Getting back out to my bike, I noticed there was
still some dried blood on it from two weeks earlier.

• SAT: easy ride, good upper body. I specifically told my wife before she and the boys left on their trip that "it's supposed to get cold on Saturday and rain/snow, so I won't be back outside for a ride when you guys are gone." But as I watched the weather as it got closer, it looked like it could POSSIBLY rain a bit overnight, but then be dry for a few hours early morning and still in the 40s before dropping into the 20s and raining/snowing again.

I prepped everything the night before in case the morning cooperated. I was up around 6 a.m., and it was wet outside, but it wasn't going to rain again for a few hours. I got going before sunrise (sky was bright, but not SUPER light out), which sort of determined my route: I headed for "off the road" trails to start instead of riding on the street in poor lighting. I basically ended up doing a version of my 44 mile ride from 2 days prior: I headed down the Greenway and then Big Rivers like in that long ride, but I turned around earlier in both cases. I was aware that I needed less than 32 miles to put myself over 100 miles of biking for the week, and I ended up going over 32 miles! A rare 100 mile week! Something that NEVER happens in March!!!

5 mile splits, with extra east/west near home to get over 32 miles.

My toes were cold by the end. I had tights on and mittens, but otherwise was dressed the same as my birthday ride. I started when it was in the mid-40s, it was 41 degrees when I got home, and it dropped to 32 degrees just a few hours later as we picked up a dusting of snow. GLAD I FIT IN THAT RIDE!

Then I lifted weights late morning, and still had a solid day of workouts done before lunch! (But it's harder to lift "well" after biking.)

Oh, and one thing that I sort of felt bad for in these 2 rides was that neither had a TON of effort. My birthday ride was long, and I tried to keep the pace up a bit, but it wasn't any sort of tempo effort. And then Saturday's ride was just a "ride." I would have loved to do something like 4x3 mile intervals or anything hard, but all that effort after an abnormally large Friday after a long ride on Thursday was just asking for something to go wrong. So it was rare back-to-back rides that were kinda just "rides" and not great workouts. I mean, they still made me feel POOPED, but they didn't look like much on paper...

• SUN: rest day - just core and walking. I told myself that if I woke up and my "training readiness" on my Garmin was 25-30 or higher, then I'd consider biking to the pool to do something EASY there. Like drills or something. But I honestly didn't think my body would be up for it. And I was right... even though I got a great night of sleep, my "training readiness" was 20 when I woke up. That's not HORRIBLE, but that's quite low for me. So I (probably smartly) decided to keep Sunday as a rest day after a big week. (Note: I don't 100% trust many numbers my Garmin throws at me, but I still GLANCE at many of those numbers. Like when I was coming down with something in Mexico after a day of not doing much, and my "training readiness" was ONE. So Sunday morning, I left it up to fate/Garmin to tell me if I should swim or not... that's NOT something I usually do!)

Just me and the cats on a lazy Sunday.

My family is gone for most of this week as well! But I don't know what that will mean for my training... I honestly think that Friday and Saturday were my biggest "alterations" in my training with them gone, and that made last week huge (along with my big birthday ride). This week might not look a ton different with my family gone.

Back with the conclusion of our recent Mexico trip shortly!