Nice Training Week: Normal, but Better!!

Saturday's post was about a NORMAL long run after 4 weeks of not-normal training (because of 2 races and then recovery). Well that long run a week ago kicked off a very NICE and NORMAL week of training! (With my last really normal training week coming about 6 weeks before that, which contained my last really normal outdoor training ride as well.)

Here's what this nice normal week looked like:

I've been out of the pool for about a month, so there's no swims. And I was hoping Saturday's ride would be outside, but when I had my window to workout, it was still mid-40s and raining, so NO THANKS - I stayed indoors on the trainer. And my strength time is HIGH for most of these workouts!

• MON: long run and good legs. This is the run I posted about on Saturday. We got home really early that morning from a trip to Chicago, so I just got a few hours of sleep and then got at it!

• TUES: good upper body. 8x everything in a good workout.

• WED: easy run, core, and legs. Nothing fancy, but good core!

• THURS: good upper body, and indoor spin. After 8x for everything on Tuesday, I did 7x on Thursday. And then I hit the trainer for 90 mins doing a simple 3x10 min effort workout.

• FRI: 2x2 mile intervals, core, and legs. Sure, I did a pretty normal long run on Monday, but this was my real test: some SPEED. I did my normal 2x2 mile intervals along the river with 3:00 walking rest between them:

Half-mile splits, a mile out and a mile back for each interval.


Close-up of the start/finish. 4-8 was the first interval, and 9-13 was the last.

I felt like I had forgotten how to run fast when I started the first interval. I was happy with my opening half mile of 2:58, and then not surprised that I had let up a little bit with the next one (3:03). I started a bit harder in the 2nd interval, and I really pushed myself for that one! Notice the last split of my FIRST interval was my FASTEST of that interval, but my last split of my LAST interval was my SECOND SLOWEST of that interval... I was hashed!!

2:58, 3:03, 2:53, 2:55 = 11:50.9

2:53, 3:00, 2:50, 2:58 = 11:43.0

• SAT: upper body circuits and trainer ride. Both of these were good! I did 8x upper body (for a total of 23 sets for every upper body muscle for the week!) and then hit the trainer for a longer ride. I wanted this to be outside, but it was still raining when I had time to do my workout, so I was back on the trainer. Damn. Just a basic workout with 4x10 min efforts:

Heart rate shows the workout.

• SUN: rest day with walking and core.

That FELT like a nice normal week of training! The first in a WHILE! I finally had some higher "intensity minutes" logged last week

1766 mins, which is actually the 12th biggest all year.
(After 5 weeks of 1000-1300 minutes.)


Also (randomly) almost set a weekly PR for steps! I was over 165K,
and just a few hundred from my biggest week in early June.

This week won't be QUITE as big, but I still hope it's decent!