11 Weeks to Go

Hey Everyone,

Kind of a short week this week due to some of our friends stopping through for a visit on their way to Kansas. We also had some weather move in forcing me to cancel a ride. Ended up with 11 hrs 15 mins training time about 2.5 hrs less then planned: missing a bike and a swim work out. But I still felt comfortable and know I still have time left.

Swim: This week I felt really slow in the pool only getting in two work outs. These workout consisted of my 500 yd warm up with drills then 2x 1000yd trying to swim the 2nd faster then the 1st. Then an easy 100yd cool down. I think just having a small cold this week slowed me down in the pool. Swam 5200 yds this week, missed my 60 minute endurance swim.

Bike: Made it to both spin classes this week. Monday was climbs (front wheel elevated 8 inches): pedaling 55 cadence then for 15 seconds on every minute spin up to 80 cadence. We had (3) 4 minute hard effort time trials then steady effort increase spinning from 100-140 cadence. Wednesday was sprints for 15 seconds of every minute for about 19-20 minutes, again 4 min hard effort time trials. Saturday was my long ride scheduled for 4 hours. Temps were in the 50's figured it was going to be a great day. The winds were about 8-10mph when we left then about 25 miles into the right those winds were 25 mph with 40 mph gusts. Which made for a tough ride the rest of the day fighting either a headwind or cross wind. Ended up riding just over 67 miles in the 4 hours averaging just over 17 mph. Missed a ride this week, ended up with 98.7 miles.

Run: Had (2) 60 minute runs and a 110 minute run for my long run this week. Even though running is my strongest event by far I feel this year with more focus on form and warm ups/stretching I am faster then I ever was before. I took my first 60 min run slower since I ran with a co-worker. But my 2nd 60 min  run I was running sub 7:40s per mile. The route I usually run for my hour runs is an out and back (down hill out, up hill back elevation gain of about 900 ft) from my house. Then on Sunday (planned to run on tired legs from Saturday's bike), I did my long run the plan was just to run 110 mins but I wanted to push 14 miles. This was a slight up hill out and slight downhill back course (less then 300 ft elevation change). I ended up running 14.1 miles in 1:45:12 @ 7:28/mile. So I feel really good about my running just need to stick with it. For the week ran 29 miles.

Already into this week's training. Feel another 14+ hour week of training coming on. Stay tuned.

Cheers!
Nate