One Last Tri - Week 2
Training gives me such a wonderful sense of purpose. My life really begins to come together when working towards a long term goal that I have. Week two of training was primarily about remaining consistent with how much training I was wanting to accomplish. I have decided against pushing my body to extremes and have been experiencing great results from this low-intensity training. It is frustrating at times to not push myself super hard. Especially when I am well rested and feeling good, I want to go fast and sprint and show off my fitness. It is more worthwhile in the wrong one to force myself to stay on track, and already this week I have been experiencing results from that training.
Sunday - Stationary Bike Training
My primary focus for this day of training is to be able to stay in the exact same heart rate zone without feeling like I need to run or bike faster to impress anyone. A lot of the time when I am running or biking outside I get excited about start to push myself faster and faster and I lose track of my heart rate. Sitting inside on a stationary bike is a very boring, but I can keep a consistent cadence at a consistent resistance without putting too much thought into it.
My heart rate immediately rose to a high zone 2 after getting on the bike, but within about 10 minutes I had warmed up and needed to increase the resistance in order to stay in a zone 2 effort. I remained at this increased resistance until around 40 minutes into the ride, at which point I started experiencing an increased heart rate and lowered the resistance to stay consistent. This is a common issue that I have been facing with my longer cardio efforts. I beginning having heart rate spikes after about 40 minutes of exercising.
Monday - Rest Day
I wanted to focus on stretching and solid nutrition. A rest day should be for recovery, stress plus REST equals growth. I was able to meditate that morning, and did some minor stretching before bed. I was up a later than normal, but I did have quality sleep according to my Garmin.
Overall I believe this rest day was a success. I spent a decent amount of time on my feet walking around at work, but I was able to eat very clean for the day, achieved my stretching goal for the evening, and the sleep I got left me feeling refreshed the following morning.
Tuesday - Long Bike
For this ride, I wanted to tackle some hills and work on maintaining a consistent heart rate while climbing. This is helping to teach me how to control my heart rate through breath and also the amount of watts I am pushing through my legs. A power meter for the bike is DEFINITELY something that I am looking for, as I love to geek out about all the numbers of training.
I was hoping to ride for around two hours, but due to life and time constraints, I rode for about 90 minutes. I actually had very minimal issues with my heart rate and only experienced one spike the entire ride and that was about 40 minutes in. I riding down a hill and my heart rate began to jump into a high zone 3. I coasted and tried to slow my breathing but my heart rate continued to stay high. After about 5 minutes I was able to get it back to a low zone 2, where it stayed for the remainder of the ride.
Wednesday - Strength Training
I wanted to target specific leg muscles that are used in cycling and running. Primarily the major muscle groups; quads, hamstrings, and calves. I did not have specific weight goals but wanted to hit 15-20 reps, tiring around 75% of max rep.
Starting with a warm-up of 12 minutes on the elliptical I was able to jump straight into exercising. Leg press, Hamstring Curl, and then calf raises. I wanted to keep things simple as not to overdo anything and take away from my distance cardio training most other days. This is what I believe is the best way to add in strength work with cardiovascular exercise. Leg press I went 180 for 12 reps, felt very strong and so I increased the weight to 270 and went for a set of 10 with my feet together, followed immediately by another set of 10 with my feet apart. I did this for three sets before moving on. Hamstring curl was three sets of 12 reps at 165 pounds, followed by one additional set of 12 reps and 175 pounds. I finished with calf raises, starting at 135 pounds for 2 sets of 12 reps, and then reducing weight to 90 for 2 sets of 12 reps, and finishing with 2 sets of 12 reps at 45 pounds. The final set I went to failure which was around 22, I did not count.
Afterwards I went to the indoor running track and did a very slow 20 minute pace jog with my cadence around 160-170. I threw in some high jumps every 5th step, alternating legs on each jump. I followed this workout with a long stretch of my legs and lower back, holding each stretch for 3-5 breaths.
Thursday - Rest Day
I was trying to focus on keeping my steps down and staying off my legs following my workout the previous day. I wanted to focus on a really deep stretch before bed, and also wanted to make sure that I was able to get a full nights rest. Sleep is crucial for training!
I stayed under 10,000 steps and was asleep by 10pm, allowing me to get a full 8 hours of sleep. I did have the chance to stretch before bed but did not spend as long as I should have and Friday when I woke I was feeling considerably more sore than I hoped to.
Friday - Swim
I’m going to be real with you, I am terrified of the water. Swimming is by far going to be my most difficult section of the triathlon, and therefore requires the most amount of attention next to zone training my cardiovascular system. My only goal going into this swim was to become more familiar with swimming. I have always been able to tread water, and doggy paddle my way around the water, but attempting to freestyle swim is completely different.
I was very intimidated to even be in the pool, it is a sport that is totally out of my element. Never before have I swam competitively, or received any lessons. The first few laps were really a struggle, I tried using a paddle board to help me balance in the water and give me a safety net, but honestly, it just got in the way. After a few more laps I was getting high amounts of anxiety and feeling like it was very much out of my reach to finish a triathlon. Each time I began swimming I would lose my breath and feel scared and panic. This led to me stopping every few feet.
To be honest, had I have gone to the pool alone I may have very well got out of the pool and stopped right there. I was scared! But thankfully I planned ahead and brought support, and having support when facing your fears is absolutely vital towards success. I was able to push through the panic and eventually was able to swim the length of the pool (25 meters) without stopping. My form was terrible, and I was completely out of breath after reaching the other end, but I was able to do it! And after leaving the pool I had a newfound sense of excitement about swimming and I feel confident that with continuous practice, and probably a few lessons, I will be able to incorporate this into my training. And ultimately be successful in triathlon!
Saturday - Long Run
I went into this run with the sole purpose of wanting to be able to run the entire time without stopping to lower my heart rate. Last week was a real eyeopener to me in terms of where my fitness actually was, a 15+ minute pace and multiple times walking in order to stay at a zone 2 effort. This week I wanted to attach the run with consistent breath work and a slower pace. Allowing my body to naturally remain calm and at a lower heart rate.
I was very pleased with the first 40 minutes. Starting out at a very slow jog I found that I actually had to increase my pace at the beginning of my run in order to get to zone 2. I focused on holding back more, in the beginning, to try and hold my heart rate lower for a longer period of time. I ran close to the same route as last week with an added mile. This allowed me to gauge whether progress had been made in the past week of training. To be honest, I did not expect to see much of an increase at all, but I was very excited to FEEL better on the run. I kept my distance and time tracking off and only had the heart rate displayed on my watch. The first 45 minutes of my run I did not need to slow to a walk a single time, I did have to slow my pace to slower than a walking pace but I was able to keep jogging which made me feel very good. towards the end of the run, I was needing to stop every so often, but it certainly felt like my heart rate was slowing quicker than it had the previous week!
During this run, I had some knee issues but it did not feel like a very big issue at the time and I pushed through it. Later that evening at work my knee started hurting much worse and this pain continued getting worse through the evening into the next morning. I iced my knee and decided it would be a good idea to rest the next day instead of pushing it. I will access this issue more on Sunday night (day 1 of week 3).
Conclusion
The second week of training is in the books! I am very pleased with the process that I have been able to make in a very short amount of time. Blogging about my goals and my results have caused me to take a deeper look into the training I am doing and the why behind it. It is incredibly beneficial to force myself to sit down and go through my week and recap how it went! This gives me a great idea of the direction I would like to go in the next week, and how to best shape my training to give me the results that I want.
In the upcoming week I am going to be aware of my right knee and staying off it until it heals. I would like to continue my zone training as I have been with no major changes, but I would like to try and swim twice. One of these swims will be tracked with my watch, the other will just be an exercise for getting more comfortable in the water. I am going to look into swim lessons as well, and hopefully schedule these for sometime soon. I would like to possibly go on a long ride for Saturday instead of a long run like I have been doing. More time in zone two with less impact on my body. I really enjoy the training rides I have been doing, roaming around the city on my bike, exploring as much as I can. Possibly a good idea to skate instead of run as well. Variations of cardio training will give me the best results!
