One Last Tri - Week 8
After the lack of training I was able to put in over the past few weeks, my main goals going into this week were to simply be present and continue the habit of training. The swim is still the scariest part of the race and I want to continue preparing myself as best as possible for it. This week is all about touches in the water. Making sure I keep getting in and remaining comfortable as best as possible.
Sunday - Stationary Bike Zone Train
Goals:
I have been ramping up the time in zone and really enjoying the stationary training for it’s lack of thought required to stay at a specific pace and heart rate zone. Although riding an indoor trainer is not nearly as exciting and fun as riding outdoors, I believe the training is far more effective if I am indoors and consistent. While riding outside I become easily distracted and push myself too hard. As I have talked about before, this is pushing me into that grey zone of training that is not effective in building or maintaining the levels of fitness that I would like to achieve.
Results:
I felt incredibly sluggish at first, I had recently “discovered” a bike cave at the YMCA I train at with far better trainers to ride. I took the first ten minutes of my workout to set the proper seat height, reach, and saddle angle. It was really nice to be able to customize a bike to how I like it. I pedaled around 85 RPM and set the resistance to a level that put my heart rate in a mid zone 2 and turned on a TV show. Nutrition came in every 45 minutes and I drank 32 ounces of water during my ride. I find that I sweat profusely during the first hour but after that I seem to level off. I wonder if this is because of a lack of hydration, or just how my body is functioning on any given day. In the future I would like to better record my water intake during the day.
Monday - Strength Training
Goals:
I recently listened to a coach talk about approaching a race and turning more of your attention to race specific work. Meaning that as you are many months away a lot of the training you do should be focused around strength training, core work, and activities other than swimming, biking, and running. As I am now just a few weeks away from the triathlon I decided to do one additional strength training workout and then stick to running, biking, and swimming.
Results:
I started off with a quick warm-up on the elliptical to get my blood flowing. I did this by setting the resistance very high and keeping my cadence very low. This is opposite from how I typically complete elliptical workouts. Afterwords I went into an upper body routine consisting of single exercises per major muscle group, slowing down my reps and focusing heavily on form and steady movements. The idea behind any weight training is to properly tear your muscles so that they may rebuild in a more efficient way, to do this I believe the muscles need to be torn in a consistent way. Following the workout I did a short cool down run and then a minor full body stretch.
Tuesday - Rest Day
Goals:
After strength training I wanted to give my body a full day to recover as this is not typically a type of training that I do.
Wednesday - Swim
Goals:
My goal was to swim without aids for 1 kilometer, primarily just to touch the water and stay consistent with getting in the water. In the past few weeks I have noticed that the longer I spend out of the water, the more uncomfortable I feel getting back into it.
Results:
After the first few laps I began feeling very sick to my stomach. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing wrong but I constantly felt as if I was going to throw up. My stomach was not settling down at all, after 400 meters I decided to grab a pull buoy and see if that would help at all, I swam another 150 meters before deciding that it was better to cut my swim short than to risk throwing up in the swimming pool.
Thursday - Redemption Swim
Goals:
Thinking yesterday that my trouble in the water was diet related, and possibly just from a lunch that was not settling down in time for me to swim, I wanted a second crack at the pool.
Results:
I felt FAR better than the previous day and decided that my trouble in the water was indeed related to a poor diet the day before. I am starting to have a better understanding of what foods I am able to swim on, and what I have trouble digesting. I swam just under 1 kilometer and was practicing my 100 meter efforts without minimal rest in-between sets.
Friday - Track Day
Goals:
I have not had much of a chance to do any quality speed work and wanted to do some zone 4 efforts around the track. I wanted to do a brief warm-up jog to the track, complete a single lap at a low zone 2, and do 400 meter efforts at Z4 pace, with 400 meter rest regaining my heart rate.
Results:
I was amazed to see that I was running a 10:20 pace at zone 2, this is far faster than I initially began when I started training and was really inspiring to see myself improving! The first lap I was not sure how hard to push myself and but found it much easier to get into a groove than I thought. I spiked my heart rate up to zone 4, and was able to maintain that for the 400 meter effort and was running about a 7:15 pace. Regaining control of my heart rate after the sprint was much harder than I anticipated and I had to slow my pace to 11 minute miles in order to lower it down. After 6 laps I switched to a 100 meter sprint and tried to push myself as hard as I could. My all out sprint pace was around 5:30 and after a few efforts of 100 meter sprints I did a cool down jog back to my car.
This was a much shorter workout than usual, but I feel it was just as effective as my longer pushes, and I look forward to doing more track workouts as this allows me to better gage my fitness levels against a concrete (polyurethane) obstacle.
Saturday - Rest Day
Results:
I wanted to take it as easy as possible. I was doing dragon boat races with my co-workers and pushed my heart rate up a few times in the morning, but after that I was able to rest and even took a mid day nap.
I believe that this week went very well and was very happy to have been in the water twice and also completed my track workout, as this was a really fun way to exercise. Going into the next week I would like to make sure I accomplish a long run so that I can maintain good movement on my legs, as well as another long bike ride. I am beginning to think of a taper as I am closing in on the final two weeks before my first triathlon. I have ordered a wetsuit and am very excited (nervous) to get into some open water and swim.
