MONDAY- Between clients I did some weight training in my basement gym in the morning. I've had some tea, ionix supreme, cleanse for life and had an Isadelight right before training. Today will be a light workout. Need to still recover from Saturday's long run but will do leg work, but pretty much body weight. Did a lot of stability work like S/L squats with Stability ball, step up to balance plus shoulders, Lateral lunges, S/L deadlift to overhead reach. Incorporated a lot of shoulder work with the leg movements. When I felt a need to rest my legs I focused for 3 sets of some shoulder exercise. All shoulder work was light as well.
After clients I dressed for my run. Had half a isalean shake and put want more energy in my water pack. Went to Prospect Park for a moderate 10 mile run. Warmed up real easy for 2 miles to the park, stopped at a new gym to check it out, but they were not open. Once in the park I set my goal of a 9:20 average pace, but kept in mind that it should feel easy. For the most part the whole run did feel easy. Am getting tired of the cold and the wind though. Also the hills. This is my third day in a row with hills. After 5 miles I turned around, stopped briefly for the bathroom and had a Honey Stinger Gel. They taste so much better than all the other brands. Continued out of the park and down hill all the way home. Main set was 8 miles at 9:20 and Av hr of 155. Even on the hills I kept my HR under control and rarely did it go over 160bpm. Once home I dropped off my water pack and picked up my glasses that need repair and jogged to the glasses shop on Smith street and back. So I added on about another 1.25 miles to the 10 mile run and called that my cool down.
TUESDAY- between clients I got in a very easy 6 mile run in lower Manhattan. Have not eaten yet, but I feel energetic, light, and not hungry so will eat right after my run. Went down Chambers and up the Hudson River park. Feel really good and light. Not carrying any water and that helps, but feel fresh, and enjoyed running flat with virtually no wind. Turned around at 3 miles and returned to John street for a stretch. Average pace including warm up and cool down was my target 9mm, HR was a little low, which is a good sign, at 153bpm.
Tuesday evening I had my main meal of the day and then went to the pool to swim with the Tritons. Today I'm in a lane with 3 other guys. We start with out typical easy swim and drills then go into the main set. First is 5x100 with 30s rest at moderate/hard which should be a little below T time (my t from test last week is 2:00). I was last in line and felt like I was working moderately hard, but maybe a little harder than that as I was falling behind the group and had to push a bit to keep up. I did all 5 at T time (2:00) except one which was about 5sec short. Feel like I should have been swimming all of them about 5-10 sec short. Next set was 5x150 with 45 sec rest starting at same effort as the 100s and progressively getting harder. Goal is for the last set to be not much slower than the first. The guys were all going faster than what I wanted but to keep from falling behind and screwing up their laps I had to push it harder. Really focused on keeping the same number or strokes per length (typically 24 or 25), so not speeding up my stroke, but pushing more water with each set. For Sets 1 & 2 I was still swimming my T time finishing each in 3:00 or slightly better. The 4th one was about 10 seconds slow. The 5th one was in 2:50! I was shocked. I worked it really hard and felt it a bit in my left shoulder, but didn't lose my stroke length. We did about 300 yards more for a cool down and practiced some flip turns at the deep end. I pushed off the wall funny one time and strained my calf a bit. Other than that little mishap I had a fantastic session. Would like to see my stroke rate get below 20. There were 2 other lanes being used and the coaches were mostly helping those swimmers so didn't get any feedback from them today at all. Hope next week to make improvements in my stroke length with some attention from the coaches.
WEDNESDAY- It snowed overnight, but not as much as I expected, and we are expecting 12 inches total today. So I'm sticking to my plan of running over the bridge and up the Hudson River Park for a Tempo/ Race Pace flat run of 12 miles total. I had an isalean shake with banana and cherries about 20minutes before I left. Wish I had more time to digest that but didn't want to waste any time. I wore my yaktrax and they were totally necessary. Sidewalks and Brooklyn bridge were snowy but had been plowed. Took it real easy for the first 3 miles until I got the Hudson River. There is a bit of wind today, the snow is a mix of wet/fluffy and sleet. For the flat path portions had about 1 inch of wet snow, so like running in wet sand, some was completely dry because of salt, but most was plowed but crunchy, not slippery though. I wanted to do 6 miles here at race pace 7:54 or so. Considering the conditions I'm happy with just planning on a HR of mid 170 range and work at a 90% effort with no stopping. I broke the work interval into two parts; up the river against the wind and down river with the wind. Against the wind was quite uncomfortable at points with the sleet and found it much harder than the return. Going up I ran 8:21 Av HR 173 max 181 and going back I ran 8:12 AV hr 175 max 179. Total for the 5.75 miles was 8:17 pace. Last time I ran this route I did same total mileage, but 6.84 miles (about mile was down hill) at 7:54, av HR 168 and Max 181 but had to stop multiple times for gel, water, bathroom. A little disappointed with my pace, but really did work in the target HR and stopped only once briefly for gel and water. I noticed that even in the areas that were free of snow, i was not running much faster than 8mm. Other observations is that my right calf hurt from the strain in the pool yesterday, I did not sleep well, and i feel heavy, weighed down from my meal and all the clothing. My legs felt OK though. Hamstrings felt a bit tight. Goal for next time is to run total flat part at 7:50 for 6.5 miles, 13 miles total and hope for good weather.
I had to drag myself down to the gym for weight training later in the afternoon. Feel like I have a lot of work yet to do today but will take the time to get in 30 minutes of weights. Focused on Back, some chest and 1 exercise isolated biceps. All were super sets. Used cables, free weights and TRX. Chest focus was on stability. Performed 9 exercises total over 30 minutes. Weight was light to moderate, Reps 8-12, and rest periods were short. Finished with a short ab session using the TRX.
THURSDAY- it snowed all day yesterday and much of the night. My city morning clients cancelled so I slept in. When I awoke I had some cleanse for life and Ionix, read a few emails and dressed carefully for my run. The snowy mix is now frozen, and most sidewalks are in bad shape. It's well below freezing and quite windy, so with these conditions I'm taking this easy 5 mile run extremely slow. I would find a good path, then it would turn bad and I would change my course, so just sort of wandered through Brooklyn Heights. I decided to spend some time on the Brooklyn bridge, because I figured that at least would be plowed. And it was. Average pace for 5 miles was 10:00, ave HR 153.
Went to the basement gym to get in a workout before my last client. A phone call interrupted my workout so only got in 30 minutes of weights and about 10 minutes of abs. Wanted to do heavy legs today but didn't make it into the city so changing the plan to high volume, low weight for legs combined with light weight moderate volume for shoulders. Front Squats, lateral lunges, SA suitcase squats, for shoulders did some ohp with DB but light, scaption, shoulder extension with cables and some internal and external rotation work.
FRIDAY- usually Fridays are an easy day on the indoor trainer but I'm pressed for time and figured it would be good to change things up a little. I have my long run (24 miles) tomorrow, my longest to date so feel today would be a good day to take off and will cycle on Sunday if I'm feeling up to it. I do want to do some weights though so went to my basement gym for a short 35 minute session. Warmed up with the TRX, SA DB rows heavy, supersets of bicep curls including light shoulder presses, BB OHP moderate weight 4x8 (feeling some discomfort in left shoulder today), Supersets for triceps, Kneeling lat pulldown WG (again feeling something in left shoulder) and light seated DB lateral raises 4x8 with only 10#. That's what I call a day off. Will do some yoga later and maybe abs.
SATURDAY- Today is my longest run to date, 24 miles. Got a good 7 hours of sleep, feel rested, had an isalean shake, did some light stretching and left around 8am. Taking a very different route and approach to my long run today. So far I either run mostly flat up Hudson River Park, or all hills in Prospect Park. Today i'm starting first 4 miles with hills by running to prospect park, but then exit the park and take Ocean Avenue all the way to Coney Island which is totally flat. Turn around at 12 mile mark and go back. Want some variety in my long run, but also want to experiment with slowing down and/or stopping (like for a water station) and then picking up the pace about 15-30sec faster than average, then working back down to average pace. Thought my average pace for this run was going to be 9:30 or slower. As I approached Ocean Avenue I saw that my average was 9:20 and my HR was only 151BPM (really low) so I kept that pace as my goal. Slowed or stopped briefly at least 6 times going out Ocean ave. I like the idea of teaching my legs to start quickly after a stop for about 30-60 seconds (basically making up the time I was slow or stopped) and then slowing back down to 9:20 pace. I made it to Coney Island. I've never been there in the winter. Was dreary and dirty like in the summer, but toally empty, and no smells. Kinda creepy. Took a breather for about 2 minutes and soaked it all in while I ate half of a energy bar. Had a moment of reflection and appreciated all that I've accomplished in the years. About 7 years ago David and I rode our bikes out here for the first time following this same route. I was not a runner then and I remember the day being tiresom. Can't believe 7 years later I'm running (not biking) the same distance without a second thought. I made it all the way to the stadium and the parachute drop and headed back after enjoying the moment. When I turned around I realized that I had a little wind helping me on the way out there (thus the low HR and a 9:20 pace that felt easy) so I slowed my pace a bit, but kept with the same stop/start fast routine. By about 16 miles I was feeling pretty tired. Had a honey gel at 5,10, 15 and 19 mile mark. Also had half of a bar at 12. Really didn't stop to rest except when I turned around at Coney Island for about 2 minutes. I slowed for taking gels and drinking water (generally as I was approaching a red light) but didn't stop for any rest periods except the 2 minutes to turn around. If I hit a light I would jog in a little circle or in place. So for a long run, this is the first one where I really didn't stop multiple times to refill water, bathroom etc. The lack of rest periods, along with the 12-15 accelerations after traffic lights I think made this a more difficult workout. Cooled down for a good mile. My warm up was 2 miles up hill to prospect park. My main set was 22 miles at 9:24 pace AV hr 152, max HR only 166. This was a good idea, but not executed exactly as I would like. Continuing with other long runs will try to stop less to drink water, have gels etc, and if I do have down time, be conscious of picking up the pace a bit to make up for down time and keep my legs from feeling sluggish from running the same pace for extended periods.
SUNDAY- today is an easy recovery day and I've logged plenty of miles so am getting on my indoor trainer. Definitely not feeling like an intervals session. Just listened to my tunes and changed the resistance and or pace after every song. Yes, quite boring, but not needing anything more strenuous. In terms of HR rode at the low range of my long distance ride HR. Got cadence sensor working again. Average cadence was 76rpm.
Week Totals: 13 hours 32 min in training. Run: 58 miles, Swim 1:20 min, Bike 45 min, Wts 4days 2:20 total.
Physical note: Had pain in my right calf after the flip turns from Tuesday. By friday was not feeling that pain anymore. Sometimes feel a bit of tightness in my left hip only when running. Will work on foam rolling that area next week. Snow was definitely an inhibitor in my training this week and hope for clear weather next week.
