Not a terribly exciting week. As far as tapers go my energy is feeling pretty good. Dropping from 44 miles to 34 miles this week and started a low carb diet on Friday to initiate carb loading prior to race day. My new shoes feel great, the weather got better toward the weekend, and I'm getting anxious about leaving my work and business behind but at the same time more exited than ever to go to Paris. Think this will be a beautiful, flat, fantastic race. MONDAY- today is my moderate distance run and I've cut down to 10 miles at 9:20 pace. It's pretty rank out. About 50 degrees and raining so feels cold and there's nothing you can do about it. Glad one of the new pairs of shoes are black. Hate taking nice new white shoes out in the rain. Going to Prospect Park and decided to take whatever pace felt right for today. Although it's supposed to feel easy, I took it a little harder mostly becaue I just want it to be over with. Stopped at hardware store also to see if they had the brackets we need for the finishing touches on the kitchen and they did not. Other than that I stopped for a gel at 5miles and a bathroom stop and turned around and high tailed it home. Ran average 8:57 pace at ave HR of 156. Still feel my left IT band a bit and will be sure to use foam roller later today when I do my weight training session.
Before my last client I wanted to get in a good back workout but couldn't because my contractor wanted to stop by to discuss some work. Went to basement for a 30 min workout but then was interrupetd on phone with a client. So not much of a workout. Did 4 exercises total, worked either heavy or moderate with little rest. Supersets of strength and stability. Should have just done yoga and stretching instead. Dreaming about a massage.
TUESDAY- Normally I swim, but this weeks workout is focusing on strokes other than freestyle and decided mid day to skip it. Doing a partial cleanse, it's horrible weather and just want to hunker down and get a lot of work done. After clients at John Street I did all upper body workout of supersets strength followed by stability. Back, then chest, shoulder, biceps and triceps. Moderate intensity to heavy depending on how my shoulder was feeling about the exercise. Bummed that my shoulder is still testy. Tomorrow I just have an easy run and plan to do another partial cleanse, AM until about 5pm before I go to Staten Island to run with TNT. Will see how that goes.
WED- instead of running in the AM I''m holding off till the evening. Had a productive work day then drove to Staten Isalnd and ran 5 plus miles, goal pace 9mm. Going to follow with a workout with TNT so don't want this to feel hard, yet it did for some reason. It is a combination of the fact that I didn't run yesterday, that I'm not used to running late in the day, plus I was fasting until 5:00 at which point I had an isalean shake before driving to SI. After my 5 mile run I did an easy warm up with the team. They had 25 minutes of hill repeats. I didn' run too many hills with them but did run about 2 miles total. Good group tonight.
THURSDAY- I finished with clients then went to our accountant about taxes. Had time in-between to have a naturally sweetened muffin and banana. Today is my last day to eat a normal amount of carbs. Tomorow go low carbs with goal being 50g per day. yikes. Feeling good going into my run. Nice day, sunny, about 55 degrees. Ran around battery park up west side. Want to do race pace work but feel instead of specifying distance I will do it more like a fartlek workout. Over 6 miles I did 7 intervals at a RP (ranged between 7:35 and 8:05) with half mile being the goal distance. I jogged inbetween intervals until feeling recovered enough to do another interval. Was fun to have a free form workout like this . Was planning to do shoulder work but ran out of time. Will add shoulder to Friday workout. Did do abs today though.
FRIDAY- Had an early morning weight training session. In my gym I did back, shoulder, bicep and tricep work. warmed up with elyptical for my shoulder then did supersets of strength and stability. Back, shoulder, back, bicep, shoulder, tricep. Finished with abs. One hour total. Did 3 set all rep range from 10-20. Everything felt good, and change in rep range was actually challenging. Today is my fist day of reduced carbs. So far so good. Lots of protein and almost equal amount of fat. Carbs throughout this 7 day period consists of leafy greens and green vegetables only. Not tomato, root vegetables, grains, bread, etc.
SATURDAY- got a late start for my last long run. Had a client in the AM and then went out for my run. By time I left it was around 11am and warming up outside. About 55 out and warmed up throughout the run. Went over the bridge to the west side. Just going with the flow and enjoying my last decent run. Paris is one week from today. Ended up running my plan which was 10 miles at 9:20 pace. HR monitor went crazy again so numbers are off but think my av HR was 156 BPM. Yesterday was first low carb day and because of that my HR did go up after 6 miles. Did not use any gels or energy drinks and althouth my energy was ok was interesting that my Hr went up.
SUNDAY- easy day on my indoor trainer. It's nice enough out to ride outside so took the trainer to the back courtyard. Did a new Endurance program from my book. Warm up 15 minutes including easy pedal at 90rmp, alternating 30 seconds standing and 30 sec sitting for 5 min, and alternating single leg work for 1 min each leg x3. Set 1 was 6x2min at 70rpm in zone 1-2 with 1 min rest high rpm. Rest 3 min then 3x3 min 70 rpm or slightly slower in zone 2 again 1 min rest. This was supposed to be 6 sets not 3, but was feeling like too much work for my legs so I cut the session short. Tomorrow is some running at race pace and I need to be taking it all easy. This all felt good. Looking forward to a massage later today.
Totals: 7:40 min of training (way down from last month and i'm totally ok with that), 34 miles running, 1:45 in weights over 3 days and 50 minutes on my bike. All is well yet still feeling some pain in left IT band.