Weekly Run-Down x2

I’m a week behind because of my cruise so I’ll quickly recap the last two weeks.

One week ago:

Swam: 9000m

Rode: 124 miles

Ran: 18 miles

Strength training: 1hr

Total hours: 15 hr 15 min

This week was focused on swimming and biking since I knew I’d be mostly limited to running on my cruise. This was the most swimming I’ve ever done in a week since I swam three times. Had a great swim Friday where I broke 30 minutes for 1500m for the first time (still slow I know). Also the most I’ve ever biked. I did a lot of easy miles this week both running and cycling. Saturday was my key workout in hopes to tire myself before the long flight. The plan was 60 mile ride followed by 3-4 mile run. I really don’t like having ranges because I rarely do the max amount since I have the excuse to do less. Before this ride my longest distance was 50 miles and I hadn’t done that distance in a month so 60 miles was bound to be difficult irrelevant of the run. I’m also still fairly clueless about nutrition which is a problem when you’re riding for so long. I’m starting to get a better idea of what products I need to experiment with but the problem is I didn’t have any at that time. My nutrition was pretty much whatever I could find in the pantry that I could easy eat on the ride. This included Clif energy bar, Shot Bloks, granola bar, applesauce like thing in a pouch and Accel-gel. First off not enough calories, secondly, too many solids. None of my calories came from pure liquids. I drank 4 bottles (some with nuun) during the ride and that was not nearly enough for how hot it was. You can imagine how the ride went based on all this. I was dehydrated, low on calories, doing my longest ride to date and had to run afterwards. The last 10 miles were bad, I slowed way down. Once I finished, I changed into running shorts and shoes, threw a hat on and headed out. At this point it was around noon and 90F with no clouds and no shade. I was miserable. My heartrate was freaking out. After 1 mile I started to walk but after walking for 2 minutes my HR had barely dropped. I sent 1.25 miles alternating about equal parts running and walking. At 2.25 miles I gave up. Didn’t even make it to the low end of my range. Instead of being annoyed with how poorly it went, I’m looking at all the lessons I learned. Now I know all the things I need to improve on and figure out. I finished the week off with a run from my hotel in Seattle where I accidently had my watch on indoor mode. Oops.

This week:

Swam: Big fat zero

Rode: 39 miles (all on stationary bike)

Ran: 30 miles (all on treadmill)

Strength training: 1hr

Number of elevator rides: 0

Number of stairs (mostly heading towards food): 357392

Number of desserts at lunch AND dinner: 2-3

What a way to approach a recovery week. Reduced hours with a heavy side of food. Doing a cruise in the middle of training season is a very bad idea for two reasons: limited in what you can do for training and food. Ah the food. I’m going to guess I ate at least twice as much as I normally eat, maybe three times as much. I didn’t even try to control myself. I’m sure my sisters were slightly horrified with the amount of food I ate especially when it came to desserts.

I had high hopes on what I could do in regards to training but the ship let me down. It wasn’t a very big gym and it was fairly crowded every day. The spin bikes could only be used for spin classes which you had to pay for and were only offered three times the whole trip at bad times. The “endless” pool wasn’t working so that removed swimming. So lots and lots of treadmill running… shot me. In regards to running, I was very pleased with how it went. I hadn’t been on a treadmill in months and I’ve been running in hot weather for a while now. I’m still debating how much of my performance was based on those factors. As much as I hate treadmill running I do see the benefits. For the most part I didn’t have any of the pains I’ve been experiencing the last several weeks. I suck at pacing myself so treadmills at least force you to go at a set speed. I was very good about always starting with a warm up mile. Did several runs where I would increase speed every mile or half mile. I was rather surprised about how low I was able to keep my heart rate to the point where I had to run under an 8 mile pace to get it above 160 bpm during a work out. That’s a pace I’m not familiar with at all. Felt kind of odd to be running that “fast”.  So if I had to grade myself on the week, running: A, food: F. At least I’m feeling pretty rested at this point and ready to jump back into some hard training. Excited to jump back into the pool and onto the bike (except for my crotch which has truly enjoyed the break). Three weeks to go before my first race.