(Arguably) The hardest week

As this is essentially the final chance for a build week before I throw myself into A-race season, I'm trying to make the most of it. I abridged my recovery week from my last build period to three days, and threw myself into some hard training and a race prior to this week. Since, I've been up to:

Monday
BIKE - 100min - 2x20min ftp w/ 10 min recovery, long cool down
SWIM - 60min - 50-100-150-200-250-250-200-150-100-50 on 50sec/50 (in on 45sec/50)

The biking was miserable, I had to wear winter clothes and not to mention very tough after my 10k the day before, but I pushed through and hit my power numbers. I felt sluggish and crappy during my swim warm up, but found once I started the real workout I was hitting my paces. It was a good tough workout, but I got through it!

Tuesday
BRICK - 60min - 5km bike - 2.7km run - 5km bike - 1km run - 5km bike - 1km run, all as fast as was reasonable, practicing transitions

I saw a post on slowtwitch, someone was asking the relevance or usefulness of multiple short brick intervals. My opinion is that they are useful to some extent for fitness, but much more so for working on T2 skills. So that's what I did. I didn't look at my power on the bike, but it ended up being around 270W or so... but the runs were about 3:20/km then 3:05 and 3:05. It was pretty tough, especially on tired legs but I got some quality running in and transition practice which were the goals of the workout. I managed to treat myself to a massage afterwards!

Wednesday
SWIM - 50min - 300 tempo (in <4:30 -="" 1min="" 2x50="" 300="" 3x50="" 4x50="" 5:15="" in="" on="" p="" paddles="" pull="" tempo="">
Another swim workout I was happy with. I needed a rest from the run-bike stuff and this was good.

Thursday
BIKE - 3 hours, 10 min - Long, hard Sault Cycling Club ride

Pulls in the range of 300-400 Watts with a hill sprint half way through... then I finished out the night getting the distance up to 100km because that's a nice round number! My legs were completely toasted. I woke up in the middle of the night because my legs were so sore. I got some water and went back to sleep.

Friday
RUN - 45min - 4.5km @3:32/km - 1min rest - 2.7km @3:32/km - 30 seconds - 1km in 3:27

I was very tired today and not highly motivated... but I guess I must have been because I got out and I did it, and I did it well. Recovery tonight? The movie Identity Theft. Terrible. So bad. Possibly the worst movie ever made. I can't believe how bad.

The rest of the week? I am going to try and get into the open water. I need to try out this wetsuit! I've been hunting for good places. I'm going to do another easier ride on Sunday I think, and a bit of easier running tomorrow. I need a bit of a recovery.

Good talk.

Really though. Identity Theft is so bad it's making me feel physically ill.

Adam "Movie review blog" Fortais