This was one of those weeks where I kept trying to get one more thing done, but I never quite got there. Which isn’t to say that it was bad or anything like that, but it wasn’t the kind of great training week that I had last week.
Swim
The biggest difference between this week and last week is that I only got in the water once this week. So I didn’t get that big push from taking a day off and putting in a good, long swim like that last week provided.
Anyway, the Tri Club met Wednesday, and I kept it pretty simple:
- 200 SKIPS
- 10 x 100 @ 1:25 (holding about 1:15)
- 400 pull
- 100 warm down
I still don’t feel great in the water, but this was a better workout than some of the others I’ve had, and ultimately, I suppose I can’t complain.
On the plus side, however, my friend Chris, who normally teaches Spin at the YMCA, came in to swim, and his stroke looks really good. He’s holding about 1:30/100 yards swimming, and we talked a little about how you design swim workouts to learn to go longer/faster.
Long story short: just doing straight swims is rarely the answer. I told Chris he should be focusing on 100’s, using an interval that’s maybe :15 slower than his pace. So maybe 1:45 per 100.
He’s gonna report back, so I’ll let you know how it goes.
Swimming Total: 1 x swim workout (2500); 25 pts.
Bike
I rode my commute all five days last week; that’s the first time I’ve been able to do that in quite a while. I feel good on the bike when I’m just riding around the City, but I have to say that I’m getting seriously tired of having ridiculous close calls. The other day, somebody pulled in front of me and then turned right, across the bike lane, leaving me less than a foot of clearance between my front wheel and the hood of his car. Not nice! I managed to avoid death, but it scared the crap out of me, and I’d be lying if I told you that that kind of thing seems to be sort of commonplace in New York at times.
*sigh*
Anyway, Tri Club got together again Saturday for a Brick. Our club’s big in-house race, the Y-Tri, is May 11th, so this brick served as our pre-race reheasal. Speaking personally, I wanted to ride tempo and then get off the bike and just try to run easily. I felt like that was a weakness during my last race, so I wanted to take another shot at it, especially before the Y-Tri, which is a short Sprint that’s raced hard and leaves little margin for error.
My house is a touch over 9-miles from the Y. I rode over and stretched while I waited for folks to show up. Then we mounted up and headed out, with Chris--the Spin instructor--setting a blistering pace right out of the gate. Perfect! To be honest, Chris has a bit more speed than I do on the bike, and on this short course, holding his wheel was not easy. On the other hand, the purpose of this workout was to push it on the bike and then try to hold form through the run, so I buried myself to keep up and managed to hang on for nine of the eleven miles we rode together. At the end of the day, we’d averaged 19.8 mph, which is pretty fast for me.
I should have ridden again on Sunday, but I forgot to lay my clothes out Saturday night and didn’t want to wake up my wife Sally just to go ride when I got up Sunday morning. So I wound up being a lazy sloth on Sunday. It was kind of nice, to be honest, but I should have ridden. Still, I took Sally to get a new bike Sunday afternoon--happy early Mother’s Day!--and we did ride easy a little Sunday afternoon
Riding Total: 4 x commute riding; 1 x Brick (81.1 miles); 81.1 pts.
Run
I wanted to run three times this week, but what with work and whatnot, I only managed to get out twice. I put in an easy 30-minutes at lunch on Tuesday, and then ran 5-miles as part of the brick on Saturday. I felt okay both times, but I was especially pleased with how I ran Saturday after that short tempo ride. Getting off the bike at Brian’s Beachside Boogie was a challenge--one, quite honestly, that I wish I could do over.
But whatever. We’ve got another race coming up, and I hope to do better this time.
Running Total: 2 x runs (8.5 miles); 34 pts.
Triathlon Training Total: 140.1 pts.
Final Thoughts
Well, this wasn’t an overly exciting week training-wise, but we’ve had some decent weather, finally, and I got to spend some time with Sally and my girls, and both of those things are important, too. Truthfully, the only thing I’m really missing this week from last week’s total is the one long swim, but it would have been nice to get that. I just didn’t have time. Maybe this week will be a little better.
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