So this past week ended up yielding some good training. The intensity seems to be picking up, TT efforts are getting longer, track work is getting longer, the weeks are in the low 20 hr window, and I LOVE IT. So long as I can get recovered, I’d much rather train at an intense level than pure aerobic. It really just keeps things interesting as I try to think about every aspect to get the most speed with the least effort: Nutrition, hydration, form, breathing, cadence, everything is being constantly checked over and over and over and over and then again during training sessions to drill in what works best. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not thinking “B2B” in my training. In my mind, I’m doing all of these workouts on the race course and visualizing the entire atmosphere. This leads me to my next thought…
This past week’s long bike workout was the best workout I’ve had in a long time and it got a little hot. By hot, I don’t mean temperature, I mean speed and intensity. I needed this to let my mind know that everything is OK and chugging right along on pace (I have been feeling a little down lately). We headed out at 5:30AM for a 4.5 hr bike ride and 30 min run. The goal was to have an aerobic HR average over the whole ride BUT to get in two 60 min TTs. 10 miles in, lightning bolts were popping out everywhere, and no, not because we were ripping through the air on our bikes. A huge storm rolled up on us. Long story short, we hung out under a bridge and our group of 8 went down to 4. After the storm passed, we got back into the groove of our warm up until about mile 20… then it began…. The first 60 min TT effort. Bruce said “don’t go crazy here” but I’m not sure I was remembering that on this specific morning. Sorry Bruce. However, I did keep it under control. I thought B2B B2B B2B B 2 B !!! over and over. I kept my HR right in mid zone 3 (probably a little high for B2B but it felt great). When I hit a hill, I just slowed, kept effort the same, when I hit a downhill, I picked it up, up over 35mph a few times. I ate, I drank, I pulled my own wind and it felt perfect. First one down at 23.9mph. I need to note that we made it from the TN divide all the way to Fly in almost exactly 20 mins. That seems impossible right?
We then took a quick break to refuel at Fly, soft peddle for about 15 mins, then right back to work on the second TT effort (I feel sorry for my friends that like to train with me... they can't be right in the head). This one basically went from Fly to Leipers fork and then back to Fly. This one was tougher. There was some wind on each direction. There’s a few rises in there too (good news is, there’s less elevation at B2B than ONE of these 60 min TTs). Anyway, to Leipers hurt. Coming back was actually harder but it hurt less. Things just started clicking like clockwork. It felt like a race. I sat on the front and pulled my way back to fly. I was happy to see the computer hit 60 mins because I immediately tapped my butt indicating I was coming off the front… I even yelled out “SLOWING”. 23.4mph. I’ll take it.
We concluded the 99 mile ride in just over 4.5 hrs and I did have a Z2 aerobic average for the entire ride (I have to admit, had it been one beat higher, it would have been Z3). Brick run after was 4 miles at 7:31 pace. Running fast off the bike felt so good.
Sunday’s long run was the biggest highlight of training on that day. A friend and I covered 17 miles through Shelby Bottoms, looped the Music City Tri Course (yes, not sure why we subjected ourselves to that adventure again), and back to the bottoms. Overall, 8:35 pace at low effort and I felt fantastic.
Great week and especially great weekend of training. It felt good to get the distances and intensity back up. Finished the week feeling good. That is, until I woke up on Monday. I was a little more tired that I would have preferred. I can’t figure out why.
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