Week 12 Summary

This was another long week. I skipped one swim workout on Thursday as I was VERY tired. I also had a very short swim on Sunday… and I decided to move my Long Run to Monday as Sunday afternoon was 30C.

At the end of the day this is supposed to be fun. Running 3 hours under a burning sun of 30C is not my concept of fun. Instead I had a lovely run on Monday 5Am. It perfect! Started with 19C and by the time I got back it was 20.5C. Not only that, but the sun was always behind the trees.

Another bonus was the long ride on Saturday, what a perfect weather. Windy, but very nice. I was SUPER happy to finish my 6:15 hours with NO PAIN. The week before I quit the long bike at 5 hours as my knee was bothering me quite a bit. Not this time! Still kept a descent pace of 28.2 (198W), specially considering the wind.

I’m still far from where I would like to be on the run and bike as far as pace goes, but I’m just glad to be injury free now!

Week 11 – I quit!

Quitting is the second hardest part of training, after opening the front door. But equaly important. This was a quitter’s week!

After the half marathon I was pretty sore,  my quads were killing me. I could barely walk downstairs…

• Tuesday I was supposed to do a tempo ride (1 hour and a half), which I had to cut 20 min short, as my quads were just killing me! Quit #1
• Wednesday I was supposed to do a long run (1:35 hrs), which was pure punishment, from start to end. My quads were just burning. Again, I had to cut short, another 20 min. Quit #2
• Thursday, Friday and Saturday were fine, finally! I even ran 2:40 hrs on Saturday, followed by a 5 km swim. Not bad!
• Sunday I had a 5:30 hrs bike + 30 min run workout, which started great. I was pretty happy I was not dead after my long Saturday workouts.  Unfortunately after 5 hours my left knee started to ache, and it wasn’t getting any better. I decided to cut short the bike just 20 min and didn’t even run. Thanks to my wife, who rescued me from the middle of nowhere, I was able to quit! Quit #3

What’s with the 20 min??

Horrible week hey? Not really. I’m honestly glad I had the guts to stop every single time. It is truly hard to justify to myself when it is enough pain that I should stop. I’m just coming off a nagging hamstring injury, which copmletely through me off from my schedule. My normal attitude is to muscle through the pain and get the workout done, no matter what, but not this time.

Listen to your body.

This week was the longest so far, I trained over 18 hours. Yea, maybe I’m not as good as I would like to be, but I’m in one piece and that is what matters. I’m ready for next week.

9 to go!

Week 10 Summary (Mississauga 1/2)

This was an interesting week. It was very compressed as I had two days to tapper for the Mississauga 1/2 Marathon on the weekend. I even had a 4:30 hrs bike ride on Thursday, which I had to take the day off work to get it in… In fact Thursday was really hard because after 130 km bike ride, I swam 3950 yards.

Anyhow, the race at the end was great:

• Distance: 21.1 km
• Course Grade: -0.4% (78m drop over 21.1km)
• Time (chip): 1:40:38.2 (yea, Caca will bug me for that one…)
• Pace: 4:45min/km (12.6 km/h)
• Heart Race avg: 173 bpm

The plan was to follow my heard rate as prescribed by MAO (151-166 bpm)… but as you can see that plan didn’t fly! Bruno, Leandro and I started together, while my wife started a bit behind.

The three of us were together until km 3, but then we left Leandro behind and I kept with Bruno. Bruno was on a schedule, he wanted to finish at 1:40 and my goal was 1:42, but I figured I’ll keep up with him until I can and then I have 2 min in my pocket.

That new strategy was great, as Bruno kept checking the time and adjusting the pace accordingly, while I was just checking my HR, which was way to high to begin with, but I was feeling good. I thought about Around the Bay in 2009, where I averaged 170 bpm over 30 km, so I knew I should be able to maintain that HR.

I chased Bruno until the 18th km, when I lost him on a hill (I was 183 bpm and I thought that I should not kill myself!) In any case I still kept an eye on him as he slowly ran away. The last 2 km, I checked the time and I was at 1:30 hrs, which made me feel great as I knew that no matter what, I would be able to maintain a 6:00 min/km pace and reach my goal, so I tried my best to finish on 1:40… which, to my surprise, I did! Bruno was just 20 seconds ahead!!

I have to say, if it wasn’t for him, I would finish around 1:44 or even worse. Not sure what MAO thinks about my HR average, but I was quite happy with my time, 4 minutes better than last year!

Some interesting Stats from the race:

• First 10.6 km: 168 bpm (4:49 min/km)
• last 10.6 km: 178 bpm (4:42 min/km)
• Last 60 min: 177 bpm (4:43 min/km)
• Last 30 min: 180 bpm (4:42 min/km)
• Peak 5s HR: 189 bpm (3:45 min/km finishing line)

Leandro finished in 1:49, after having some issues with his knee (again). But considering that his longest run was about 15km this year (once) he did alright!

Beatriz… my beautiful wife! She didn’t workout for the last 14 days, while her mom was visiting us. She did just one run before the race (16 km) – which she should not have done! But, she still managed to finished at 2:10. Well done!

The week totals were:

Week 9 Summary

This was a lonely week. My wife was away travelling with her mom while I was home working, taking care of the dog and Training. There was no treadmill run or any trip to the gym, all outdoors… and obviously it ALWAYS started to rain when I went out. Wednesday and Friday were very wet and cold runs.

On Friday I did the first speed work, which was interesting to say the least. I ran at an overall 11.5 km/h avg, but all the intervals around 13.5 km/h with a HR of ~162 bpm, which is pretty low for that pace (for me at least). Unfortunately, even though the HR wasn’t that high, it felt much harder than 162 would feel last year.

The other bugger of the week was the long bike. I had to do 4:30 hours, which I had to do indoors as the weather didn’t help: cold, windy and wet! Not a good combination for long bike ride. Therefore I decided to use the old 75% rule and do a bit shorter indoor workout. I planned for 4:00 hrs (I know, more than 75%), but at 3:47 hrs I got a cramp on my left hamstring (again), so instead of hustling the last 13 minutes, I decided to call it a day.

On a good note, I did a long run on Sunday (2:25 hrs, 25 km, 144 bpm) and my hamstring didn’t bug me much. I still have a small nagging feeling, but it doesn’t get worse or better… so I just got used to it. Most important, the following day I had no pain either.

In summary, this was a good week, got back to my regular volume and intensity. Still no running legs, but I have legs! 🙂

Week 8 Summary

Week 8 was a big improvement, I got a bit more volume, and I even increased the intensity a bit. Having said that, My fitness definitely took a hit. My running is now just pathetic. I can not believe what I’m seeing.

I’m running at 8.6 km/h on the treadmill (at 1.o incline) with a 137 bpm. Seriously, what is that? I’m back to what I was about 2 months ago. Before my injury I was running at 10.8 km/h at 140 bpm outdoors, which wasn’t great, but considerably better. Well, I can only hope I’m going to improve relatively fast… and not re-injure the hamstring.

Week 9 is when I’m supposed to start speed work, which quite frankly, scares me. I’m not sure my hamstring is ready for that. My first speed run is on Friday. I might do the workout, but without going too hard. In other words, I’ll go faster, but not all out. I got to a point that I don’t really care with my running performance as long as I don’t get hurt!

In a positive note, I didn’t lose so much fitness on the bike and nothing on the swim. I had a good “long” ride on Saturday (2:30+30 Brick), where I’ve averaged 185 Watts (196 normalized), which is fine… not super fast for two and half hours, but still ok. Heart rate was under control at 139 bpm. I have to say, the bike is my favorite sport!

The only issue was riding with Caca… he really made me look bad! The bastard 🙂 is like 10% faster than me right now (30 km/h vs. my average of 27.9 km/h). Fortunately I manage to control my ego and kept my pace, which paid dividends with my hamstring. I rode with Fernando, who was riding on a very comfortable pace, very steady as usual.

As per numbers, here is what I ended up this week: