Five Weeks Out

Saturday-Big Day Training
Swim 4000yds
Bike 106
Run 4mi

Saturday was another attempt at big day training. A pretty similar outline to what I’ve planned to hit in the past but with a twist on the bike. The swim was a 5x800 descending pull set in around 12 minutes and out on the 12:30. Swim was pretty uneventful other than the fact that my swim just hasn’t been feeling too strong the last couple weeks.

On the bike I rolled out pretty easy for the first hour. I noticed that my legs were a bit tried, but a good tired, from the week’s festivities. The next hour was done on the Ironman Wisconsin course as IM effort. The next task was 2x1hr a bit higher than IM effort. This was tough. I nailed the first hour and then broke the second hour into 2x30mins w/5min ez. I was able to hit the first 30min section with my normalized power in target but was unable to finish strong on the second 30min section. I ended up spinning the rest of the ride although noticed that my 200-220w IM power was still within reach. As this week was one of the first hot ones of the year it was pretty amazing to see all the carnage of cramping athletes all over the Wisconsin hills. Luckily, I had my heat issues on Wednesday and Thursday and was able to complete this ride without any issues and a heart rate that looked pretty reasonable for the efforts.

I decided to escape the heat by doing my run on the treddie and saw pace to HR efforts similar to what I had done on Friday after a short technique swim. That was a great sign, although I’m still not sure why I’m always slower on the treddie for a given HR than on the roads.

Sunday
Bike-32mi
Run-6mi

I rolled out pretty early on the bike after a lousy night’s sleep. All night my body felt like it was still moving after all the activity from yesterday and I got up several times to use the restroom. I also had limited time as I needed to catch a plane at 1:30. So, instead of going to my usual hill I went to a shorter hill for muscular endurance work. I noticed right away my legs were a bit heavy and the HR was suppressed. I ended up hitting six repeats for about 30mins of big gear work at which point my legs felt well worked. I then took it home at IM effort and got in a good solid six mile run at IM effort.