Had a forced rest over the weekend; as a result I got back at it pretty hard today.
I started out with a hilly, snowy, wet and difficult 45 minute run over lunch – the last 6 minuts of which I ran -on solid ground- at a pretty good effort: I have no idea of the pace since I was not wearing my S3 or G3.
Later at night I went to the gym and did my first row in a week – that’s my longest break from the rower all winter. I have to admit that taking a break didn’t help. It was almost like I was starting over again. I dragged on the bar for 40:39 to do an uncomfortable 10km. The last 2km I held 250w.
A brief rest and I was on the treadmill: 10 mins, last 6 minutes @ 3:40/km
Done!
Swim tomorrow.
Over the past few months I have been deciding the course of my training as the time presents itself. Deciding what type of run to do 5 minutes into the run, deciding what to do at the gym after I walk in… This has worked pretty well up to now but I think it’s time to start to plan a little; clean up my athletic to-do list.
Since I’m starting to up the run volume, it’s time to start to do som injury-prevention weight training. So I will do that today.
Plan is: 12km on the Conmcept2 easy pace. Then do the leg exercises – easy to start!
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Well, the plan was executed to some extent; That is to say that I did row and do some weights. The rowing was faster and shorter than planned. A mere -and not too hard- 10km in 39:56 followed by a conservative start to the weight training: 3×10 Leg extensions w/ 30kg and 3×10 Hamstring extensions w/ 30kg.
None of the above os too much of a surprise. What is a surprise is the fact that I went swimming.
It was not the easiest beginning, the main set was: 12×200 Prog 1-3, start 3.30
The 200s started out at 3:00 and drifted up to 3:10 by the 8th 200. After that it quickly went to 3:20… not too bad of a marker.
I had a complete zero for the weekend; life got in the way! To compensate for the slothenly weekend I got the week off to a start with a 07:30 12,000m row. The ratio of pain to gain is weighed heavily in fafour of the pain element when I train in te morning. For this very reason I have only ever ran to work twice… I wonder -like all things- can this be trained? If so, will there ba a downside? I’d hate to go through all that pain nd loose my ability to train at night. Something to think about.
Tonight I’ll also do a bit of something: run or row.
Back from a pretty nice run. 53 minutes at what felt like a pretty quick pace. No speed sensor so I have no idea how fast. 148 was the average HR – a good steady pace.
Interesting gym session tonight:
12km on the concept2: 48:30 av. Power 196w
Short rest
15 x (1 minute @ 255w, 30 secs rest)
10 mins easy on the bike
10 mins steady run
The interval session was possibly a little too easy – I think that in order to go sub 18:30 (1:51/500m) in the 5k I’ll have to make the intervals longer. Next time I’ll do 10 x 1:30 on 30 seconds rest. The time after that I’ll do 10×2:00 on 45 seconds rest. After that I’ll tackle the 5k. Someone will be upset after that; whether it will be Don, Richie or myself remains to be seen.
Went to the gym tonight to do an easy 12km row – to recover from and back up yesterday’s effort. Two things worth noting:
It seemed very, very easy – could that be because my body is judging it relative to yesterday’s effort? I’m not sure, but it took every bit of effort I possessed to HOLD BACK – I wanted to gun-it all the time.
The last time I rowed so conservatively was eight weeks ago; I did a 10,000m, keeping my HR under 150bpm. Last night’s row was 2km onger and had an average power 18w higher: That’s about 40s/10km faster for the same effort; that’s progress.
No training since THursday because of a crazy stressed out weekend; However, I got back at it today. I felt dead on my feet, the recoil of the stress made me feel sick but I decided to go to the gym and see if that would fix my body and soul.
I sat upon the Concept2, set it at 10km (because I felt the usual 12km would be too much) and rowed. After 1km I noticed that the average power was above 200w and average pace was slightly below 2:00/500m so I decided to go for a PB. I upped the pace considerably to manage a time of 38:55 – that’s an average power of 220w; because of the slow start, I had to hold 230w for most of the set.
Four hours I went for a leisurely 40 minute run – nothing stressful. I’m now read for bed.
I did my second run of the year the day after my first run of the year. Was that clever? Probably not, but now that I have a taste for training outside again, that’s that – the gym will take a back seat. Like yesterday, I just ran very conservatively for 51 minutes. No speed/distance sensor, av, HR of 142.
Five hours after the run I decided to go to the gym for a quick and easy 10km on the concept2… It may have been relatively quick, but it was far from easy – I very nearly quit after 6km; something I never REALLY consider during training. Every muscle in my body now says rest; let’s hope they also say sleep.
I did a pretty difficult 12km today:
9km @ 193w – not too difficult, and only 7w off 2:00/500 pace!
2,5km as:
300m @ 230w, 200m @ 150w
then last 500m @ 230w.
I was flirting with the idea of returning to swimming tonight but I see that there is a 1500m test set – I think I’ll leave it for another week. Instead I may row again tonight… let’s see if the chance arrises.
An opportunistic 12km on the concept2 today: 188w average, some surges.
Last 2500m: 350m very-hard(220w+), 150m easy(150w)
Last 500m 240w
I felt very fresh – which is pretty amazing, considering yesterday’s rather difficult session.
I was starved of training for three days so I made up for it by doing a relative hard gym session:
12km on the Concept2 as follows:
9km @ 182w – easy enough.
2km with 2x 500 Hard, 500 rest
1km 10 pulls MAX, 4 pulls easy (like a tabatha set)
Then 10 minutes on the bike
The 22 minutes running:
10 mins @ 4:16/km
9 mins @ 4:00/km
3 mins @ 3:45/km
