Week 42: Review

As expected, the weather this week was a bit unpredictable but fortunately we got enough decent weather that I managed to fit in a few of the cycling sessions. There was isolated showers pretty much all day on Monday, but as I really needed to get out there I looked for an opening and headed out when I got the chance. I did get rained on a few times out there, but the rain wasn't really that heavy so safety wasn't really an issue and I pushed through. Wednesday was a lot more dodgy so I kept off the bike, but as that was only a 30K ride I wasn't too worried.

The weather reports unfortunately called for more rain on Friday, so I elected to swap my Thursday sessions around with it and managed to get a good 50K ride in. On Saturday I hoped to get a long ride in, however between other obligations and watching Kona I couldn't really find the time to do much more than 35K. I had to take an intermission from watching the race to fit in my 4 mile recovery run, but fortunately with an 8+ hour race missing a half hour isn't really a big issue ;)

As for my running, things mostly went as planned. The only major hiccup was that I ended up having a late lunch on Tuesday, and that didn't agree with my digestive system when I went out for a run in the afternoon. I had originally planned to do 6 miles with 6x100m speedwork, but while I pushed through the discomfort for the warmup it was evident after the first interval that it wasn't going to work. As such, I turned around and ran back home at a relatively slow pace (it didn't seem to bother me when my HR was below 160bpm, so a ~5:15/km pace wasn't a big problem) and only got 5K in.

As such, I elected to simply move the speedwork to my Thursday session and potentially find a way to squeeze the missing three miles into other runs. Unfortunately as my Wednesday running group was tapering for Chicago I didn't want to ask to extend the route any more than planned, and time constraints made it difficult to fit anything extra onto the other runs. Either way, missing 3 miles isn't really all that significant, especially as I'm not really following any formal plan right now ;)

Since I moved my Thursday running sessions to Friday to fit the bike ride in, that meant that I had to deal with rain during my speedwork session. At first I wasn't really looking forward to it, but once I got out there it was actually pretty pleasant to run in. The rain was pretty light, and as I only had to go 6 miles I didn't really get all that soaked, so the cooling effect was quite helpful. Everything, including the intervals, pretty much felt effortless so it turned out to be quite a nice day for a run. Since I was feeling so good, I even threw in a hard finish to get a little extra speedwork into the mix ;)

I also ended up moving my 14 mile long run from Sunday to today as it just wasn't logistically feasible to do it yesterday. The family gets together for Thanksgiving on the Sunday, so I didn't have a lot of time to fit in a multi-hour run unless I wanted to get up really early (which I didn't much feel like doing). As such, I headed out this morning to get the run in and asside from overdressing a bit (wore a jacket when a T-Shirt would have been more than sufficient) it went quite well.

Week 42 Totals:
Running: 53.6km (33.3mi)
Walking: 1.6km (1.0mi)
Cycling: 137.7km (85.6mi)
Swimming: 7.4km (4.6mi)
Total: 200.3km (124.5mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 2,046.2km (1,271.4mi)
Walking: 207.2km (128.7mi)
Cycling: 3,309.9km (2,056.7mi)
Swimming: 74.8km (46.5mi)
Total: 5,638.1km (3,503.4mi)

This week is going to be more of the same, but fortunately it looks like there will be enough openings to fit things in. As I did my long run today, I'm not planning on doing my normal cycling session today so I'll be a little low this week. I'm also going to have problems trying to fit much in on Saturday, as my brother is flying out in the morning and will likely need help getting to the airport. Additionally, the Toronto bicycle show is on that day as well so I'm likely going to head down as there are a few things I need to pick up and they usually have some pretty decent deals.

Tue 2.5mi Swim, 6mi Recovery w/6x100m
Wed 40K Ride (if weather permits), 10K Recovery
Thurs 2.5mi Swim, 8mi GA
Fri 80-100K Ride
Sat 4mi Recovery
Sun 16mi (25.7K) LSD

Longer term, I elected to skip the races next week as I'm not likely to improve on my times significantly and the logistics would be somewhat difficult. I was hoping to push out a 3:20 marathon next Sunday, but the injury threw a wrench into those plans. As such, I was considering doing the half marathon, but I'm still working myself back into shape and I figure continuing base building is likely more important than fitting in an extra race.

In other news, the rest of my Wednesday running group headed down to Chicago for the marathon and all managed to qualify for Boston (IIRC their qualifying times were between 3:30-3:35, but all of them managed to get under 3:30). They've been training quite hard and all of that effort appears to have paid off quite well! Hopefully I'll be able to join them in future years, but for now I simply offer my congratulations!