Week 46: Review

My schedule this week was pretty unpredictable, so unfortunately I didn't manage to get in all of the miles that I would have liked. Fortunately, the weather over the last couple of days was about as close to perfect as one can get for exercise so that did allow me to somewhat catch up a bit. Either way, not a huge problem as this is my base training period here so falling back a bit isn't a huge problem - just have to call it a recovery week ;)

Things started getting mixed up on Tuesday, as when I was leaving the pool I noticed that the H1N1 vaccination clinic they have there was pretty much empty (a big suprise given the 6 hour wait they had the Friday before). I'm not in the high-risk group so that doesn't help me directly, however my mother has asthma so I grabbed a ticket and called her so that she could get her vaccination. Combined with other commitments I had for the day, by the time I got home there simply wasn't enough time to get out and do the 8 mile run I had planned.

On Wednesday I was out for the evening so I had to do the run in the morning rather than with my group in the afternoon. I did a 7 miler to partially make up for the lost distance on Tuesday, but the timing meant that I wasn't able to fit the bike ride I normally do mid-week. Thursday largely went as planned, doing a 4K swim in the morning and a 7 mile run in the afternoon (had to cut it a mile short due to time constraints). My schedule was packed pretty solid on Friday, and combined with the weather that meant that it wasn't possible to get out on the bike. I had an out of town funeral on Saturday, which meant that I had to leave early in the morning and didn't get back until late. As such, despite incredible weather I wasn't able to get my long ride nor my 4 mile recovery run in.


Fortunately, come Sunday things started to turn around a bit. The weather was pretty much picture perfect for biking (18C, little to no humidity, light breeze from the south) so I elected to push back my long run to Monday and head out on the bike. When I got to the turnaround point for my normal 50K route, things were going so well I elected to keep going and take a longer route to take advantage of this rare weather. As I was approaching my normal apex (Highway 9 and Bathurst), I was still feeling great so I elected to pop up to Newmarket and visit a friend that moved from my local Running Room to the Newmarket store.

After dropping in and quickly catching up, I realized that the sun was setting a bit faster than I was expecting (lousy time change). As such, I hopped back on the bike and started heading back at an accelerated pace. Unfortunately, the sun was winning the battle so I avoided taking any breaks and just powered my way back. Fortunately, the traffic lights were pretty much in my favour for most of the route so I didn't have too many unplanned delays.

Over one 6.2K stretch of Dufferin, I somehow managed an average speed of 47.9km/h against a slight headwind and only a slight downhill near the end of the segment. Unfortunately, after that point I started getting back into traffic and rolling hills which slowed me down. I was largely maintaining a crusing speed of about 36km/h, but between traffic, stops and uphills my average speed ran in the low 30s.

In the final few kilometers, I was getting pretty tired maintaining that aggressive pace but the sun had fallen behind the horizon so I knew that I had very little time before the light disappeared on me. Riding on rural roads with no artificial lighting, that would be a significant problem so I pushed a bit harder and fought my way up the final hill. At this point I was back on well lit suburban roads, so I took it a little easier and allowed myself to cool down for the last few hundred meters. I pulled into the driveway, and by the time I was stretched and had the bike put away it was pretty much pitch black so I'm glad I pushed as hard as I did :oP All said and done, I covered a little under 75km in 2:20:54 with an average speed of 31.8km/h.


Unfortunately, I paid for that push this morning when I headed out for my long run. While I was fine on the flats, whenever I hit a significant incline/decline I got tired pretty quickly so it's obvious that those hard efforts on the bike took their toll on my quads. As I have the Tri swimming clinic tonight, I didn't have much option other than doing it first thing in the morning, but that meant that I didn't have a whole lot of recovery time from yesterday's hard effort.

Compounding the problem was the fact that my legs seemed to have gotten used to the speed from yesterday and didn't want to slow down. As such, despite my efforts to relax my pace a bit to offset the fatigue, I wasn't able to control my pace as well as I would have liked. As I'm in base training at this point, I elected to simply cut the run short and stopped at about 12.6 miles rather than the planned 16. I wasn't going to hit my mileage target either way, so I figured there wasn't much point in fighting through it ;)

Week 46 Totals:
Running: 42.9km (26.7mi)
Walking: 0.4km (0.3mi)
Cycling: 125.9km (78.2mi)
Swimming: 9.5km (5.9mi)
Total: 178.7km (111.0mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 2,242.4km (1,393.4mi)
Walking: 213.7km (132.7mi)
Cycling: 3,606.9km (2,241.2mi)
Swimming: 109.8km (68.2mi)
Total: 6,172.8km (3,835.6mi)

As I havn't managed to hit my planned schedule for the last couple of weeks, I'm just going to tentatively schedule the same thing this time around (third time's a charm). The weather is looking pretty decent this week, and my schedule isn't quite as full so far, so hopefully I'll be able to actually execute it!

Tentative Schedule:
Mon 12.5mi LSD*, Tri Swim Clinic
Tue 2.5mi Swim, 8mi Recovery w/10x100m
Wed 30K Ride, 6mi Recovery
Thurs 2.5mi Swim, 8mi Recovery
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 4mi Recovery, 100k Ride
Sun 16mi (25.7K) LSD
* Counted towards this week's mileage, as it was simply postponed from yesterday.