Week 11: Review

It was another beautiful week again and although it did cool down over the last couple of days, it's still quite comfortable for running out there. While I did loose a bit of mid-week mileage due to scheduling issues (got all of the sessions in, but had to cut some short), I added a couple of miles to my long run this morning to make up for it. Cycling is a bit behind due to a combination of timing and the fact that I did last week's long run on Monday (when I usually do a cycling session), but I'll try and make that up this week.

Thanks to the great conditions, my legs have wanted to start pushing faster again so my paces are starting to climb back to where they should be. For instance, on Friday's brick session I felt great coming off the bike so I just allowed myself to accelerate through the run finishing off just short of a tempo pace. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but every time I've done these sorts of sessions I've felt stronger than just running alone - will have to try pushing a bit harder on the bike segment I guess.

With that said, for my slower runs I've had to explicitly concentrate on keeping my pace down. When it's nice out there, my instinct tends to be to push a bit harder so it takes more effort to keep my recovery/long runs in the right zones. During the winter it's a little easier as the legs seem to be a little more willing to take it easier ;)

On the swimming front, the pool was extremely busy for both of my sessions. Aside from the March break crowd adding to the traffic, they were using half of the pool for lifeguard training so we were crammed into three lanes. As such, for the first hour I tended to be stuck continually passing slower swimmers and then the second hour I had to swim like a maniac in order not to get in the way of the faster guys ;) In my first session I tried to keep up with my normal sets, but that's difficult in heavy traffic so on Thursday I just did one big set with smaller warm-up and cool-down sets. Either way, it was probably good practice for the chaos I'll be running into when racing season starts again (even got some drafting in behind a friend on Thursday's last set).

Week 11 Totals:
Running: 52.2km (32.4mi)
Walking: 3.0km (1.9mi)
Cycling: 50.0km (31.1mi)
Swimming: 8.1km (5.0mi)
Total: 113.3km (70.4mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 409.4km (254.4mi)
Walking: 31.1km (19.3mi)
Cycling: 415.2km (258.0mi)
Swimming: 63.2km (39.3mi)
Total: 918.9km (571.0mi)

As my speed is starting to come back, I'm going to continue to try and increase my mileage again to get to a better base level. I might introduce some light speedwork back into the program this week, but I'll have to see how things feel before I do that. If things go as planned this week, then I'll start to transition into a more formal training plan again and begin to build back up to get ready for my races this year.

This Week (Tentative):
Mon 50K Ride
Tue 3.25K Swim, 6mi Recovery
Wed 30K Ride, 6mi Recovery
Thurs 3.25K Swim, 6mi Recovery w/5x100m
Fri 40K Ride
Sat 4mi Recovery
Sun 13mi LSD

Given the improvements I'm thinking seriously about giving Harry's Spring Run-Off a shot in a couple of weeks - I'm not going to be in all-out racing shape by that point, but it would be a good test to see how things are progressing. I'm also looking at formally registering for Muskoka in the near future, as I don't want to risk it filling up before I get around to it. Given the price I'd ideally like to hold out until I run a few medium distances, however there aren't many of these races in the vicinity so if this sells out then I'm pretty much screwed until next year.