Weeks 33, 34 & 35: Catching Up

The last few weeks have been particularly crazy, and as such I've fallen behind on my updates. This post is designed to catch up for the last three weeks, and will only be relatively brief as I still don't have a heck of a lot of time here ;)

Week 33 Totals:
Running: 58.3km (36.2mi)
Walking: 2.2km (1.4mi)
Cycling: 81.2km (50.5mi)
Swimming: 8.1km (5.0mi)
Total: 149.8km (93.1mi)

Week 33 went pretty much as planned and I managed to hit most of my targets. Cycling was the main exception, as the weather over the weekend forced me to miss a couple of my sessions. On the running front, I managed to get in a good 18 miler on the Sunday despite a bit of rain. Additionally, my group run on Wednesday was faster than normal as the fellow that I headed out with was preparing for a race and wanted to do a hard 10K. It felt good to let the legs loose for a change ;)

Week 34 Totals:
Running: 27.4km (17.0mi)
Walking: 1.0km (0.6mi)
Cycling: 71.5km (44.4mi)
Swimming: 7.6km (4.7mi)
Total: 107.5km (66.8mi)

After the successes of the previous week, week 34 started out quite well with everything hitting targets comfortably. Unfortunately, on Friday my left hamstring started feeling a bit sore so I took a few rest days to let it recover. It wasn't particularly bad and in retrospect I likely could have trained through it, but I didn't want to risk it becoming worse and taking me out for a longer period. As such, my long run and ride were knocked out, as well as one of my moderate rides - all of which took a significant chunk out of my mileage.

Week 35 Totals:
Running: 50.1km (31.1mi)
Walking: 1.3km (0.8mi)
Cycling: 61.0km (37.9mi)
Swimming: 3.7km (2.3mi)
Total: 116.1km (72.1mi)

On Monday morning, the hamstring was pretty much back to normal so I decided to get back into the routine. To play it safe I shortened my ride from 50 to 30K, but fortunately there were no signs of the pain so I could get back into my routine. On Tuesday I was out with family so I did miss my sessions on that day, but fortunately I was able to squeeze in an extra run on Saturday to make up for it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make up the swim so that mileage is a bit low for the week.

On Sunday, I was heading out for a 17 miler to ease myself back into it and when I started my Polar the battery in the wrist watch died. I quickly switched over to my Garmin strap and popped my cycling computer (Edge 705) in a pocket on my hydration belt. It's GPS radio had the capacity to measure speed and distance, and with the HRM I'd be able to record most of the information that the Polar does. Unfortunately, as there is no way to mount it to my wrist I couldn't get real-time readings of those values.

While I don't mind running by feel, my tendency is to go too fast when I do, and that isn't a good combination for a long slow distance run like this. Regardless, the weather was near perfect for a run and I felt good throughout. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the display that I realized that I'd averaged a 4:33/km pace (vs the 5:00-5:30 pace that was planned). Fortunately, thanks to the lower temperatures my heart rate stayed in about the right range (~164bpm average vs 155bpm normal for this distance) so it hopefully wasn't too hard on the body.

Either way, it is good to know that I can comfortably maintain that pace for this distance. This is roughly the speed that I need to hold over a marathon to qualify for Boston, and having done 17 miles at the pace is a good sign. Naturally, that's still a far cry from being able to pull off another 10 miles at this speed, but it's a stepping stone in that direction. I don't intend to make a BQ attempt this fall, so the earliest that I'd be trying that is next spring - leaving a good amount of time to work on that last piece of the equation.

Year to Date:
Running: 1557.8km (968.0mi)
Walking: 75.2km (46.7mi)
Cycling: 3395.8km (2110.1mi)
Swimming: 226.1km (140.5mi)
Total: 5254.9km (3265.2mi)