I've held off posting for a few weeks to provide the report of my first bigger build week of the year and recovery. First big build week of the year was a success - 21.5 total hours with a bike focus following a big bike block (so a ton of bike volume over a 15 days period). I had been averaging about 13-16hrs/week and a few 18hr weeks so a decent bump in volume to stress the body a bit more. We decided to focus on the bike for this block since late November thru Dec were focussed on bigger run volume (45-55 miles/week). I'll admit I was a little worried my bike was getting behind with all the focus on running over the past 2 months and guess what?! bike fitness was still as solid as ever. The body responded very nicely - no extreme soreness or fatigue. Last season I was really dragging during any week over 20 hours. I really felt like I absorbed every bit of the training during the bigger build week. Kudos to coach Torsten for laying this out in a way to stress my body but not absolutely shut me down. Very good mix of aerobic training with some harder efforts to fire the muscle fibers a bit including a 5K race on the Monday to kickoff the week. The recovery week following went well with no residual fatigue or SICKNESS. With the focus on staying healthy this year so this was huge. Money in the bank for the upcoming season.
Build Week Totals (bike focus):
Time: 21.5 hours
Bike: 260 miles
Run: 34.7 miles
Core: 40min
Swim: 10,000M
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Build Block + Village 5K Race Report
With my build block well underway and a 5 weeks of solid swim/run volume it was time for a big bike block (13hours in 6 days). Mentally I was a little concerned about the lower bike volume but every session has been focused on quality and the numbers were looking good for off season base building. Coach re-assured me that my bike fitness would not be a problem and he was right (as usual). Will be interesting to see where my lactate threshold levels are this year compared to last December's baseline test - my guess if a 60-75w increase but we'll have to see what the numbers say. Solid 13 hour block complete over the holidays with a 5K race sprinkled in for fun. Three more build blocks on the bike planned before the end of the February and then we get into race specific work 5-6 weeks out from IM 70.3 Texas. Everything is on track and looking good.
Village 5K Race Report:
I say this all the time but I really hate racing and training in the cold. Well, this race was definitely in the cold category. Doing this race in the middle of a big cycling block I knew my legs would probably be pretty tight/heavy and a good warm-up was warranted. Also, this was an afternoon race which was a little different. I probably ate too much for lunch 3 hours prior so note taken for future late day races. Got in a good warm-up and threw on the K-swiss k-ruuz 1.5 and was ready to rock n roll. The goal was 16:30 but after seeing the course was quite hilly with 2 x 180degrees turns on non-fresh legs I decided sub-17 would be good goal. I really didn't use any strategy for this one just try and go as fast as I could without blowing up mid-race. It looked as though there were a few college XC kids in town for the holidays. One guy got out front and I tried to stay on his shoulder as long as I could but let him go after about 3/4 of a mile (he ended up running a 15:34) and he created a 75M gap pretty quickly. Felt good through the first mile at 5:07 but as soon as we started to hit the uphills my quads got pretty heavy so I decided to try and make up as much as I could on the downhills. I was good through the first 180 turn and then back uphill but saw 2 guys starting to close, same thing at the next turn and then CRAP - caught again at mile 2.5. Two guys gapped my quickly and held pace through the finish to come in about 5 seconds ahead of me. If I could figure out how to race these things a little more efficiently I probably could have held on to second but all in all this is good speed work for the upcoming season. I closed out better than the last 2 races and crossed the finish line in 4th at 16:47 (almost 20 seconds from 3 weeks ago on a similar course).
Time: 16:47
Place: 4th overall / 1s M30-34
Village 5K Race Report:
I say this all the time but I really hate racing and training in the cold. Well, this race was definitely in the cold category. Doing this race in the middle of a big cycling block I knew my legs would probably be pretty tight/heavy and a good warm-up was warranted. Also, this was an afternoon race which was a little different. I probably ate too much for lunch 3 hours prior so note taken for future late day races. Got in a good warm-up and threw on the K-swiss k-ruuz 1.5 and was ready to rock n roll. The goal was 16:30 but after seeing the course was quite hilly with 2 x 180degrees turns on non-fresh legs I decided sub-17 would be good goal. I really didn't use any strategy for this one just try and go as fast as I could without blowing up mid-race. It looked as though there were a few college XC kids in town for the holidays. One guy got out front and I tried to stay on his shoulder as long as I could but let him go after about 3/4 of a mile (he ended up running a 15:34) and he created a 75M gap pretty quickly. Felt good through the first mile at 5:07 but as soon as we started to hit the uphills my quads got pretty heavy so I decided to try and make up as much as I could on the downhills. I was good through the first 180 turn and then back uphill but saw 2 guys starting to close, same thing at the next turn and then CRAP - caught again at mile 2.5. Two guys gapped my quickly and held pace through the finish to come in about 5 seconds ahead of me. If I could figure out how to race these things a little more efficiently I probably could have held on to second but all in all this is good speed work for the upcoming season. I closed out better than the last 2 races and crossed the finish line in 4th at 16:47 (almost 20 seconds from 3 weeks ago on a similar course).
Time: 16:47
Place: 4th overall / 1s M30-34
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