Week 8 Endurance

Phew!!!! Week 8 has finally come to an end after a third week of build. It's always this third week of building that is the toughest as you peak in intensity and mileage in this phase and it is when your body says enough is enough! It is time to back off. Thank God for those recovery weeks to let the body rest and repair itself and the energy to slowly start seeping in again.

The week started off by my getting ready to go out on my bike but had a sudden calling to help someone in need. I felt this was more important than my training and said to myself that a day of lost training would not impede me that much. Besides I could make it up a bit in the remainder of the week. However the next day I was very very tired but still managed to get out there and put quite an effort into my run and swim. By Wednesday it was full steam ahead with the prescribed training and was still feeling strong. I tried out an interval training session on my treadmill but since it was new I had to program my heart rate and the speed that I wanted to go at the high end of the interval. So I punched in 9. However as I got into it and the belt started turning faster and faster, I felt it was so fast that I was going to fly off the end! My heart rate climbed to near it''s max and knew that I could not hold it any longer as it was still speeding up so I pulled the stop magnet on it which shut it down. I felt holy moly, I must be out of shape as I used to go up to 10 with no problem. But later I discovered that the machine was defaulted to english measuring units and not metric. I was speeding up to 9 miles an hour when I really only wanted to go to 9km/hr. I laughed my head off after this but had no poop left to keep on going. I was done, kapoot, finished, depleted and called it quits for the workout. I made sure however to change the measuring units to metric.

The remainder of the week was terrific with excellent weather out there especially for biking. When I got back from biking on Friday it was 24 degrees on my patio, so had my first sunbathing session of the year. I actually got burnt a bit. The next day Saturday was kind of cold and cloudy but went to Duncan to do my workout with my friend Bob. I kind of struggled going up the hills to Lake Cowichan but once I was warmed up, got into a groove and was ok for the rest of the ride. Got 60k in that day and felt pretty good at the end.

This morning I capped off my week with a 22km run. It was gorgeous and sunny out and was on the road by 9:30 am so that I would finish my run in time to eat properly and rest before going to work. I had such a great run, drinking every 15 minutes and eating gels on the 1/2 hour and managed to keep a 5:29 pace for the whole run. When I got back to the house, it was again very hot that afternoon up to 28 degrees on my patio this time. Springtime is a coming. Next week we move into the daily saving times so we should get more light now in the evening. I got a feeling that with the increasingly long bike rides, that I will have to start doing my swims in the morning which I absolutely hate but c'est la vie and I guess I will adjust. I can hardly wait for the lake swims in my wet suit as I hate pool swimming and always will. Just too much stopping at the wall turn around and do the same thing over and over and over again. Boooooring!!! However my swimming is a lot better but it does not make it any less boring.

Next week few weeks will be focusing a bit more on the run since I have a half marathon coming up that is only a 'B' event in my overall schedule but certainly important in gauging where I will be at for running speed which is where I can usually decimate my competition in triathlons. So far all my runs have been great and I seem to be getting quite a lot of leg speed back so it looks good. So far no injuries or other owies to worry about. Lot's of stretching and core work are the key to my not getting injured and I am doing this religiously. Life is great! Rock On!