Picking Up The TEMPO

Tuesday was intervals day on the bike, so I went out and did 13.76 miles in the neighborhood with 6x2:00 loops in the middle. I had the misfortune of hitting every single stop light, but hey, that's how it goes sometimes.

I was excited to swim on Wednesday (after having my big breakthrough on Monday) but it was thundering when I got home at 4:00. So I threw on my bike shorts, filled my tires, and walked outside my garage... just as it started to pour. I considered lifting weights for the first time in a month, but ended up doing nothing. Thursday was spent driving to Richmond, so this was the first time since May that I had taken two days off in a row. For reference: I only had two rest days for the entire month of July, and only three in June. 

Throw in the fact that my new Vibram KSO's came in the mail, and were one size too small, and I was pretty antsy by Thursday night.

Friday morning Briana and I went for a 5K run. I had recently read a few articles talking about the importance of tempo runs (running right at your lactate threshold), so I decided to give that a try. I did the first mile as a warm-up at her pace, then did the rest as a tempo run (keeping my heart rate between 172-180). It was somewhat challenging, but not bad. We parked at a high school, so when I was finished I went over to the track and ran some sprints for the first time in 10 years. I did 400m in 1:31, and then 200m in 0:42. Usain Bolt runs the 200m in less than half the time. It made me feel pretty lame.

Saturday morning I woke up and did a 10K, alternating easy miles with tempo miles. I'm very pleased with how I felt the whole time, and with my splits:

Having a heart rate monitor makes training incredibly easy, as I have real data to work off of instead of perceived effort. During some of the tempo miles I felt tired, but then saw that my heart rate was too low, so I forced myself to harden the fuck up and speed up. Running is incredibly mental.

I got home Sunday hoping to swim, but it was raining so I went out for a wet bike ride. I felt great from the get-go, so I turned the ride into a 10 mile tempo ride, keeping my heart rate between 168-175. Two weeks ago I hit an average pace over 18 mph for the first time, and haven't been able to match that since then, but yesterday's tempo ride averaged 18.83 mph, crushing my previous best. I'm confident I can crank out over 19 mph in my sprint tri now. 

Last week was my lowest training week since I started two months ago: just 3:46 total training time, which was one swim, two runs and two bike rides. With the RockNRoll half-marathon just 13 days away, and my sprint triathlon a week later, I really need to avoid going too hard this week to make up for it. With that in mind, I'm hoping the week will look like this:

Mon: Swim

Tue: Bike-to-run brick (12 miles, 3.11 miles)

Wed: Swim

Thu: Bike (10 miles)

Fri: Bike-to-run brick (50+ miles, 3.11 miles)

The brick on Tuesday will be a race simulation, going hard on the bike and then near race pace on the run. This will be to gauge how hard I can push myself on the bike and still have the legs for the run. Thursday's ride will be a slow recovery ride. Friday's brick is something I had hoped to do this past weekend but didn't have the time for: a long ride, with an easy 5K tacked on the end. I want to start doing this on each of my long bike rides to really get used to the transition.