I don’t know what I was doing during my workouts before I started working with my new coach or if I am working harder because I’m more worried about what he will think about my times/paces, but these past two weeks have kicked my butt!  My arms feel like noodles and my quads are not a fan either.  Time-wise I am not training that much, but the intensity factor has definitely increased.

April 18 – 24

Monday – Rest Day

Tuesday – Speedwork during lunch at a park near my house (soon I’ll start going to a local track nearby, I just need to get up earlier!), followed by a 1950y swim after work.

Wednesday – 55 minute ride on the trainer which incorporated 10x 30 second intervals as-hard-as-you-can-go with a 2 minute recovery.  I did this workout at lunch.  Big mistake.  I just wanted to lay down and sleep the rest of the afternoon.  Lesson learned, I need to do these trainer rides before or after work.

Thursday – Weights/strength training in the am and a 5 mile run at lunch with 3 miles @ 8:30 pace.  Getting speedier.

Friday – 2850y swim before work (hooray! I only overslept a little), swim is getting speedier too, 1:49y avg pace.

I’m trying to cut out soda completely, but after getting up early to swim (and it was a loong swim for me), I was dragging by 1p.

Saturday – 3 hr ride outside which incorporated a mix of hills and lots of headwind. I was pretty tired and surprisingly crabby the rest of the day.  Usually I am in such a good mood after my long rides, however I’m cutting out the post-ride beer and carbs (with the exception of my Infinit recovery drink, repair) so maybe that’s why.  My body better get used to it ASAP because those days are over! 🙂

Sunday – 5 mile run with 3 miles around an 8:25 pace, however my legs did not show up so it was a sufferfest, I think the ride yesterday wore them out.

Total Training Hours: 8:10

April 25 – May 1

Monday – Rest Day

Tuesday – Speedwork at lunch followed by a 2750y swim after work, however I am trying to get these darn swims done in the am before work.  My sister has joined the same fitness facility that I belong to and has been swimming most mornings, so I am making it my goal to get to the pool in the mornings so I can swim ‘with’ her.  I say ‘with’ because she is a FAST swimmer…I think she could probably do my swim workouts in half the time it takes me, so I would just share a lane with her 🙂

Wednesday – 45 minute trainer ride, with 10x 5 second intervals even-harder-than-the-30 second-ones-from-last-week with 55 second recovery.  Ok, ok. I know I said I wouldn’t do my coach’s mid-week trainer sessions during lunch, but since this one was only 45 minutes, I thought it would give me a tiny bit more recovery time before hopping back at my desk.  It did, but I was still tired.  Fine, I’ll get up early and do these darn trainer workouts in the am.

Thursday – weights in the am, and 5 miles at lunch with 3 @ 8:30 pace.  Legs felt good!

Friday – I overslept.  Shocker. Since Friday is my in-office day and my pool closes the lap swimming lanes on Friday for ‘wave hour’ from 4-8p, I caved and paid $ to swim at another pool after work to get my swim done.  2650y @ $0.04 a yard.

Different lockeroom, same old swim.  Proof to JMR that I was actually at the pool

Saturday – Go away raaaainy weather.  I ended up riding the trainer for my 2 hour ride, which wasn’t horrible (the boring-ness factor that is, the ride was tough, not horrible, but close to it), but by early afternoon it was nice and sunny out, so I was bummed I rode inside instead of waiting and getting out later in the day. Although I really like to get my workouts on the weekend done early so I have the rest of the day free, so waiting until the afternoon probably would have been annoying anyways.

Sunday – 8 mile run with 6 miles @ race pace. Ha. Well, I failed at this run. I was aiming for an 8:25 pace, which I hit during the first of the six miles, however then I had a huge downhill followed by a stomach cramp and decided that even though I was running an 8:15 pace, to just go with it so that the run would be done faster.  Well, by mile 4 I was running out of steam and struggling to hold even an 8:30 pace.  By the end of the six miles I realized 8:25 might be a stretch on race day. Boo hiss.  Between the warmup, 6 miles at pace and the cooldown I averaged an 8:40 pace.  And I was spent.  Well, hopefully my legs will be feeling a bit more fresh on race day.. at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Total Training Hours: 7:31

Today is a rest day (hooray) and I’m definitely taking it easy.  You’ve probably noticed a lot of workouts ‘at lunch’ compared to my training last year….back in February my team was given the option of working from home 80% of the time (1 day in the office each week), which I more than happily took, so I have time to squeeze in a workout at lunch rather than after work if I don’t have meetings that conflict.  However, as my workouts get longer, especially runs, 5 miles is about all I can do with still having time to stop sweating and shower before I hop back online to work, I will need to get them done in the morning.  This week is the first week I’m *forcing* myself to get up early and get in at least one of my workouts for the day, hopefully it’s a successful week!

A few more pictures before I go, as I mentioned previously that Saturday am was rainy but the afternoon was beautiful…well, that evening it took a terrible turn, we had a huge storm blow though with hail included!  It was pretty crazy.

View from the couch. 

So much hail it looks like we just got snow!

At least it was followed by not one, but two rainbows 🙂

Ignore the boards that are caving in….a new deck is on our to-do list.