22 Weeks to Go! (Catch 22) + TrainerRoad High Volume Full Triathlon Plan Week 6/28 + 80 Day Obsession - Phase 2/Week 2
8/5/19 - M - OFF
8/6/19 - T - 80DO-
AAA + Looking Glass (80 min; 82 TSS)
8/7/19 - W - 50 min Easy (+Strides) Run
8/8/19 - R - Tray Mountain (90 min; 102 TSS) + 60 min Evening Easy Run
8/9/19 - F - 80DO-Total Body Core + Dade-1 (60 min; 80 TSS)
8/10/19 - Sa - Gibralter (105 min; 112 TSS) + 45 min Brick Run at M Tempo effort
8/11/19 - Su - 60min Long Run + 80DO-Cardio Flow
Total Run Miles - 24.8 miles
Total Run Time - 3:35 hours
Total Run TSS - 240 TSS
Total Biking Time - 5:35 hours
Total Biking TSS - 376 TSS
Total 80DO Time - 2:42 hours
Total 80DO TSS - 37 TSS
Total Training Time - 11:52 hours
Total TSS - 653 TSS
Monday
Off day. My left ankle was giving me some grief. Hopefully it's short lived.
Tuesday
80DO-AAA in 3 sets of 10 through each series and then back to top
Series 1 - Bilateral Press, Alt Unilateral Press, Lateral Raise, Y, Lat Side Bend, Standing Weight Knee Drive, Loop Standing Donkey, Forearm Plank Jumping Jacks
Series 2 - Chest Press, Fly, Kickback in Plank, Tricep Pushup, Corkscrew, Teaser, 1st Pos. Bridge, Single Leg Bridge w/ Loop
Series 3 - Pullovers, Renegade Row, Curls, Turned Out Curls, Loop Scissor Twist, V Leg Raise, Narrow Bridge Clam, Straight Leg Curls
Cycling: Looking Glass is 3x20-minute intervals between 75-90% FTP with 3-minute recoveries between them. RPM at 91. Nothing notable during the ride.
Wednesday
Morning: Off
Evening Run:
Conditions -
Partly Cloudy, Wind 11mph to 11mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 82°F + 65°F; FL - 83°F
End: Temp+Dew = 81°F + 65°F; FL - 83°F
Gigi was super stoked about this run. She had been talking about another race all day. So we both got suited up and ready to roll. I started off with an easy 4 miles around a 9:20 min/mile and then met G at the bike path. We did 6 strides a piece. They were very consistent on my end: 26.7, 26.3, 26.9, 26.5, 26.8, and 26.3. While the GPS can get wonky on this short of a distance they were somewhat consistent from a "pace" standpoint as well: 5:03, 5:00, 5:09, 5:08, 4:58, 5:03. This was about as fast as I could go on this day. G had fun as well. In total, it was 5.3 miles in 50 min.
After the run though my glute totally tightened up. I could barely walk without a limp. It was pretty concerning how the run gave me almost no issues and then post-run I felt like a complete wreck.
Thursday
Early morning ride. Got up at 3:45am and started the cycling at 4:12am. Other than holidays, I believe this is the longest workout (90 min) I'll do prior to going to work. This put this workout at about 10 hours from Wednesday's run ended. I was still limping around from the night before's run. I did my spinal realignment stretch that the PT showed me (and I'm suppose to be cutting down on) and almost instantly it corrected the issue. I felt 1000x better after just a few seconds of that stretch.
Cycling: Tray Mountain is 3x20-minute intervals at 90% FTP with 5-minute recoveries between intervals. RPM at 86. Not so great on the cadence. Clearly dragging this early in the morning. I had to stop once during the second interval at 1/2 way and twice during the third interval at each of the thirds (12 min and 6 min). But I survived.
The glute definitely felt better even after the ride as well. Hooray!
Evening Run:
Conditions -
Partly Cloudy, Wind 11mph to 18mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 76°F + 52°F; FL - 76°F
End: Temp+Dew = 75°F + 53°F; FL - 76°F
After little sleep and a 90 min ride this morning, I tried to be super conservative on this run. Ended up being 6.4 miles in 61 min (9:31 min/mile pace) with HR of 136. The effort was kept incredibly easy. I don't think the HR truly reflected that given the lack of sleep and other two workouts within the last 24 hr period.
Friday
80DO-Total Body Core in 3 sets of 10 through each series and then back to top
Series 1 (Shoulder) - Squat/Row/Twist/Row, Kneeling Lunge Clean & Press, Quad Ped Opposite Arm Knee Crunch
Series 2 (Chest) - Chest Press to Half Turkish Get-up, Spider Man Push-ups, Frog Sliders
Series 3 (Back) - "T" to Single-Leg Hip Hinge, Lat Pull Over w/ Leg Raise, Weighted Plank Hip Drop
Series 4 (Biceps) - Low Twisting Lunge Hammer Curl, Press Out to Curl, Weighted Standing Torso Rotation
Series 5 (Triceps) - Crab Position Tricep Dip to Sit Through, Alternating Skull Crusher with Bicycle Legs, French Twist
Cycling: Dade -1 is three sets of 3x2-minute VO2max repeats at 120% FTP. 2 minutes of recovery fall between intervals and 6 minutes of easy spinning separate each set. RPM at 96. This one went a bit better when evaluating the cadence. A critical part of doing these VO2max like workouts is trying to keep the cadence high during them. 9 of them at 120% was definitely a good place for me as I was close to my limit towards the end of them. But thankfully I've always noticed that the recovery from these is quite quick.
Saturday
Another early morning. Up at 4am and started at 4:50am. We were heading to a local lake for Gigi's first time fishing with her Uncle Wally who is an outdoorsman. So it meant I needed to be done with my 2.5 hr exercise and all cleaned up by 9am.
Cycling: Gibraltar is 105 minutes of continuous riding where you'll spend 90 minutes between 80-85% FTP. RPM at 81. Ouch. The cadence was plain not good for this one. I had to stop twice towards the end of the workout but from memory neither were fatigue based and more so adjusting on the saddle. I consumed 625 calories of Tailwind (60oz of liquid, 156g carbs, 90g carb per hour).
Brick Run (immediately after the cycling ends):
Conditions -
Mostly Cloudy, Wind 0mph to 0mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 63°F + 58°F; FL - 63°F
End: Temp+Dew = 65°F + 59°F; FL - 63°F
Transition = 6 min
Game time! I was so ridiculously stoked to try out the Nike Next% shoes. Could they really be as good as advertised and improve running economy by as much as 4% and possibly improve overall pace by as much as well? So I laced up the trampolines (Next%) rushed out the door and started my run. Almost instantly I could tell a difference. Just so much return in my strike of my foot. Like the shoes were truly helping me along. I felt like the M Tempo effort was being true. Then the first split came in at 6:48. Well then.... that was fast. I kept the foot on the M Tempo gas and kept on grooving.
The pace of the first three certainly looked like a fade, but even in the moment I knew that they were probably much closer when accounting for the hills. And that was the case (6:57, 7:01, 7:03). I did incur a little bit of a slowdown come mile 4 (7:29/7:16) and that's when my nemisis reared it's head: side stitches. I clearly wasn't being on point with my breathing as much as I should have been. So I paused my watch and walked a bit trying to get it to dissipate. Which it mostly did, but it was a reoccuring issue for most of the remainder of the run. So miles 5 and 6 finished off the 45 min (7:10/7:20 and 7:41/7:20). Funny how mile 5/6 would appear to be again another massive fade in the moment when I'm 31 seconds slower, but it's merely an artifact of changing elevation when evaluated by GAP (7:20s each). I did have to stop one last time near the end of the run because of side stitches again.
All in all a very good run. I definitely feel as if the shoes made a difference. My average pace was a 7:15 min/mile for this M Tempo workout. My GAP was 7:10, and my adjusted for T+D pace was 7:04. The run just last week was 20 min M Tempo under similar conditions and similar elevation gain and was 7:42 min/mile. So in a matter of a week, my pace dropped from 7:42 to 7:15. I'd like to say I improved by that much in a matter of 10 days, but I think that would be awfully unbelievable. So the only other remaining explanation is the Next% shoes. They cut off about 27 seconds per mile under similar conditions. Interestingly, my HR on last week's 7:42 min/mile run suggested more like HM Tempo pace whereas this run was nearly dead on M Tempo HR. That 27 sec/mile improvement is roughly a 5.8% improvement from last week. A single run doesn't necessarily seal the deal, but I'd say this is a definite feather in the cap that the research is real about these shoes. They are very fast shoes.
Now here's the thing, I wasn't suppose to do 45 min at M Tempo. Technically I don't have a M Tempo officially scheduled until 10/5/19. So I'm not all that concerned that my current effort paced M Tempo with all the adjustments (so a "perfect dream scenario") is still only a 7:04 min/mile. There's still lots of time to go in training. This run was more so to get comfortable with the Next % on the off chance I used them on the treadmill test with the PT in a few weeks. The one lesson I take away from this run was that I need to work on my rhythm breathing more as my lungs are just not yet up to the task.
G had a great time fishing for the first time. She caught 18 fish all be her self. I think this experience set an unrealistic expectation about how you literally put the bait into the puddle and then get a fish within 5 seconds.
Sunday
Morning Run:
Conditions -
Overcast, Wind 7mph to 7mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 68°F + 65°F; FL - 69°F
End: Temp+Dew = 71°F + 66°F; FL - 69°F
7 miles in 60 min (8:37 min/mile) at HR of 138. About 45 min into the run the inside of my right leg just completely seized up on me. I stopped the watch walked for a few minutes and then restarted. Switching from going against traffic to with traffic seemed to make a big difference. As going with traffic made my leg feel much better. A bit concerning since this was the first time I've felt something exactly like this. So I'll need to be aware of it if it turns out to be a reoccurring issue. But other than that, the run felt very comfortable. That first run back in non-Next% shoes is a real eye opener as to what they feel like comparatively.
80DO-Cardio Flow sort of like stretching. Nice end to the week!
Continuing to make good progress towards the ultimate goal. Next up is a 4hr cycle + 2 hr run. Time to keep ratcheting up the volume.
), processed oils/junk, and added sugar. During this down training, I’ve never seen my weight so steady(minus the drinking days). Last training cycle I was actually eating nearly 300-500 calories over the adjusted total, and I still lost nearly 7 pounds by the end of the plan. Nutrient dense whole food > vitamins, supplements, and packaged food.
I think I shall give it a pass for now... Thanks!
