Longest Weekend Ever

Goals: 600m swim, 1100m swim, long run, long ride, eat healthy

Results: Everything but eating healthy.

Diet setbacks: WOW!

Thoughts: After the house work Saturday I drove 15 minutes out of town to a sister YMCA to use their pool. It wasn't open during the week or I would have already done this. I completed a 500m swim with stoke drills, 600m swim with 50m intervals and 45s rest, and 600m mixed with a 250 interval, 100m interval, and some more stroke drills. In total the swim lasted 39:30. Although it was not non-stop this is my longest swim ever and first time I have ever swam over a mile.

I enjoyed this swim a lot. The pool at this Y is very small. It is shaped like a squared u. The long section being three lap lanes. They do not have lap swim on Saturdays so I was already mentally prepared to swim my laps with interruptions from kids. About two minutes after starting, the guards walked over and put lane lines up for me. I never asked. On top of that making it an easier swim, this pool is outside. This is the first time I have ever swam laps outside. This was great and the weather could not have been better. I wish I had made this drive all summer.

To close the day off we went to a cook out. I ate a little more than I should have. Nothing horribly fatty, just a little more food than i should have. I figured this is ok since I had my long run Sunday.

Sunday I woke up early for my long run. The goal was a long, slow run at a 12 minute pace, building my mental and physical endurance. I ended up running it in 12:08 at an 11:44 pace.  MY LONGEST RUN EVER.

I had no pain while I was running as soon as I stopped I could barely walk. It was like my knees had adjusted to my range of motion from running and when I stopped they could not not move to walk. My cool down walk was painful.

It left me so tired that I was falling asleep at Sunday school, so I left to go back to slept because I knew I had to go to a wedding later and CB would never let me live it down if fell asleep at her friends wedding.

She woke me up at three and told me it was time to leave. Not it was time to get ready, time to leave. I tried to grab a healthy lunch but she told me I had no time. I ended up stopping at McD's. Hard to eat a salad while driving so I went with a burger against my better judgement. The wedding food wasn't any better especially when mixed with the beer I drank to keep myself entertained. Despite months of saying i wasn't going, I am still not sure how I ended up there.

I have a very firm feeling on weddings. THEY SUCK. I helped plan mine to be entertaining, for the sake of other people. I also don't believe in attending a wedding if I don't stand behind the couple. And I never stand behind gold diggers, or women who seek a man for the purpose of getting married (and getting gifts).

On the way down from the mountains I also stopped for ice cream, again not the best choice, but i don't make the best food decisions after drinking.

Monday morning I slept in. I love sleeping in. After getting up I went for a 30 mile ride. much like my long run I just wanted to go slow and get the miles in. I finished in 2:15. My Longest Ride EVER. I got slowed down by traffic signals on the way back in and planning my last 2 miles since my route came out 2 miles short. I also had a few mechanical problems (chain slip) but that's ok because I knew after my ride I was going to the bike shop to drop the bike off.

This weekend may have brought some horrible eating, but I think it also brought some great training- my three longest workouts ever. However, I had some time to think about things. I was bored and had some time on my hands so I broke down my training for the last four weeks. I am a social scientist so I love to quantify everything.

I looked at my next race, estimated my times (conservatively), and broke them down to by percentage of the race (sans transitions). Last week with over 8 hours of training, swimming was 9%, Cycling was 37%, and running was 54% . This was the closest of all the weeks to what actual race percentages will be. The three previous weeks were less cycling. My break down is that my race will be 7% swim, 56% cycling, and 37% run.

This makes me think I need to work more on my cycling, since it is the area I will be in the most. With an 8 hour training week I should swim about 34 minutes, cycle about 4 hours 29 minutes, and run just under 3 hours.

With that in mind I am going to rework my training schedule to two long rides, A hill workout, and my brick. Although I have enjoyed my long runs, I am going to pull them back down to no more than 90 minutes until after this race. After this race I will get back to the long runs, an 11 mile run probably isn't as beneficial for a 5k race. I also am going to shorten my long swim, slightly. I hope substituting the time off my long run and moving it to the bike will get my percentages closer to the race breakdown, without hurting my run. My current run training has been helping me see increases thus far.

On a similar note I read an interesting article this weekend about how triathletes often get stuck int he trappings of swimming 25m and 50m sprints because they are fun, but will be benefited my swimming repeats of 100 or more. I am going to incorporate this into my swim training.