Of Mice and Marathons

AM: 6.5 miles, averaged 10:02. HR 136. 

Warmer than yesterday. Perfect running weather. Wanted a longer ride on the bike, but I switched my weekend days. 

15 hours 22 minutes this week. 5 hours of running and 10+ hours of cycling. Nice to get in a light midweek workout and a long run. Starting to build momentum. 

AM: 7.3 miles, averaged 8:59. HR 145.

Felt great. Ran some 8:30s and 8:20s without killing myself. It's been a bit since I have been able to do that, maybe early COVID or before. Been a while anyway.

PM: 5 hours 45' on the fat bike. 186W. HR 148.

The Whole Polly Ann(chilada) in 2:31:25

Decided to go out the Polly Ann for a while and turn off when I felt like it. Didn't think I had enough time to do the whole thing and then do the dirt road return, but I was moving at a good clip. 17 MPH for the Oakland County section, which is solid on a fat bike. Kept going and hit the rough sections, which chewed up my average pace. It was muddier than last year, which I didn't expect given that it has been very dry. Almost ate it in some muddy truck tracks, but worked through. 

Took some of the dirt roads home and hit some paved stuff as well as I took a different direction home than I did last year. I can't believe I did the rough sections on my gravel bike last year. I won't do that again. Fat bike was perfect. Stopped at a store in Lapeer about 3 hours 30 into it, but didn't stop other than at crossings when I needed to. 86.4 miles on a fat bike, even a fast one is a long haul. Managed to get in 32 new miles.

AM: 8.7 miles, averaged 8:41. 

20' steady + 10' steady

I wasn't sure how my legs would respond after riding long yesterday afternoon, but the workout went well. A good bit faster for the 20' than last week at the same heart rate and the 10' was a good bit faster than the 20' interval, which is how it should be. Finally dipping back under 7:00. Long way to go but some very visbile progress this week. Keeps the carrot in front of me.

20' @ 7:07 @ 169 BPM

5' jog 

10' @ 6:53 @ 173 BPM

PM: 6.2 miles, averaged 10:34. HR 131.

AM/Lunch: 10.2 miles, averaged 8:53. HR 149.

90' w/ 30' steady 

Weather was favorable. Warm but not hot and the air quite dry. Target was 7:12-7:15 based on the midweek workout, but I was slow to start as I was half asleep and went over my 30' warmup and just jumped into it. Ended up at 7:29 @ 166 BPM, so essentially marathon effort, which is about right. The intervals this week were on the slighlty higher end and this was a bit more comfortable. Slow, but I don't think I have run 4 miles in 30' in quite a few years.

Hoping to match or exceed paces from the midweek this week next week when thing go to 20' + 15' and hopfully around 7:10-7:15 next week when the long run steady portion moves to 40'.

Got all my runs in, so I guess this means I get to ride bikes all weekend.

AM/Lunch: 2 hours 36'. 208W. HR 138.

Ended up doing an hour easy and then a 90' tempo to work on my Watermoo race preparations. Target was around 245-265 watts. Hit 247 with some coasting and stops, so not bad. HR was apparently 150 average but that seemed low. Managed 18.8 MPH over dirt roads and the Polly Ann. Not a ton of climbing, but some hills. I will have a better sense when I repeat this effort. 

Working on finding a race before August. Just not sure what is going to work. I wanted to do one in Ann Arbor this weekend, but we had a graduation party.