Of Mice and Marathons

AM/Lunch: 2 hours 21'. 41.4 miles @ 17.6 MPH. 206W. HR 129. 

Was waffling between running and riding and the riding won out. Training program gave me 90', but on a beautiful Father's Day that wasn't going to happen, but I also didn't want to overdo (though I slept a good deal and felt very good). My legs felt about the best they have all week. Go figure. I think the training program dropped the volume and intensity too much both at once this week. I realize that you need to cut down, but cutting both massively is a mistake. 

Roads were in excellent shape and very fast. I had a very good ride. Megan and the boys got me a new cycling jersey. It fit perfectly and was quite comfortable. 

AM: 8 miles, averaged 8:19. HR 135. 

Got up early and got out the door at a decent hour (6:15) to get my morning run in before the boys were fully awake. I tried to do this last week every day, but I just wasn't able to do it. Weather was somewhat cool, but very ideal and I enjoyed the run and felt great.

PM: 2 hours 7' 36.6 miles @ 17.2 MPH. 195W. HR 127. 

Headed over east of M-24 to some of the Thursday Night Dirt route roads. They roads were perfect. Super fast. 

PM: 2 hours 14'. 40.6 miles @ 18.2 MPH. 211W. HR 145. 

2 x 15' Threshold

Pretty warm out. Going to get very hot this weekend. Workout went okay. Power was a little low, but the gravel was loose on the loop and I had to coast a bit more on some of the turns. HR got up there (for what is now high), peaking around 175 with the intervals solidly in the 160 BPM range. 

285 watts @ 164 BPM and 279 watts @ 167 BPM

Definitely solidly in the 30-mile race effort range. 

It looks like I might have a fifth class at Oakland this fall, which is great, but summer is a real drain on finances. Never quite sure what to do. Seems like we should be making enough money. I'll blame it on the kids and not myself. 

AM: 7.3 miles, averaged 9:24. HR 127.

Quite humid. Summer weather is definitely here. I am glad it held off for my running and bike race. Think I might just be able to manage in warmer weather this summer. I can always run on the treadmill, but Beach to Beacon is likely to be quite humid so it doesn't make sense to completely avoid heat and humidity. 

PM: 90' on the trainer. 231W. HR 136.

2 x 20' Sweet Spot Climbing Intervals

Decided to do the workout inside as it was either raining or forecasted to. I use Alpe d'Zwift for these, which worked well but was hard to manage power and candence, but I figured it out. 

10' zone 2 between intervals; 269W @ 150 BPM and 274W @ 153 BPM

PM: ~1 hour. 17.1 miles @ 17.6 MPH. 208W. HR 126. 

I didn't get up to run as it just made more sense to sleep more and recover better. I decided not to do Thursday Night Dirt as I figured the roads were a mess and attendance would be low because Lumberjack 100 is this weekend. I was going to jump on the trainer for 2 hours of zone 2, but made the mistake of going outside. Roads were generally in decent shape, but I got caught in a thunderstorm and a downpour, which is not ideal on a bike. Visibility was awful. Some dink beeped at me for quite a while coming down Waldon. I chased them, planning to chuck a Co2 cartridge or two at their car, but they turned right going down Joslyn and I couldn't catch them. 

I was going to jump on the trainer to finish out when I got home, but I was too pissed off. I just wanted a ride to have some time to myself. Being home with the boys four days in a row is exhausting and not much fun. They have been very challenging. 

AM/Lunch: 16 miles, averaged 7:53. 

60' @ Marathon Effort

7:12 pace @ 160 BPM

Kind of lost my running mojo the last two weeks. I feel like running, but not motivated by training so much and the excitement for Beach to Beacon is mostly gone, but I think I will get it back. I guess my average pace to be between 7:50 and 8:00 and it was 7:53 and I guessed my tempo pace to be between 7:12-7:15 average. It was 7:12, so if nothing else I have honed my intuitive sense of pace over the last 15 years of running.

I turned pace and splits off since summer has arrived and it is quite humid. Not too hot, but conditions you need to respect or you'll get burned. This worked well for the workout. I generally have been running these workouts by effort, but it is easy to get annoyed with pace when it is slower than previous weeks. I was running about 6:25-6:30 pace for around 52 minutes in April, so this was considerably slower, but I felt strong throughout and as though I could have pressed harder if asked to. 

30' up/36' down

I think I will keep this as my long run and maybe add 5' each week so I can get something of a significant long run in for weight maintenance. I think I will shift my midweek workouts to minutes and HR to target 15k-10-mile effort to see what I can do in the next 5-6 weeks for Beach to Beacon and figure out what to do for this fall. Likely, I will target a half and try to bring my half time back into the lower-80' range. 

Might start tracking my quality miles again to keep an eye on percentage of quality to easy miles.

PM: 3 hours on the trainer. 234W. HR 136. 

90' Tempo + 30' Sweet Spot

6 hours was on the schedule, but it was pouring rain in the morning and the roads were likely very messy. I planned to do the Uber Pretzel Route on Zwift, but didn't quite get through it. It would have been around 4 hours and change. My undercarriage just couldn't handle it and the boys came down, so my concentration was thrown. Still got in a solid session. 5' easy, 60' zone 2, 60' tempo (248W. HR 140), 30' sweet spot (269W. HR 154), zone 2 for the balance.