Of Mice and Marathons

AM/Lunch: 120' on the trainer. 229W. HR 133. 

Solid ride. Not as long as I planned, but didn't leave myself time for more. Power: heart rate has been very solid lately.

Lunch: 90' on the trainer. 224W. HR 128.

Spent the day with the boys. Got the ride in while they napped. I was going to nap myself, but resisted the call. I figured out another university scheduled me for two classes without telling me, which is insanely weird. I ended up taking one of them. Felt better about some extra income. 

PM: 8 miles on the treadmill, averaged 8:34. HR 144.

Got a decent run in before dinner. Way too humid for me, so I continued to be a Zwift All Star and hit the treadmill. 

I changed my training plan for the 573652946th time. Might try to focus on some speed with faster workouts and target a short race this fall. This saves me from having to do 3+ hour long runs. 

Lunch: 10.4 miles on the treadmill, averaged 8:38. HR 146.

5k Tempo

Got this in at lunch while the boys napped. Decided to start my reintroduction to speed to do a few weeks of some threshold tempos, approximately 20-30' to see what I can do to improve my lactate threshold as I improve my aerobic theshold. Not sure if the approach is the right way to go or not, but it seems working on threshold will help me lay the groundwork for other faster stuff and the aerobic stuff will increase my aerobic threshold. I figure if I start moving the aerobic stuff down from 7:30-7:00 back down to ~6:30 and the lactate theshold from 6:35-6:50 to 6:15-5:55 I will get my strength and my speed back.

I wasn't exactly sure what to set the speed at. I figured 9.0 was probably too fast to start so I kind of worked a little bit to establish my effort. I started around 8.8 I think and dropped it ever-so-slightly. I wanted to ideally last 4 miles, but 3-3.1 miles were I didn't slow down while running at the right HR would be goal met. I did that. It started to get a bit hard the last half mile or so. Not impossible, but a lot of concentration. HR was getting into the upper 170s to about 180 at times. I went slightly over 3, so I think it was 3.1 in 20:50 or about 6:42 pace for 5k @ 171.6 BPM. 

I got in a decent cool down even though I had to stay on for a bit to make it to 10 total. 

6:45 (167), 6:44 (172), 6:39 (176)

I am hoping to move this back down a good deal over the next 4-6 weeks. I think in cooler weather I could run faster outside, but time will tell. Really need to get these back into the low 6s or under. Trying to be patient, but I am just not getting back to where I want to be. Going to take a lot more mileage I guess, but I just don't feel like running 90 miles a week and I really like riding bikes.

AM: 60' on the trainer. 148W. HR 97.

Recovery ride. I haven't done many these lately. Just enough to get the blood flowing before class, the one I didn't know I was teaching until Monday.

PM: 8 miles on the treadmill, averaged 10:19. HR 124.

Megan took the boys to soccer. I stayed home. Felt a little guilty but I took the boys for a while this afternoon so Megan could work.

Lunch: Off.

I got the boys down late as they were playing so well befor lunch. It was almost 1 when I was ready to go, but I thought it would be too close to my ride with only 2.5-3 hours, so I took a nap.

PM: Thursday Night Dirt - 3 hours total. 

I missed A group taking off, which was unfortunate as the roads were ripping fast. I could see them in the distance, but I didn't want to burn myself out trying to catch them going down Sheldon. We had a good group and pace. I took off going up the Dequindre Hill and thought I wouldn't have too much, but I felt great and really pushed. a PR for that segment by a good bit. Jumped onto A group as they went by and tried to pull some of them coming down Sheldon. Set my second best time on that segment. Not sure how I was moving faster previously as I was pressing pretty hard with fresh legs from not running at lunch. 

Loop Data = 22.3 miles @ 18.9 MPH 197W. HR 145.

Chatted in the parking lot for a while. My headset is loose again. I am not sure why they replaced the headset with the stock one as it is garbage, so back into the shop it goes. Need to get it back before John's next weekend.

AM: 60' on the trainer. 220W. HR 128. 

PM: 13.5 miles on the treadmill, averaged 7:58. HR 157. 

10-Mile Tempo @ Marathon Effort; Averaged 7:27 @ 165 BPM

I figured I would get my long run out of the way. Extremely humid, so I opted for the treadmill. I was going to do another LT session with some two mile repeats or maybe something by time like 3 x 10' around 9.0, but I thought it might be difficult to focus, so I did roughly what I had planned (an 8-mile tempo), but felt really good and decided to take it out to 10. I did the whole workout at 1.5% incline. I did not increase the pace every mile as I usually do. I was in the upper 150s for the first mile and into the lower 160s by the next, so I just kept it at 8.0 because I knew my HR would increase over time. I dropped the pace slightly the last 3 miles to 7:24, 7:23, 7:15. This was a bit slower than my 8 mile tempo outside recently but the effort was more relaxed. I had to crap the last mile or so, so I didn't cool down much. I felt very ill after for a few hours, which made me wonder if these efforts are worth it, but that sometimes happens when you do harder sessions in the afternoon. 

Pleased with the overall effort. I haven't done a 10-mile tempo in YEARS. I need to see where these go over the course of the fall. I won't get a long run in this next week if I do John's, but should be able to get a midweek workout in. 

Night: 60' on the trainer. 135W. HR 107.

Recovery. Quite late, but I still wanted to get something in.