Of Mice and Marathons

AM: 14.3 miles, averaged 8:54. HR 137. 

3 x 22' @ MAF w/ 5' jogs a slightly lower effort

8:37, 8:35, 8:30

It was getting warm, solidly in the 80s. I think it was 70 or so when I started. Felt fine, though a little stiff from crashing on the fat bike yesterday. Heat definitely made it hard to keep the heart rate down after the two-hour mark. 

Week 6 of base building is complete. I want to see how my progress is when we get a cooler day and I can get a MAF test in on Thursday or Friday. Likely Thursday and I will have a somewhat longer bike workout on Friday. I imagine for a 5-mile MAF test I should be around 8:16-8:05, but we shall see. From there, I think I will give it 4 more weeks, retest, and decide if I want to do another 4-6 weeks or move into something slightly faster. 

AM: 5.1 miles @ 9:56. HR 121. 

PM: 84' on the fat bike @ BMS. 184W. HR 131. 

Did 3 x 3' threshold and 3 x 30" full gas. It is tough to hold power on trails on a fat bike with coasting, etc. but it is part of the learning process and getting used to finding race effort and handling the bike. 

AM: 90' on the trainer. 237W. HR 144. 

60' @ Sweet Spot

I was going to do a Zwift race, but I wasn't sure of the time as it was a mystery unlock thing (looks like I wouldn't have had time for it), so I was going to do an alternative workout, but decided to just do a straight 60' @ sweet spot and got in a really solid effort. 

268 watts @ 154 BPM. 

I was holding close to this for 2 hours in late spring, but I was pleased with this effort. I still feel strong and am much better able to do efforts on tired legs. 

AM: 8 miles @ 8:30. HR 130. 

PM: 72' trail session on the fat bike. 205W. HR 125. 

4 x 6' Sweet Spot/Cheetah Pounce across the middle of Orion Oaks. 

This was a fun session. Keept it steady and then punched for 20 seconds at the end into Vo2 max. It was partially in the dark, but I had my lights, which helped tremendously. Around 260-275 watts for the intervals and then 350-450 watts for the 20". I thought they were supposed to be full gas, but actually were supposed to be more Vo2 max. 

AM: 10.4 miles, averaged 8:24. HR 133.

MAF Test #2

Quite chilly this morning at around 36-38 degrees, which was a bit of a shift from previous mornings. It was quite foggy as well, so I worried about visibility on the tempo loop, but it ended up being fine. 

I feel quite satisfied with how I have been able to sustain the patience for this approach. I am pretty good at running sensibly easy, but to not even let things naturally pickup once in a while is somewhat different. 

4 weeks ago I ran 8:21 @ 140 BPM for 5 miles. I started at 8:14 and slowed to 8:22-8:24 for the remaining splits. Today I was able to run a good deal faster and without any drift and in fact had the pace DROP. I ran 5 miles @ 8:03 @ 140 BPM. 18 seconds faster and only 7 seconds of drift as opposed to 9.

8:03 @ 139, 8:07 @ 139, 8:04 @ 140, 8:00 @ 140, 8:01 @ 140 and I actually ran another mile at effort to see if I would slow, but I sped up to 7:58. I do not know how long it would have taken for the pace to slow as I ran out of time, but I was going to keep going and in fact might make it the focus of my long run to test this. 

I think I could bump my MAF number up to 144/145 and run a little bit faster. AI projects that I would run around 7:40-7:48 if I used that number for my test. That seems about right. I imagine the top of zone 2 right now is around 7:20-7:25 (assuming 148-152 beats per minute is the upper end of zone 2). 

I am enjoying this experiment now that I have been able to commit to it and it seems to be working. Of course, my cycling is also helping, but that overall training hasn't really changed, so I imagine it is mostly helping me maintain fitness, but hard to say. 

I will test again in 4 weeks after Iceman and decide whether to continue until the end of the year or start including some higher aerobic work in my long runs. 

AM: 10.7 miles @ 8:24. HR 137. 

MAF Test Retake

I was going to just do a short run as it was quite chilly out and didn't feel like riding in the cold, so I wanted to wait until it warmed up. I was going to do a shorter run, but just decided as I was warming up to redo my MAF test, but at 145 BPM to see if there was any variance in pace. Pace remained steady and HR didn't drift. My pace wasn't much faster than yesterday, but likely due to fatigue and legs just not being as snappy. The goal was to see if 145 BPM was a more likely appropriate aerobic ceiling. Turned out it is. 

8:01, 8:03, 8:03, 8:01, 8:05, 7:58

I ran some projections with AI and it suggested a conservative estimation would have me around 7:25-7:30 by the end of the year and an aggressive estimate around 7:00-7:10 pace. I think I will keep going until the first week in January just to see if I can get it under 7:30 pace, which would bring my zone 2 upper limit to around 7 min/mile and my aerobic threshold in the mid to low 6' pace range I think. 

PM: 2 hours 8'. 39 miles @ 18.2 MPH. 218W. HR 140.

3 x 8' Crisscross Zone 6/Threshold

Got some work done and got some food and recovery stuff in. Headed out on the bike to get my actual scheduled workout of the day. I felt very strong throughout and felt like I could have really pushed pretty hard. 3 (1' zone 6/3' threshold x 2). For the 1' segements I was around 320-330, which was slightly on the lower end but I was trying not to push too hard. Ended up with the total intervals being 312 watts @ 163 BPM, 310 watts @ 163, and 316 watts @ 162. I think it has been a while since I have had a decent chunk of time in any interval session above 300 watts, so I was pleased. I felt like I was holding back slightly, but I was hitting the numbers so I just rolled with it. 

It is the second anniversary of my Dad's passing. I miss him more than I ever thought. I know my siblings feel the same way and my Mom still has a hard time. 

PM: 3 hours 35'. 63.5 miles @ 17.7 MPH. 215W. HR 135. 

It was fairly cool and looked like it might rain, though it wasn't forecast to. Planned on 3 hours or so, up to 4. I decided to do an effort after 1 hour and then later in the ride, so I went to the tempo loop, did 15' threshold and then rode around Ortonville and Holly Recreation Area before coming back and doing a 10' interval. I didn't have too much on the 10' interval and in fact I wanted to do a 20' at the beginning and at the end, but just didn't have the legs. Needed to try to push about 285ish for each, and probably would have been okay. 

20' @ 292 watts @ 161 BPM and 10' @ 280 watts @ 152 BPM