I think I did the math right and last week was Week 11. Either way, I’m continuing with the weekly recaps because they keep me motivated, even if it’s technically no longer Spring and my posts are ineptly named. Sometimes I think about what I’ll say in these recaps if I skip a workout or give up on a goal I have made, so no matter what, my readers are keeping me accountable!
Week 13 was pretty good – it was basically the final week before a short taper for the San Diego International Triathlon. It was also the FIRST time I’ve ever done 3 open water swims in one week. After my shark fears last Monday, that’s pretty good! Swimming and biking we were the main focus on the week (4 times on the bike!) with a couple of group strength workouts spinkled in and nearly no running. I actually realized since the half marathon on June 1, I haven’t run much. But, that is fine – a little break from running is needed right now.
Here’s how the week went down:
Monday:
AM: Club Pilates Class. OMG. I have been away from Club Pilates for too long. My planking is a joke – there is no way I could hold a 5 minute plank again right now. It’s pretty incredible how quickly you lose strength and flexibility – at one point these reformer pilates classes were getting too easy for me and now it kicks my ass! I’m looking forward to getting that strength back.
PM: After work my friend Jeremy and I headed out to Moonlight Beach for a 25 minute open water swim – that was enough for me after getting freaked out by lurking creatures!
Tuesday:
PM: After work I got on the trainer for 60 minutes of spinning in Zone 2 (I got a new battery for my HR monitor and it works again!) and then immediately changed into my running clothes and ran out the door. I felt good and decided to push it hard – I ran 2 miles at just under a 7:30 min/mile average. It felt great! I wish I ran that fast all the time – I felt like I was flying!
Wednesday:
AM: I took my bike outside for a ride in the morning. I wanted to add some tempo work to it so after a 10 minute warm-up I did 3 x 10 minutes @ tempo pace with about 5 minutes of recovery between. I wasn’t exact on my intervals or recovery since i was outside and had to stop at lights a few times and it wasn’t always a good place to turn around or go fast. Either way, it was a good workout and I got in a little over 15 miles.
PM: I met up with Mike’s coworkers for a 60 minute ACTIVEx swim workout in Fletcher Cove (the location of the Solana Beach Triathlon that we’ll all be racing in July). We swam but mostly practiced things like entering the water, dolphin diving, catching waves and exiting the water. At one point we did 5 intervals of sprinting into the water, dolphin diving past the waves, swimming a few strokes, and then returning back and running back to shore. It was exhausting! At the end we sprinted up the massive hill that takes you from the swim to transition at the Solana Beach Triathlon. It was a fun workout!
Thursday:
AM: I met up with Asia for an easy 4.5 mile run. Both of us had heavy legs so we took it nice and slow. Afterward I did a few minutes of planking – I was inspired by my Pilates class!
PM: I headed back to Dailey Method for the Dailey Interval class I took last week. It wasn’t quite as hard this week since I was a little better prepared but I was still sore the next day!
Friday
PM: 60 minutes on the trainer, totally enthralled in Orange is the New Black (I was just about to wrap up Season 1 at this point)
Saturday
1 hour group swim with ACTIVEx. We were planning to work on entering and exiting the water and body surfing, etc but there were SO MANY STING RAYS that we ended up donig swimming drills. WE were in the water for over and hour and my feet didnt touch the floor more than twice! I was stung by a sting ray in Costa Rica and it was NOT fun so I’m extra careful! So in addition to probably 30-40 minutes of swimming, I treaded water for another 20-30!
That afternoon I had intentions of getting in another workout but decided against it. Mike and I ended up heading up to Carlsbad for happy hour and then pizza at one of our favorite places for Date Night.
Sunday
Mike and I slept in (10 hour of sleep! woohoo!) and then got in 1 hour on the trainer (Zone 2 with some Zone 3-4 at the end- we were finishing a movie we started a while ago called Breaking Away which was released in 1979 and is about a small town kid who is obsessed with the Italian cycling team. He and his friends have a rivarly with the rich kids from the local university which ends in an exciting bike race. I couldn’t help getting excited during the final race scene and started biking my heart out right along with them! I highly recommend this movie – and bonus becuase there is a very young and very cute Dennis Quaid in it! After googling it apparently it has won an Oscar as well!).
After the exciting end of the movie, we put on our running shoes for a 4.5 mile run. I wore my heart rate monitor and we kept it in Zone 2. When we got back I realized that it was one of the fastest Zone 2 runs I’ve done! I haven’t beent racking it in a while but it was a faster pace than most of my Zone 2 runs were when I was training with Maria! I’m definitely going to keep going with the heart rate training.
Weekly Training Totals:
- Miles Run: 11
- Hours Biked: ~4
- Hours of Swimming: 2.5
- Hours Strength Training: 1 hour 40 min
- Total Time: ~9 hours 45 minutes
How often do you do open water swims while training for triathlon? Have you seen Breaking Away? Do you have any inspiring triathlon or running movies to recommend?
Thanks so much for your engaging and motivating workout recaps. (I’m glad I’m not the only one concerned about lurking creatures during ocean swims!) As for “Breaking Away,” I grew up in Indiana and its lead character is loosely based on my dad’s friend, who was a very serious cyclist and was part of the late ’70s cycling boom in the US. (He got my dad into riding and racing back when Lycra shorts were unheard of in the mainstream.) We were all thrilled when the movie was being shot and then when it came out in theaters. In addition to the foxy young Dennis Quaid, among the cast there’s also Daniel Stern and Jackie Earle Haley (Kelly Leak in “Bad News Bears” and more recent roles). I’m so glad you and Mike discovered the movie and enjoyed it! It’s one of the greatest sports movies, in my biased opinion. The “Little 500” is/was a huge deal in Bloomington.
That is so awesome!! Now I think the movie is even cooler! 🙂
I currently have the planking strength of an infant so I feel you there! Lol Great job on getting all the swim drills in. They are super helpful, especially if your tri ends up being shallow. My boyfriend did one recently that was so shallow he dolphin dove the entire thing and came out of the water first. 😉
Crazy on your HR and VO2! I wanna have mine checked again after the IM just to see if it’s gone up. I have lots of big bike miles planned b/c cycling is my weakness and I wanna be confident going into the race. It’s slow and steady, but I’m getting there.
Your plank strength analogy cracked me up, I keep thinking about an infant planking.
Nice week of training Nicole!
Great week! So lucky you can have these swim meet ups. To not only swim but get some drills done too!
I swim 1x a week in OW while training for a tri.
I can’t wait to watch Breaking Away. I am loving Iron War by the way!
Have a great race tomorrow!
Glad you are liking Iron War!!
And thank you!