Spring Training Week 13

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?