Training schedule for the week of April 6, 2009

Monday: Triathlon resistance training at the YMCA
Good hard workout, found out that my left leg is somewhat weaker than the right, but it was a really good workout.

Tuesday: Noon Swim - Using swim buoy for at least 1/2 my laps, specifically practice bilateral breathing + Roll + controlled breathing/effort
:Evening Run 8K tempo
Swim was good. With the pull buoy, it is really easy to swim, and you float up into the right position. Rob tells me that the wetsuit gives you about the same floatation.

The run was really good, and I added another 4k to the run to take the dog out. He is just back from the kennel, and was quite tuckered out, so we are trying to keep that up. He wanted to run, so we ran fairly hard for 4 more Kms, giving me 12K for the day.

Wednesday: Noon Resistance Training
:Evening 8-9 hills

Another good hard workout in the Gym, and I was sweating like crazy through it all.
The Hills ended up being for 9 hills. We set a good hard pace of 1:21 for the first hill, and proceeded to beat that every time after that. The next two were 1:14, which was crazy hard. We did the afterburners as well, where you sprint all out for the last 50 meters of the hill. Everyone else doing hills thinks we are crazy. Did one extra hill (for 10 total), with the dog, as there were two half marathoners finishing off theirs, so we kept them company.

Thursday: Noon - If its Raining, I am getting in the pool, otherwise 10K recovery run
:Evening - Spinervals at home
OK, it didnt rain, but I still went and got in the pool. spent around 45 minutes at it, just trying various strokes, and trying to calm down in the water. I get breathing too hard. I was beat, and did not do any workout in the evening.

Friday - Its a stat holiday: 4x1m@Interval with 90 seconds recovery, and I will see if I can get Geoff interested in these.....
I ended up starting the day with a private swimming lesson. Learned two things, I can't take a deep breath with one arm stretched over my head (so perhaps I should learn either how to do it, or how to deal with it), and that my kick really sucks. OK, I knew my kick sucks, but last lesson, it was not the most important thing. We didn't work on much other than the kick, as it will cause so many problems that the other parts are not important.

Then, at noon, I met with Geoff and Rob to do Intervals, at I pace. For me, this works out to 4:16/KM pace. Since I talked them both into doing these, right before we started, it was mentioned "I hate you". :-) As usual, the first one was too fast, as I was almost able to keep up to Rob, and he should be finishing almost 30 seconds faster than me. We were ahead of two cyclists, and I heard a comment at the end of the mile "they are running faster than we are cycling". The second was almost as fast, but still felt good. The third one sucked hard, and lost pace like crazy, but Rob passed a girl on roller blades (smoking fast). The fourth was an improvement from #3 for me. Can't say that I like intervals, but I like how they make me feel afterwards.

Saturday - Swim + bike (outside!) This is sort of a recovery day...
Took Helen swimming, did a number of lengths of kick drills, got some good burn going, about 6 lengths of front crawl, some more with the swim buoys, and about 4 lengths of breast stroke. All in all, about an hour of good fun.

Went for a 2.5 hour bike ride, covering about 40K, which included a stop at Robs place, and he joined me for the last part. At the end, my legs were jello. lets see how this works out for me on the long run sunday.

Sunday: LSD - 32K - Ugh, I will pay for this having not done much running in Vegas. We are doing a point-to-point run to Bowness park, so I have to be in bowness at 7:30 AM. Was a little late, but no problem. We were back to glenmore in time, and Rob, Geoff, myself and Rob's workmate Shawn came out for the run. Rob's coach advised him that 32K was out of the question for him, so he ran for only 60 minutes total with us. We ran with the lead pace group, looking to set a 6:00 minute pace. The 32K was as tough as I thought, the most difficult part being around the 24K mark. Weather was perfect for it. Geoff had some hip problems coming out of the Talisman Center, but got it back together for the rest of the run. We finished in 3.5 hours, which was right on pace.

So my weeks total distance looks to be 67K, and spent 14.5 hours training this week.