Love the Hurt: Unwanted taper

So last week was probably the biggest work week I've had in quite some time. Early mornings, late nights made it pretty hard to squeeze in time to train. I probably could have if I was getting up a 3:30am or working out late into the night sacrificing sleep, but I don't see it as a benefit because then you risk getting sick and really sacrifice training. Instead I looked at it as a rest week so I can hammer this week.

This is what the damage did:

Swim: 0hrs 0 mins First time in over a year this has happened

Bike: 4hr 08 mins (77 miles)

Run: 2hr 36 mins (23 miles)

Total: 6hr 44 mins

Since I knew the volume would be down, I at least put in some quality workouts since I had to miss three days of training and could only put in single days on top of that. These are the sessions I knocked out:

Monday (my only easy day): just an easy 1 hour spin on the bike

Wednesday: 53 min/ 7 mile run w/2 miles at 6:30 pace

Saturday: Long run/Tempo run:

Sunday: Long ride/interval session:

I was pretty happy with the weekends workouts. The long run felt pretty effortless which I haven't had that feeling in a long time. Usually I feel like crap when mile 8-9 comes by, but I felt good so I put in faster miles/surges to mix it up a bit. I ended up going through 13.1 at 1:34 which felt really easy. Probably because I only had like 2 hours of training under me!

A little dangerous....

On Sunday's ride I was trying to get a group to go with me, but no such luck. The plan was to ride about 60 miles (3 hours) with 1 hour warm up, 1 hour at race pace, then a 1 hour cool down. It was super foggy and very dark for the first hour of the ride (even though this pic was taken at 7:30am). The first hour had a lot of climbing, then it was on. I wanted to see what it felt like to average in the 24mph range. I had a really heavy headwind, but I am continually amazed how well the Slice cuts through the wind. It gave me the opportunity to really find the sweet spot in the aero position and I hammered for 53 mins (splits above). I cut it short by 7 mins because I ran out of fluids and had to refill at a park before I hit a long stretch without anything around. I averaged 24.4 mph and I felt pretty good, but also pretty beat up. I definitely could not have kept that pace for 56 miles (especially in the wind). It gave me a lot of confidence on the bike, because I honestly felt like crap most of the ride since I hadn't ridden since Monday. My legs were really flat, but I was still able to put out some decent power in the wind. I'm excited to see what I can do in Soma next month.

TRI Club meeting up for a swim at Vail Lake!

Yesterday was an open water swim at Vail lake. The Temecula Valley Tri club has hooked it up with Jason at So Cal Endurance so we can swim there once or twice a week. This is going to be key in my open water swim development. I feel like I already corrected a few things I was doing wrong yesterday and I'm really looking forward to swimming there more in the future---especially since it's only 10 minutes from my house instead of 1 hour from the beach!

The TRI club is just starting up in full force and I think it's really starting to grow. Rick at The Bike Shop has really done an amazing job getting this club started and I'm stoked to be a part of the team and excited about the future.

Here's a few more pics from the crazy weekend: