IMMT Training Week 4: No sweat

After last week's workouts, coach told me to dial down the intensity and stay put. Bike and run without breaking a sweat, but swim hard. And overall I succeeded. The force was with me, especially in the water.

Swim
Tuesday I took the day off from work because I had some medical exams, so I did my workouts in between. I took a look at my schedule and *gasp* I noticed a 2900m swim. Damn, when did it jump up by a full 1000m? Good thing the pool was open for 2h lane swim, so I could fit it all in.

Warm up:
5 x[100m swim + 25 FD, + 25 kick] no rest
Main set:
 2 x 400 m with 20 sri take 1 min after set
4 x 100 m desc 1-4 on 2:30
2 x 300 pull on 7:00
8 x 25 fast on 45 sec.
Cool down:
150 alt stroke

And voila! (Garmin ate a length on the second set)

 Then on Thursday, group swim - "only" 1700m this time, but very intense as well.

I really wouldn't care to share these times in general, but I'll be damned if they aren't getting faster every week! I never thought I'd say this, but they make me happy. Because all those lengths at near-drowning effort seem to be making a difference and I remember not so far ago losing faith in my ability to make any sort of progress. It may not be much, but it counts to keep me going forward. I promise to stop complaining about masters swimming until next year. Only idiots don't change their mind, right? Morale of this story: trust your coach and embrace the suck. It doesn't get easier, you just get faster.

Bike
Thank goodness for Trainer Road and their collection of easy workouts. The first two I did this week almost put me to sleep. *yawn*

Obelisk

The funny thing about this one is that I changed my Garmin transmitter for my heart monitor strap and when I tried pairing it, it picked up my husband's instead. So imagine how I almost got a heart attack when I was easy riding the first long flat interval and I see my heart trace doing all kinds of weird stuff that my doctor warned me about during my physical. I only figured it out 30 min later when I looked over at Zin's monitor and recognized every bump.

Lazy Mountain

Second of the workouts could not have been lazier. Done entirely in Z1, I did not even produce a drop of sweat. I feel ashamed for the person who put the word "mountain" in it.

By now you probably guessed that my weeks are fairly similar. But don't you worry, they'll get exciting soon. I know my coach well. To end the bike recaps, Saturday was group spin and everyone was on the hook to do Max VO2 intervals, but I was asked to sit these out. Well, I wasn't very happy with the premise of riding easy when everyone else was going to be pushing the wall, so I asked permission to sweat, just a little. I ended doing some spin ups and single led drills, followed by 7 or 8 easy intervals in the big chain ring.

Run
Again slow and boring, but I know that these runs are what I need. I only managed to do two out of the three runs, missing my longest one because I planned it poorly. Every Sunday we've been going to the gym to run long on the treadmill then hop in the pool, but when we got there yesterday the gym was closed because of the long weekend. I was pretty bummed to miss my last 2 workouts but there was no way that I was going to run outside at night without proper sidewalks. Oh well, moving on without regret. I'm sure that my body will thank me anyway.

In a nutshell
Slow week. Missed workouts. Ate too much. No pictures (aren't you relieved?).
BUT I crossed off my list another goal! Hubbs and I organized a bRUNch yesterday with a dozen of friends, old and new, and they all came at home and ran together and ate and talked and had a great time. Loved being able to have like minded people around us and spend a few hours talking all things triathlon and running. We definitely need to do this again before the summer! It's a great cure to cabin fever.