IMMT Training Week 1: This Is The Beginning

I have yet to write a line and I hate these recaps already. Whose idea was it anyway? I have no patience for repetitive stuff and I'm rather lazy when it comes to crunching numbers. So what the hell am I gonna write? If there is something worthy to say, I will, if not... sorry dudes. I can't make shit up. 

Now, if you really, really want to see workout details, I log all my workouts in Runkeeper. No secrets. Knock yourselves out! I am also on Daily Mile, Trainer Road, Garmin Connect, Strava and Training Peaks, so there is more than enough information about my workouts if you're curious.

Also, with regards to publishing, I have time to blog roughly once or twice a week and if I wait for Monday, I may as well forget about it. Some weeks I will post recaps on Saturday, other weeks I will post on Sunday. I may skip some weeks because I don't feel like it. It's my blog and I can do whatever I want with it. Got it? Ok, so where were we? Let's try this.

Swim
Despite the fact that I'm still waiting for the "official" schedule from coach starting on February 1st, I got some feedback about the intensity of my current workouts. I was told that all my swims should be "hard" because I'm taking it easy in the other 2 sports. So on Tuesday I was told to go to the pool for a set of 10x200m pretty much all out (on 4:45). No pull buoy! Say whaaaat?

The graph was so pretty, I had to share. The times are nothing out of extraordinary, I am still a slow poke, but it's funny to see my descent into Hell. By the end of the workout, my arms were feeling like noodles ready to fall off.

To top it off, on Thursday I went to the masters swim (with the tri club) and this is what I had to do:

Warmup:
100m free + 200m drills + 200m pull/paddles
Main set:
2x50m fast on 1:10
100m pull/paddles
4x50m fast on 1:15
100m pull/paddles
6x50m fast on 1:20
100m free
14x25 (1 fast, 1 easy, 2 fast, 1 easy, 3 fast, 1 easy, 4 fast, 1 easy)
Cooldown:
100m any stroke

It was BRUTAL!
I may go for another swim tomorrow, or I may not. My limbs are still deciding.

Bike
The highlight of the week was my return to Trainer Road workouts.

Giraud on Thursday

Nice and easy with a few intervals to get the heart going. I tried to keep a good cadence and not fall asleep.

Mont Gosford on Saturday

This one was a sweatfest. Four long tempo intervals. Thankfully I was watching the movie "This Is The End" and I was going WTF !!!??!?!!?? way too often to notice my own struggle or lack thereof, surprisingly to say the least. I did not change my FTP since last year and it seems that I didn't lose much fitness since, which is rather encouraging. I don't feel that I'm ready to take it to the next level though... I am being careful, especially with the muscle pain that I feel in my glutes right now.

Run
So far this week, only one treadmill run, but longer than last week. I ran for 35min on Tuesday and did a little "ladder" because 5x7min in the spur of the moment seemed the right thing to do. Plus, the guy beside me was running at 5.5mph, so I felt that a little lesson was in order, just in case... you never know when you get to race and beat a VP.

7min @ 5.6mph
7min @ 5.8mph
7min @ 6mph
7min @ 5.8mph
7min @5.6mph
All with 1% incline

I have no idea who he was, by the way. But I kicked his butt.

Tomorrow will be my first race of the year and I'm still on the fence about running it. It's my first time running an 8k distance so it'll be an automatic PR, but given the low temperatures (-24C with the windchill OMG), I may end up being very miserable out there. My asthma has been awful this winter and I already had to use my inhaler 3 times a day just from walking from the house to the car and into the office. My colleagues tell me that I have an old smoker's cough. Yikes! And have I mentioned my Raynaud's? How many layers will I need to wear? I can't let the cold get to me or I'll turn pasty white from inside out. So anyway, I guess I'll swing it. If I run it I'll most likely sport a balaclava over my face to save me from coughing to near death. I can't wait to see the race pictures, haha.

In a nutshell
This week will be almost identical in volume as the last, but I bumped the intensity a notch with longer and harder workouts, and possibly a race. I am being careful about my hips, hamstrings and IT bands. I did my physio strength workouts twice this week (I should have done them every day!) and also started some planks (3x1min on Fri). I tried to roll, stretch, ice as often as I remembered and hopefully it'll be enough to keep me from relapsing into injury. Tomorrow's race, if I decide to participate, will be slow and I don't expect to break any records. Overall, I've been feeling good and I don't want to spoil the progress. I won't call it a comeback yet... but I'm getting darn close.

Stay calm and cool down

It's been a low key week, I can barely remember how the days went, all I know is that I managed to do all my workouts and a few more, which kept me in good mood despite de craziness in the office. Weather has been also extremely good with insanely warm temperatures (May-June), so I can't complain one bit. Actually, I'm going to complain just for a second because today I went on an hour long run and overdressed, which made me really cranky, reason why my subconscient must have decided to go for a negative split instead of a "steady and constant pace". If I had worn a swimsuit instead of a fleece I would have probably enjoyed it ten times more. Oh well, got back home and decided that such a warm day called for an ice bath too. See, I am just one week away from the Around the Bay Road Race and my right calf is still bugging me with pain in my arch (go figure, but grab an anatomy manual while you're at it, that's where I learned the trick) and despite my constant stretching and icing, it hasn't gotten better over the weeks. So I figured I'd give it some shock therapy. The water was really cold since we're barely out of winter, but after 5 minutes everything was numb anyway. Stayed in the tub for 20 minutes and of course my Raynaud's acted up all the time I was in there and for 30 more minutes after I got dressed. Freakin' blood vessels, can't they just understand that ice bath or not, it's almost summer outside?! Get on with the program, for chrissakes! For those who don't know what Raynaud's does, well, it cuts the blood flow in the fingers (and sometimes toes) because the blood vessels spasm when I'm cold or anxious. It's usually not all fingers at once, they each turn white, then blue, then red in sequence. In the picture below, the color show started with the middle finger, then went to the surrounding fingers, then it cycled back to middle finger and so on. No thumbs are usually affected in this process.

Each spasm lasts for about 10-20min, depending on how quickly the recovery is. In the ice bath, not so quick. Oh well, I knew this was gonna happen, but ice baths are too good to be abandoned because of fingers putting on a freak show.

Moving on... next week I'll be tapering since it's race day on Sunday. Hope to be able to go back to the pool and improve my swimming because this week I went for a long session on Wednesday and I just could not relax. I worked on my breathing, alternating 3-5-7-3 breaths (apparently it's a good exercise to improve your lung capacity) because I ended up being too frustrated with my technique or lack thereof. There are days with and days without swimming mojo, that is.

Well, that's about it for the news this week. I'm going back outside, the sunshine better turn this mood around.

Basking in the runner's high

Long run today with chilly temperatures, but motivation was high, let me tell you why. I woke up this morning and ate 2 small homemade cherry cheese danishes (I can never say "no" to those) and a glass of butter milk for breakfast, then went to do the grocery shopping with hubbs. By the time I decided to go out for my run, my breakfast was pretty much gone, so I made sure I take a pouch of GU Chomps with me and enough water to keep me fuelled and hydrated. Somewhere along the road though, the Chomps jumped out of my pocket and by the time I hit the 5K mark and decided to eat some, they were nowhere to be found. I panicked for a minute there, but then I reminded myself how I only learned about eating during the long runs a month before my second half marathon. So if I could do it then, I should be able to do it now too! I chose to suck it up and keep on going, I still had about 10K ahead of me. I tried to stay relaxed and keep my pace on target which was easier said than done, come the last 5K where a nasty head wind was waiting for me.
My Raynaud's attacks didn't spare me, especially in those last few miles when I started to feel cold and cranky. I was afraid I would run out of mental and muscular juice, but my body was feeling great and no pain in sight other than my fingers that were crying inside my gloves. Thank goodness for no toes attacks today because I was upset enough for running with wet feet, thanks to the endless number of puddles that I jumped in, when jumping over was too much of a deal.

Surprisingly enough, today my feet didn't hurt like in the last few runs, where pain would install itself in the arches of my feet after a mile or two. My coach said that I should check the mileage on my regular Adidas adiSTAR shoes, which I did today and guess what? I run 519 miles in them so, um... it was time. I gave my newer, still nice and clean Adidas Glide2, a loving look before taking them in those puddles and hallelujah, the pain didn't creep in this time. What a difference a new pair of shoes make!! I am glad that I bought 2 more pairs just like those on eBay today, I should have enough pairs to destroy until next year. I was really surprised with how little those adiSTAR shoes lasted though, these were the most expensive pair I've ever owned. I remember using the old New Balance for over a year until they self-disintegrated and I could still run pain free in them. Even those Glide2 came out 1 year before the adiSTAR, so I guess they are making them such that they last less and less... That's such a shame. I'm glad I could snatch 2 more pairs of those Glide2 before they disappear from the radar. So far I run about 50-60 miles in them and not a single blister or pain, so these are GOLDEN!

So, shoes aside, where was I? Right, in the last 5K of my run. Wind, cold and all, I made it back home in 1h40 and beat my 15K PB from a year ago by 7 minutes!! I am so damn happy, I am still basking in the runner's high, even 6h after it ended. Now if I can only repeat this performance during my next race, the Around the Bay 15K relay on March 25. I will be running it with hubbs, as my running buddy, Carol, is unfortunately injured. New for this year is the hill in the second leg of the race which I will have to climb for the first time. Hope those hill repeats will come in handy then. Until the next time!