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.

Baby steps

Wooohooo, the workouts are back! Okay, maybe there isn't much to talk about, but enough to get me excited, damn right!! I swam, I biked and I ran! Went to the pool a few times - thrice, more precisely, and increased my mileage from 1200m to 1400m in two weeks, going from sets of 100s to 200s, all with flipturns!! I sense a new season kick-starting soon ;-)

Tan lines, vintage bathing suits, goggle marks and empty pools.

Let's do this!

Good news is that my core is what hurt the most after these pool workouts. I must be doing something right. As for the flip turns, they don't make me feel like death anymore, so that's definitely progress! Just keep flippin', just keep flippin'... ummm, yea, something like that.

Then I went on the bike trainer, once, for 15 minutes, smallest gear. I must have elevated my heart rate for at least 1bpm, I even broke a sweat, despite the fan blowing sub-arctic air in my face. My hip bursa decided to act up 30 minutes later, so I didn't try again since. But at least I managed to make something flare, you know - cause and effect - because Google isn't that great at diagnosing mysterious injuries without a good cause. Needless to say, I took a little break afterwards, but there was one more thing to take care of before the end of the year.

I promised myself I'd run a mile if the injury didn't get worse. As soon as the bursa stopped hurting again, I put on my running shoes and went out. I wanted to run between 10 and 15 minutes, and I did a little loop around the block for a total of 12 minutes. Almost 2km! Yay me!! However, that was no easy feat. The road conditions were horrible, there was ice everywhere and I wasn't keen on falling on my face and breaking something else.

Ice and snow - watch your step!

So today I went with hubbs to the gym and ran for 20 min on the treadmill (1% incline). This time I ran 3.2km, and I even threw in a few strength exercises and stretches at the end.

Verdict? Nothing got worse. There might be hope after all. Here's to a promising 2014, and dare I say, pain free! Cheers, everyone, and a very Happy New Year!

Total Immersion

Since my shoulder is feeling so much better and I have been officially discharged by my PT, I returned to the pool to work on my swimming skills. Last week was my comeback 1K and although it did feel good, it also felt tiring. So I started looking into swim workouts on YouTube and came across the Total Immersion technique which I couldn't wait to put in practice. Last night I hit the pool for another km, but this time I paid attention to the strokes more than anything and taught my body to be patient. If there is a skill that you need to perfect with this technique, that is patience.... Gliiiiiide. Now I need to also improve my breathing because I tried pretty much everything under the sun: 2 strokes/breath, 3 strokes/breath, 4 strokes/breath. I wish I could train my lungs to hold on for 4 strokes with lesser difficulty. Definitely working towards that. For now I am planning to go once or twice to the pool in a week, I love being in the water so damn much. Curious about the Total Immersion technique? Watch below:

Doesn't he make it look easy? Fact is, once you start using this technique, your workouts will start feeling a lot easier too. A week ago, without this technique, I could only swim 50m without stopping. This time I could do 200m. 400% increase in efficiency, that's something.