Track, bike, etc

Interesting, both of my coaches want to kill me. One wants to kill me with her track workouts and the other because of my haphazard fueling. Nice.

Well, I really need to start thinking about training time management because now that I am running again it is going all downhill and it might lead to a tiny disaster soon. Otherwise I am pretty bright and analytical, but I just do not want to think about my training mostly because I have no idea what I am doing. Therefore I have two coaches, duh!

So I have 4 runs this week. I need to increase my mileage but I cannot do it in just 3 runs and I cannot do easy slow runs. Thus I have 3 kick-ass track workouts + 1 attempt for an easy 2miler on Saturday.
But how to fit that in with bikes and swims especially since I cannot do track in the mornings because track is closed and I cannot swim in the mornings because pool is crowded and I do not want to deal with biking to pool and back before going to work. So I need to do almost everything after work. I can bike in the morning.
The best solution seemed track on Mon, Tue, Th and then easy on Sat after the bike ride.

So today was bike and track. At first I thought that I was going to bike and then go to track, like a brick. But then at work it occured to me that it is a very stupid idea because it is hard running workout and I have another tomorrow and thus I should try to have fresh legs for today and have something left for tomorrow. So track and then bike it was. If I thought it through earlier I could have done bike in the morning.

Anyway, 1k warm/up, 5x1k @ 3:40-3:45w/ 2 min rest, 400m c/d, 4miles total. It was really hot and humid out. Blah.
1st 1k: 3:44. OMG, this is hard. I was splashing sweat all around me and my legs (and arms) hurt. It is probably that stupid bike ride and track workout on Saturday. It is catching up to me:( I am going to die after just two. (I have read Mental training for peak performance last week but clearly it has not helped me too much. I should re-read it! It is a good book.)
2nd: 3:44. Ok, this is not too bad but I am still going to die after the next one.
3: 3:41. Oh, this is easy-peasy. Clearly, my legs just needed a proper warm-up. 1k is not enough but I cannot do more yet.
4: 3:42 Felt good and confident that I can easily do 5 of them. Just stay focused and relaxed.
5: 3:40 Not bad at all, I pushed the last 200 little bit to get to 3:40.

I am satisfied. At first I really thought that I was not going to make it because it felt hard and my legs were heavy and non-responsive. But it turned out very good. 2min walk rest was plenty and I was gaining confidence as I went, which helped a lot. Although I will probably die tomorrow since I have another kick-ass workout.
This was one of the the longest runs in one day since March, and I am thrilled about it. ITB feels good although it was little funky yesterday. Probably because I did not have a change to ice it the whole day since I was not at home.

Bike workout was an easy ride for just 83min with 10x20-30sec hard pick ups. 42.3k with average speed 30.4kph, average HR 140.I need to start keeping track of this so I can compare my HR/speed ratios. 83min is not long, and it took me some time to warm up and then there was a cool down and those pick ups but it is better than nothing. It was on a loop by my house, which is like a T and I need to do 180degree turn at each end, so my HR and speed went down significantly then. I did 4 loops and something.
26.4miles, 19mph, HR 140.

Actually I am surprised that my HR was that low. It was pretty hard to keep 140+. My past experience is that I can get it to 170+ within a blink of an eye and it stayes pretty high I think. Pick ups were high 160s/low 170s. But maybe low HR is a sign that I am becoming aerobically fit. Or maybe it is only because I did track before and thus was tired and could not get HR higher. But speed was decent, would not I be more muscularly tired? Or because it was a very short ride. I have no idea, because I never really kept track of it before. We will see in the future.

I am little concerned about my biking abilities. I guess I am decent but it only because I bike a lot. A lot lot. And I am worried that because I already bike a lot that I will not be able to progress much further:( For example today.
I biked to work: ~20min.
From work: ~25min (it is a slight uphill)
To track: ~20min
From track: ~20min (if I have not had biking shoes/pedals I would have taken my road bike to track and then done the ride from there. But because I needed to change running shoes into biking shoes I needed to go home first. That's a disadvantage of biking shoes)
Bike workout: ~80min
My bike commute was actually longer than my bike workout today. I think that I do 50-60miles/weekly just commuting to places and it adds to my biking improvement. But how much more can I bike? Will I be able to continue to improve?