Friday, July 20, 2012

Scratch the last post

(No worries PPC, I am not talking about scratching the “not doing Branson 70.3”. Poor PPC, I am sure I always give her a small heart attack when I mention IM or HIM and future or plan in one sentence.)

I said that 11 quality kilometers in two days did not affect me in any negative way. However, it seems that it is not true after all. I am a zombie in water now. I did not swim on Wednesday and then swam on Th in the morning and I was able to hold sub 2min pace for first 4or5 200s and then I died and finished the  last 5 getting slower and slower and ended with 2:15 pace or something like that. The same was true for Th afternoon when it felt like I was swimming backwards and I cut the workout short at 2k hoping to make up the volume today morning. However, when I was not able to hold 2min pace for more than 2 100s this morning I knew that something was up. So I hit only 16k for this week. (But I did 18k last week, so it kind of evens out. Ok, I know that I am giving volume too much attention here, but I have a volume goal for swimming right now, so I can obsess about it).

I think that it was indeed those 11k combined on Mon and Tue. Or maybe 17k/week is little too much for me. I can swim that much but I am not able to hold faster paces after 12-13k of swimming for a week. Plus I always “push” reset on Sunday and start from zero, however I sometimes swim on Sat and Sun too so there is no rest between weeks. For example when I said I swam 11k in two days on Mon and Tue it was proceeded by 18k I swam the week before without any days off in between. Makes sense?

Anyway, I think that I am going to continue with 17k until the end of July, so two more weeks, to see whether I will adjust and will be able to do more quality workouts and then I decide whether it makes more sense to go back to 15k.

On a bright note, running is going awesome! At the beginning of June I started doing workouts and I was dying. I was not able to hold 4min pace for 1k intervals, I had to walk some in my 3min breaks. Simply dying. People probably did not believe that and therefore my 20:20ish 5k was slower than they expected but I swear it is true. (I mean PPC when I say people, because nobody else really cares:)) I was dying during those workouts! However now 4min pace is a breeze and I can jog all my rest intervals. I had a good workout on Wednesday (800, 1600, 3k, 800 with 2min job between): 800s at 3:55 are easy and 4:10ish pace for 3k felt like a nice tempo run (It was little faster than planned but that’s what you get when I am not on track and cannot check on my pace every 200m. Which is however good because road races are not done on a track. Obviously.). I do not bend over my knees gasping for oxygen after each interval and 2min jog (I can jog the whole recovery now) inbetween is enough rest. So yes, I am getting there!

Ok, I am off to a shopping spree in Paris. Because I need new shoes. Because you  know, I buy all my shoes in Paris. I am THAT person. And that's the true story!
I will also try to get a picture of Mark Cavendish while I am there.

1 comment:

  1. My first thought when I read that about your swimming going to shit was that you are not fueling enough... high volume swimming requires adequate fuel! When you start feeling like you weigh 2000 lbs in the water, eat. Good food!

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