Big Week 17/First Race of 2024/Two Season Goals Done!

 OK gang--several items to get to for this week's recap!

First off, yet another big week of training, in fact my biggest of the year.  At least in terms of swimming yards, bike miles, and total training time.  Also, my PT/Strength/Flexibility time in the gym this week was the 2nd biggest of the first 17 weeks of this year:

Swim: 10,000 yards

Bike: 260 miles

Walk/Run: 23.9 miles

PT/Strength/Flexibility: 5:50

Total Training Time: 31:31

Probably not what I should be doing when the last day of the week is my first race of the season but, what can I say, I just went with what felt right!

Today I entered the Ivy 5k here in Wilmington, which is a very low key 5k run.  77 runners in it (I was the oldest guy in the race) and I finished 5th OA and 1st (out of 4) in the 60-69 YO Age Group.  Perhaps more importantly, I was able to run 28:53 (9:16/mile) so I'd say that my season goals of building back better (post knee replacement) and breaking 30 minutes in a 5k have been achieved!  In fact, as I previously posted, I actually broke 30 minutes at 5k 2X this week, as my temp run on Monday was also sub-30 (the last time I broke 30min in an open 5k race was back in 2011).  Certainly my best performance in the "steel knee era"!  Further, this is the first time I ran twice in one week this year and my 6.2 miles of running this week, is a high point in terms of actual running distance in a week so far in 2024.

I had a lot of fun but really didn't run a very smart race.  I looked around at the start and thought, well, you never know, I might have a shot here so when the gun went I decided to run with the leaders for a while and see what happened.  What happened is I went out out a 6:45/mile pace and about 30-45 seconds into the race could clearly see that at least 3 people were decidedly stronger than I, so I dialed it back to my pre-race opening mile plan of about 9:20 (29 minute 5k pace).

Unfortunately, I jacked my HR up to the mid 150s by about 90 seconds into the race (which is Z4ish for me) and I spent the whole rest of the race living on the edge and just trying to hold it together--not the most pleasant way to run a 5K!  After the turnaround on this out and back, I had 4-5 episodes of almost puking and tried to just keep the intensity down enough to not let that happen.  My splits were: 

Mile 1: 9:12; Mile 2: 9:15; Mile 3: 9:25...last 0.2 miles @ 8:45/mile.  My HR averaged 153 for the whole shebang....

So, super encouraged by this!  Feeling like I'm at a place, fitness-wise, where I can handle lots of low-intensity training and as I now begin to convert to higher intensity/lower volume (I also did 2 interval Zwift sessions this week so starting to begin the ramp on my bike). I could get relatively (compared to pre-surgery) fast, So that's an old, but now new thing and kinda fun.  I know I can continue to go faster run-wise and definitely think it may be possible to go sub 9-minutes/mile on a 5k at some point this year.

Next up is most likely the DE Sprint Triathlon State Championship on 5/19.  I might try to sneak another low-key 5k race in before but if not, today was a very good day adventure-wise and is a big boost of confidence in front of the first Triathlon of the season!

Onwards and upwards!!!

Weeks 14-16

 This post is to get you caught up with the last three weeks of training (and some tempo run time trials).  Sorry for not posting the last 20 days or so as we had a major family trip out to Indy to see the Eclipse (involved driving to Cleveland and then Indy and back) and up to Boston to help Jen find a new place to live for her coming Fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital.

Swim: W14--7,000 yds.  W15: 4,500 yds.  W16: 6,500 yds.

Bike: W14: 243 miles. W15: 224 miles.  W16: 235 miles.

Walk/Run: W14: 20.3 miles. W15: 22.7 miles.  W15: 25.5 miles

PT/Weights: W14: 4:50.  W15: 4:15.  W16: 4:40.

Total Training Time (hh:mm): W14: 27:48.  W15: 26:19.  W16: 28:30

As for my tempo runs, as you might recall in March I started to do some Z2/low Z3 intervals (1/2-3/4 mile repeats).  On April 7th, in Indy, the day before the eclipse (and our 40th wedding anniversary) I ran with Marshall and Anders for my first 3-mile "tempo" run of the year, where I did 29:44 (9:54/mile) at an average HR of 142 (the top of my Z2 is around 144/145.  This was quite a breakthrough for me as both of my 5ks last year were over 34 minutes (still in recovery mode from the knee replacement) and my goal this year is to break 30 minutes for a 5k (in both a running race and a triathlon).

On 4/13 I ran 29:30 for 3 miles (9:49/mile) but my HR spiked to an average of 153.  For my 3rd tempo run  I slowed down to 30:45 (10:13/mile) at an average HR of 136.

Today, I ran 5k in 29:30 (9:31/mile) at an average HR of 139bpm!  This is already well beyond what I thought was possible when I began this year.  While the 1st run with Marshall and Anders was driven by the vastly improved running biomechanics that I have as a result of the knee replacement and the extensive PT work I've done, with this latest run I'm beginning to see both the impact of actual run faster training as well as my improvement potential as I begin to ramp up my running.

Today's run was 23 sec/mile faster at a lower HR than just 2 weeks ago.  Also, as you can see above, I'm coming off a 28+ hour training week and today had a heavy leg weight workout and a 2,000 yd swim and a 2-hour bike BEFORE the run.....

I've decided to race  a run 5k this Sunday and to hit my goal in an official race (however, I must admit I'm thinking I need to push for 28 something).....onwards and upwards!!!!

Q1 daily workout time: frequency distribution

 Thought it would be interesting to put together the daily workout time frequency distribution for the 91 days of Q1--not surprisingly, it looks like a Bell curve:

The mean, mode and median are all pretty similar:

Mean: 4:02

Median: 4:00

Mode: 4:00-4:29

Further, about 75% of my daily workout time falls between 3-5 hours.  My shortest daily training was 1:18 on January 14th (a pre-dawn 5.2-mile (15 below) walk in Minnesota before flying to Philadelphia.  My longest was 6:04 on March 3rd, which was not that unusual of a day except I rode 48 miles that day and walked 5.8 miles.....

Week 13/March/Q1-2024

 The highlight of week 13 was trip down to Shenandoah National Park and a couple days of hiking.  This led to a bunch of relatively slow "walking" as we navigated the terrain and all the vertical (plus backpack weight).  As a consequence, week 13 had the highest total training time of any of my weeks this year so far:

Swim: 4,500 yards

Bike: 203 miles

Walk/Run: 26 miles

Weights/PT/Stretch: 5:00

Total Training Time: 31:14

Here is a look back at the first quarter of 2024:

Swim

My principal objective with my swimming is to ramp my volume enough that by the time open water swimming starts (around Memorial Day) I want to be comfortable with 10,000+ yards/week.  MY biggest week to date was 9,000 yards (week 10) and have been steadily increasing the monthly and average daily volume as well as increasing the frequency of my swimming workouts.  I'm well on track to being ready for open water swimming in May:

Bike

My approach to the bike during the first three months has been to put a bunch of steady Z1/Z2 miles in without a lot of concern about either intensity or the length of my long rides.  Most of my rides are around 30 miles or so and are indoors on my trainer.  My volume has generally been flat over the first three months as I've put my bike training into basic, easy base/foundation setting mode. In April, I plan to migrate some of my rides outside, add some intensity, and begin to push a longer ride (50+ miles) every 7-10 days or so.  

Walk/Run

I'm very pleased with the progress here, especially given my total knee replacement on 11/30/22.  I've been slowly ramping the frequency of my walk/runs, my average length of these efforts, my total walk/run volume, and in March, beginning to run more and to migrate upwards to high Z2/low Z3 intervals.

PT/Stretch/Weights

I've put a lot of effort into this component of my fitness since last October.  As I've begun to add SBR volume/training time I've found that my time in this category has begun to modestly decline.  My expectations are for this to continue in April/May and then to fall off pretty dramatically as summer arrives in June....

Total Training Time

I started the year hitting significant average training time each day, right from the get-go.  I expected that I might have to back off a bit but for the most part, my body seems to be comfortably absorb what is a historically high amount of weekly training.  My monthly, weekly, and daily training time averages have been slowly increasing and in march exceeded 4 hours/day for the first time.  I have yet to miss a day of training this year (not recommended).  I would expect my training volume to level off and perhaps decline as I add more intensity across the SBR disciplines and begin to ratchet back my PT/strength training.

Overall, I feel strong and I'm continuing to be quite motivated to keep on, keeping on....onwards and upwards!