One of the things of long term planning is that it rarely goes to plan. That’s how we can sum up this week.
Our oldest is still at home instead of the kindergarten so it’s pretty challenging for my wife who does a great job keep them all (one 2.5 year old and 9 month old twins) injury free. I don’t really want to leave the house for 2+ hours if something comes up so I had to scrap swimming for week 2 and possibly week 3 as well.
I kept my remaining training session as they were (since I train mostly indoors now) and crowned it all with a solid 10k race on Sunday.
One of the highlights of this week were the long bike (2 hours and 15 minutes) and long run (1 hour and 5 minutes). I finished them without any trouble and felt like I could go for another hour in both cases.
I had a nice recovery ride on Saturday to get the body ready for the 10k the day after.
The goal was to run a 45 minute 10k but once the race was on I started picking up the pace slightly to run a 4:20ish min/km instead of the planned 4:30. It worked all great until kilometer 7 when my speed for some reason started to fall.
I was still overtaking a lot of people so I thought that maybe my watch was acting out but instead of the projected 43:30 I ended up running 45:14 which was, in the end, in line with my expectations. I don’t really know what happened in the last 3k and I don’t really care at this point of my training. I felt in control and really enjoyed the race and can’t wait for more to come. I finished 217th (I think) out of 2060 (or something like that) which is also very very good!
Let’s check out my numbers this week and then I’ll quickly jump into my new recovery process.
This week my weight stayed pretty much the same (just a drop of 0.2 kg) but I lost some 0.5% in body fat which is nice and it shows a nice trend that gives me hope I am on the right track.
| Swim | Bike | Run | Strenght | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance | 0 (1.5) | 81.5 (76.9) | 26.0 (44.8) | - |
| Time | 0 (0:29) | 3:54 (7:06) | 2:10 (3:45) | 1:20 (2:40) |
| Skipped | 3/4 | 0/6 | 0/6 | 0/4 |
Values in brackets show totals
I don’t really like being behind on swimming already but I’ll hope to catch up with it soon.
Recovery
One of the things I neglected in the last 7 years of being a triathlete was recovery. I rested between sessions but didn’t really do a lot more to improve recovery and prevent injury.
I started changing this by doing at least one 20-30 minute strength session with some foam rolling and stretching to get those small bumps in my muscles out.
Additionally, I got myself a Compex electro stimulator. You simply put a bunch of patches on parts of your body you want to work, select a program and just wait for it to do its thing.
I use it after all long and hard sessions now in a “massage/recovery” mode as well as before some of the harder speed sessions to activate the muscles before the workout to enhance performance and it has already paid off.
I feel more energized and don’t have the tired legs feeling the entire day after a hard workout. I can’t recommend it enough for everyone who works out. Especially since it can help you out with your back and neck issues as well if you are sitting a good portion of the day in front of a screen.
Until next week,
Stay positive :)