I Like Hard Weeks...When They're Done!

It was Max, my youngest son's, 15th birthday last Monday and although it was great to speak to him, missing his birthday still put me in a bit of a 'sad' mood at the start the week. Being thousands of miles away and not getting the chance to partake in some of his quality homemade birthday cake just made things worse!!

So, what do triathletes do to get through a tough emotional time?...TRAIN HARDER!

One of my key sessions was on Tuesday. The weather was reasonable enough to get outside for a run session of 6 x 1 mile efforts with 2 min rest, on the rather lumpy grass track. It was a pretty windy day (there's a shock!) but I still managed to average 5 min 45 sec, which was hard but satisfying!

Saturday was a particularly good (aka hard!) day with a morning swim of a moderate effort 3.3km in 58 mins and then a high intensity turbo workout in the afternoon which, after a 10min warm up, went something like this:

30 sec hard/30 sec EZ x 4, 4 min rec,
60 sec hard/60 sec EZ x 3, 4 min rec,
30 sec hard/30 sec EZ x 4, 4 min rec,
60 sec hard/ 30 MAX/90 sec EZ x 2, 4 min rec,
30 sec race pace/20 sec hard/10 sec MAX x 5.

It was a true killer of a workout which left me gasping for breath and slumped across my tri bars! Just what you need!

This morning was a run up the Peak with my 'bike buddy'. But by the time we had finished our nightshift, there wasn't enough time to fit in a 2 hour run before breakfast, so I decided to push hard for 1 hr 30 with the incentive of getting up and back down from the Peak in time for a huge brekky! I effectively 'raced' the route...pushing hard up the hills and 'bounding' down without putting the breaks on! I finished it in a world record time (for me!) with my bike buddy not catching up with me until the last mile!

I have felt surprisingly good considering how hard I've worked this week. Some of my split times have come down a bit too which is always a bonus!

Next week is recovery week, and the week after I will be having a go at a cross country race which will be a good blast at a proper race effort!

Train smart.