Week Ending April 29th in Review (Build 1E)

Intended to be a test week, it turned into a high-volume, get back on your running feet, with massive up and down swings.  With only 11 weeks until the first try at 70.3 for the year and with less than 2 weeks until Providence 13.1, running has progressed slowly but surely.  Now that Ratt is working on me and prescribing a steady dose of rub down, e-stim, ice and a very conservative approach to make my come back, it went fairly well.  On Thursday, after a disastrous attempt at the 2x20’ bike (we’ll save that for another post) I got to the treadmill and ran / walked 3 miles.  This was the longest I had gone in a month.  Extreme focus on posture, core and pulling with hams and glutes.  Lots of concentration, especially later on in the run, to maintain that form.  I wish I had a video that I could look at to ensure I’m actually holding the right form.

Back to the 2X20’ just for a quick recap – didn’t go very well.  It’s in my head.  It’s this one test tricking me and keeping me humble.  My environment is still not ideal, but I expect more from myself.  We know that everyday is not going to be perfect, and I had been in a bad sleep pattern for several days, but I just shut it down after 10 minutes of effort.  There was no will.  If it weren’t for the slight progress on the run that day, it would’ve really put me in a bad place.  The fact that I just threw in the towel on the effort without even getting to the place where I had to dig deep; that’s my failure, in my mind.  Matt made me feel a bit better ensuring me that the sleep deprivation is a huge factor in this, so we will be monitoring sleep a bit better with the Zeo sleep manager.  He also suggests that this test in no way tells the real story on my cycling improvements as evidenced by week over week long and solid efforts on the road.  

That being said, Saturday was a chilly and windy day, but Adam and I were planning the tour of South Shore for around 80 miles or 4+ hours.  We definitely had a lot more power today than last week, and at the end of the day normalized power was up 15W with an increased duration of another 30 minutes.  Really strong effort.  We clocked in ~73 miles in 4:15 with an np of 250W!  A big difference today was that I actually incorporated some nutrition.  This made a world of difference. 
Total Nutritional elements:

Liquid volume:

2x20oz water with Fizz

1X16oz with Fizz and Heed

12oz coffee

Total - 68 ounces

Calories and Na:

1 Roctane - 100 cals/125 mg Na

1 Clif Bar - 240 cals/150 mg Na

1/2 Donut (peer pressure) - 60 cals/60 mg Na

half/half 40 cals - 20 cals/6 mg Na

Scoop of Heed - 100 cals/40 mg Na

3 Fizz tabs - 30 cals/600mg Na

Totals - 550 cals / 981 mg Na

With this, I still lost a total of 3.2 lbs (1.5%-2.0%) over the course of the 4+ hours.  Very happy with the effort.  Down south we averaged around 19+, on the way back we averaged 16ish coming north beachside.  We could certainly feel the difference.

Sunday was run day.  Matt had me scheduled for AeT intervals.  I was a little nervous about testing the ankle like this, but it went pretty well.  I stayed right around 7:40 pace for the 3X9’ intervals.  Iced immediately after, but had some soreness afterward.  During, very little pain but could feel the tightness.  Monday morning was a struggle – sore in the lower Achilles.  It has seemingly gotten better throughout the day.

All in weekly volume ~13 hours.  High volume on the year. 

T-minus 10 weeks until Providence 70.3.  1 week until Providence 13.1, but we’ll see if it’s worth the risk.