Transitioning to run focus for Boston....

This has been one mother of a tough week for me……

Tuesday started with 1:05 bike intervals – 4x2.5 @ 120% then 30’ @ 85%.  Ending with 4 mile Z3 off the bike.

Wednesday I went 10 miles on the deadmill, 3 miles of Z5 intervals (red lining) as 400’s and 800’s and 3 miles @ MP (Wow! This feels easy).  The rest was warm-up and recovery.

Yesterday was 2 hours on the bike doing that week 10 masochistic torture-fest they have the audacity to call a workout!  It starts with a 2x20’ (4’) @ 100% then goes immediately into a set of 4x2.5’s @ 120%.  Those little buggers KILL.  You go all out for 2:30 – redlining all the way then get a 2:30 recovery and are supposed to hold 60% till the next set.... I was cooked on the 2x20 FTP stuff and couldn’t even get to 120%.  The first 2 were at 117% the last 2 were at 111% and none of the rest intervals were above 50% I just couldn’t do it and my legs were shaking.  One EN member said he had to get off the bike and lay on the floor before he could get back and finish the workout!  Yes it was THAT BAD!!

Oh, it’s not over…. After that flogging, we needed to get another 2x15’ (2’) at 85% - BRUTAL…  these guys are out to kill us!  About 10 minutes in, I found a comfortable cadence and realized that if I took the 2 minute recovery after 15, I may never get myself to spin it back up…. So, my plan was to just push right thru and do a straight 30 at 85% and call it good…… at the end of that last interval, I just sat on my bike, spinning slowly for almost 5 minutes.  My cadence was like 25 or something.   I didn’t want to get off because I didn’t want to get on the deadmill…. It seemed too much like torture to have to do that.  I could barely get 1 mile on the deadmill before I threw in the towel knowing I had a 15 miler planned for today.  I must say I was a little skeptical about getting all 15 in……

So the plan for today was 10 miles minimum but the goal was 15.  No tempo miles, just steady pace with a negative split.  The weather was nice (by Maine standards) 29* to start.  Wind NW @ 12 and mostly sunny skies.  The only issue was the 4” of snow late yesterday still on the walks and shoulders.

The first 4 miles was almost all mashed potato running – too much traffic to run in the travel lane, so I had no choice.  After that the temp was up to 32 (bank sign) and the sun was doing its part and footing got much better.  I still spent a lot of time in the road avoiding snow/slush patches but it wasn’t as bad.  By mile 6 I knew I would make the 15 and felt good about it.  Pace at the 7.5 turnaround was 8:46 – my comfy, go all day pace. 

Everything was better on the return. The wind was now behind me, sun in my face and the roads were clear where the sun was (still snowy in the shade).  I did have to take a quick pause to clean my sunglasses – I had so much road spray that I couldn’t see well.  Only took a minute and was well worth it.  My last mile I could feel the fatigue creeping up but not enough to slow me down (except on a short 4% hill).  A good reminder that I really need to get some volume in to rebuild the fatigue tolerance I am accustomed to.  Over all pace 8:32 – pretty much what I was looking for along with a strong negative split of -25 seconds per mile (8:46 out, 8:21 back).

I plan to continue to keep up with the VO2 Max on the bike as long as I can.  No immediate plan to drop the Thursday bike either.  For now I will leave the bike as written and do my own thing on the run.  That should get much easier after we switch back to FTP work in a few weeks.