Week Ending 2015-06-21

Last week was a good for the most part.  On both Tuesday and Thursday my quality workouts did not go as well as they have been for the past few weeks.  I suspect that Elkhart Lake was still holding me back a bit.  Swimming is going quite well, I’ve only been swimming three times a week since Texas to help facilitate recovery, but I’ll add a fourth swim back into the mix probably in August in preparation for IMAZ.

My bike fit continues to feel better and better, I’ve made a few more adjustments to the reach, but also to the pad stack and I like what I’m feeling.  It will be interesting to see how it pans out in terms of watts->speed at Racine.

As I’ve become more happy with my bike fit and my overall positive feelings about training, I’ve been turning my thoughts to the long lingering thought of wondering if I’m under-performing on the swim in races.  If I look back at my overall race performance and compare it to the swim – generally if my swims are close to what my pool times indicate I should be able to do – my overall performance is a bit sub-par – but if I swim and float through it, my performances are good.  I’ve wondered about this and how I can swim an 18:56 1500 on 2 swims per week and a total of about 5000 meters per week over the previous 2 months in December, and could probably swim a fair bit faster than that now – yet I’d bet dollars to donuts that if I had come out of the water with James Burke at Elkhart Lake – my race would have gone in the opposite direction it did.  Some reading recently makes me wonder if I just suck at open water swimming, or if I’m a victim of either a poor fitting wetsuit without enough shoulder flexibility, or possibly too much leg flotation – hindering my kick and messing my stroke up or I don’t take enough time to put it on and work it around my shoulders.    The source of this thinking is looking at my IMTX swim, which was no wetsuit, felt incredibly easy, and was one of my best swims in years, and followed up with a solid race overall.

If wetsuits weren’t so damn expensive, I’d go buy a ROKA or something else that is known for more flexibility and maybe less float then my Vendetta, but 500 to 800 bucks is a lot to spend on an experiment.

Monday: A lame 3000 meter swim and an easy run – which happened to be awesome because it was comfortably warm and drizzling.

Tuesday: Hard bike with 3×8′ @ threshold and the usual easy run

Wednesday: 16 100s @ 1:30, and then 4 on 1:25 – I only mustered 1:17/1:18 for these, then a run.

Thursday: A run planned as 10×2′ HARD with 1′ recovery, but I bailed after 7 it just wasn’t happening plus an easy spin in the morning.

Friday: A swim with some 400s at IM pace, and a run with 2×10′ @ HIM pace

Saturday: An easy ride, and easy run

Sunday: I rode outside and did my old reliable 48 mile loop.  I did it as a spirited ride, and followed it up with an easy run before we went out to brunch.