Week In Training

Another low volume week but I got a couple of key workouts in nonetheless.  Clients cancelling and re-scheduling and cancelling again completely messed up my training schedule.  Finally went to a masters swim workout that wasn't drills and it was fun to just hammer out a bunch of 100's.  The main set was:

1x100 on 2:05
2x100 on 2:00
3x100 on 1:55
2x100 on 1:55
3x100 on 1:50
4x100 on 1:45

for a grand total of 15 x 100 yards.  I made all the intervals too and led for the first part of the set then begged off and drafted for the last half.  There was more stuff before and after but that was the meat of potatoes of the workout.

Had in interesting long run on Sunday where I got the idea stuck in my head that I wanted to run the Hogback Loop from home even though it was windy down in town.  This was not one of my brightest ideas.  Why didn't my husband talk me out of these shenanigans rather than egging me on?  It's about 6 miles from the Wonderland Trailhead plus .4 or so miles of walking to and from the trailhead.  Can't remember the last time I ran that far but I wanted to get some steep hills in and increase my mileage.  I had this plan of running loops of the Hogback all winter long to build up my climbing muscles and improve my pathetic run times but the trail's been covered in snow and ice up until a day or two ago.  Even yesterday there were a few snowy patches on the north side.

Anyway, it was 47 degrees and sunny but windy at my house and I felt under dressed when I started out because of the wind.  But I figured I'd get plenty warm once I got going and it was so sunny and warm when the wind stopped.  There was only the occasional gust but those gusts were icy cold.  This was also not one of my brightest ideas.  The wind got a little crazy heading up the steepest part of the Hogback trail on the approach to the ridge and by the time I got to the top of the ridge the wind was howling like freight train and so freezing cold.  I crouched down on the trail a few times because I was worried I'd get blown over.  I'm guessing the winds were at least 40 mph, maybe more.  I turned a corner and got hit by a blast so strong and cold it felt like I had the wind knocked out of me.  I stopped behind a tree for a minute or two to see if the winds would stop but I soon realized it was going to be windy the whole time up on the ridge so I decided to press on and get off the ridge lickety split.  Luckily you're not up there for very long, maybe 5-10 minutes but the trail is rocky so you have to be mindful.  Sure enough as soon as I got off the ridge the winds were back to occasional gusts of about 20 mph and periods of calm.  The last couple few miles didn't feel so good though, kind of crampy and wishing I was done.  Looks like I need to do more longs runs to build up endurance.  Good news is my knee was fine despite having problems with it while walking the dogs all week.

No biking due to messed up schedule, wind, fence repairs, etc.  Excuses, excuses.  No agility training either for much the same reasons.  I'll get back on both of those this week.

Swim:  7800 yards/3 hours

Mountain bike:  Nada

Run:  10.18 miles/2 hours, 43 mins.

Total training time: 5 hours, 43 mins.

Somebody posted this on my Facebook and it gave me a laugh this morning.  'These are my casual compression socks.'  Heh.  Melanie McQuaid is an accomplished pro triathlete, won XTERRA Nationals the past 4 years or something as well as many other accomplishments.