Monday Morning Training Report: Peak Week (and Now We Taper!)
This was peak week for us, as far as total mileage goes. Now we get to taper, and man do I need it. I haven’t felt like my legs were truly rested since the half-marathon a couple of weeks back. Courtney thinks we’re tapering too much too soon and wants to add an additional long run, but I’m going to try trust the process on this one and hope it delivers us to race fired up and ready to go. I might add in some cross training like yoga and strength training to keep myself from going crazy, but my legs are going to get their much deserved rest!
Also – I switched to Strava from MapMyRun. One interesting thing I’ve noticed – it gives a much lower, and probably much more realistic, calorie count for the same rides we’ve been doing all along. Can anyone tell me the other pros and cons?
Work 10 Training Recap:
Monday – 2.2 km swim (44 laps)
Tuesday – 40 minute run
Wednesday –20 minute run, strength training (arms)
Thursday – 13.1 mile run
Friday – 1 km swim (20 laps)
Saturday –2 hr BRICK (1:40 bike/20 run)
Sunday – 3 hour ride
Total time: 10 hrs
Swimming: I tried to swim on Friday to make up for missing my Wednesday swim due to work travel, but the fire alarm had different plans. After the fire department checked out the building, they let us in to swim with the alarm still blaring, but I only made it 20 laps before they decided we had to leave the building.
BRICK: Haines Point was closed due to a 5k, so we had to go do a couple laps elsewhere while we waited for it to open. After a frustrating loop-dee-loo, we did our normal laps. I listened to two episodes of Embedded, a super entertaining podcast that uses investigative journalism to dig deep into a wide variety of issues, from school closures to The Apprentice.
Long Run: I was nervous about how I was going to manage a long run this week since I had an early morning flight back from California on Thursday. Afternoon/evening long runs have never been my thing, even when I’m not dealing with jet lag and a day of travel. While it didn’t feel like my best run, my time wasn’t so bad as far as a training run with stop lights goes. I don’t think I’d done this route since full marathon training in 2013, and my memory must have been off – I ended up having to do quite a bit of frustrating loop-dee-loo to get my miles in. I much prefer to have the run end right at my house than to be running toward home knowing I’m going to have to add mileage.
Long Ride: No matter how great the trail, I really couldn’t stand to do the same out and back yet again this week. Instead, we took the Capital Crescent trail, but it only went as far as Bethesda so I ended up having to loop back the Mt. Vernon Trail to Alexandria and still had to do a loop around Haines Point – more frustrating loop-dee-loo! I listened to three more episodes of Embedded, this time on addiction to prescription painkillers and a fight between rival bike gangs.
Nutrition: I’ve not been experimenting with new recipes very much, but instead revisiting some old favorites. This week I made: Cauliflower Fried Rice, Pumpkin Protein Pancakes and Noodleless Cabbage Pad Thai. Also, I made another princess cake and had some leftover marzipan and got to thinking… almond meal, powdered sugar… sounds like a good ride snack to me!
Yummy Meal of the Week:
Week to Come:
Workout Schedule:
Monday – 1.6 km swim (32 laps)
Tuesday – 40 minute run
Wednesday –1.7 km swim (34 laps)
Thursday – 40 minute run
Friday – rest day!
Saturday –30 min BRICK (10 min run/10 min bike/5 min run/5 min bike)
Sunday – 90 min ride; 30 minutes open water swim
Total time: 5 hrs
Meal plan: still figuring it out, but definitely making this Peanut Soba Noodle Salad with Edamame and Bok Choy. Also want to clean out the pantry – maybe I’ll make some version of these tempeh spring rolls! Otherwise, I have an awesome new version of the homemade protein bites to share with you soon, and I’ll probably keep eating these awesome paleo waffles.
