My legs are slowly coming back to life...

My legs had a really hard time yesterday. I made the decision to push back the bike trainer workout by a day in order to give my legs a little bit of extra rest. It seems to have helped a lot, although I also worked them pretty hard today so they're definitely not feeling too hot still. Nonetheless, it seems like the lifting pain is lightening and it's being replaced with a different kind of fatigue, so I'll call it progress.

Today started with a run in the morning before my volunteering session and I took the make up bike trainer session in the afternoon.

Today's AM Workout: Base run, Forest Park.
Summary: 7.04 mi, 1:13:10, 10:24 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 10:35, 10:52, 10:36, 10:40, 10:00, 10:09, 9:56, 9:18.
Hit rate: 32/34 (94.1%)

Mornings are nice because it's not too hot. It was very humid today though, but my body handled that fine. I ran the route counterclockwise, which is the opposite of what I usually do, so it put the hills first (which explains the nice negative splitting). The run felt pretty easy on my cardiovascular system but was brutal on the legs. They hurt with every step the first 1-1.5 miles and then lightened up to just aches in specific areas for the rest. It's good to know that I can finish a run of that distance on really blown out legs though. Interestingly enough, when I ran this route in the other direction exactly a week ago after having had my legs pretty thoroughly wrecked by biking workouts, I ran a 1:13:09. The consistency astounds me. The effort was slow, but I'm happy enough with it, just proud I got out there and did what I had to do. (It was an early morning I really wasn't feeling, but I'm glad I did it.)

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride
Summary: 18.6 mi, 1:16:22, 14.6 mph.

• WU: 8 mins easy, 2 mins base of a hill
• Main Set: bike sprints to failure, 5 x (6 min efforts, 2 min recovery)
• Broken as: 2 min 85% (base @ 100 rpm), 2 min 100% (+1, 90+ rpm), 1 min 110% (+2, 90+ rpm), 1 min 120% (+2, 100 rpm)
• 1 extra minute recovery
• Big gear: 4 x (2 mins steady state seated climb, 55-65 rpm, 1 min standing climb (biggest gear, c+3), 1 min recovery)
• WD: 9 mins at steady state then easy.

Speed splits: 14.1, 15.9, 14.9, 13.4.
Hit rate: 33/35 (94.2%)

The trainer ride was pretty solid all in all. I think I moderated the effort well, the last two repeats of the sprint set were tough but manageable (some pace slip off towards the end though). Big gear work is a must, will keep trying to get through that. The trainer workouts are tough but I'm sure they do wonders for fitness. We'll let the bike see the outdoors tomorrow and hopefully that'll be a good time. As of right now, my legs are still weak and hurting a bit, so I'm going to take some time to stretch and hopefully put them in the best possible position for tomorrow. Yay!

Much love,
Jess