It's cold outside

[Day 10]

First plan change of the year! (Unless you count last Wednesday? Which wasn't so much a plan change as just a "nope not gonna do that today".) Anyways, Tsehay and I decided this morning that as much as we are total badasses who can take on anything, it was too cold for either of us to want to run outside today (-13 C, feels like -23 C, I may be Canadian but without something to cover my cheeks I'm not going out in that temperature to run for an hour...). xD Side note: props to one of my hardcore cyclist friends for going out and riding today. Beast mode much? Anyways, as a result, I pulled up a planned trainer workout from later in the week and we rescheduled our run for Thursday afternoon. So this is what I did instead today!

Today's Workout: PM trainer ride, 80 mins
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy, 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Pre-set: 4 x 2/1, fast/easy spinning (100+ rpm), focus on smooth pedal strokes 
• Main Set: cadence work, 95 rpm/80 rpm/95 rpm/105+ rpm/recovery pattern 
• 4/4/3/1/2 
• 3/3/2/1/2 
• 2/2/1/1/2 
• 2 mins easy 
• Technique set: 10 x :45/:15 single leg drill 
• WD: 8 mins easy 
• Total: 17.44 mi, 1:20:06, 13.1 mph average

Hit Rate: 9/9 (100%)

The notes/thoughts:

• Regarding the workout: I did the pre-set and main set on the same gear, which was about threshold at 95 rpm and probably a bit higher than that at 100+ rpm (except for recovery, which I dropped down a gear for).
• The single leg drill is steadily improving. On like number three I was thinking I wouldn't be able to hold out on the gear I was in but surprisingly enough I got through the entire thing without having to drop down. I think I'm learning the efficiency, slowly but surely.
• I still need to work on upper body position on harder efforts. When things get hard I do all manner of weird things with my upper body which is totally not how real life riding would work. Have to focus on that more. 
• Today was sort of a crazy day? I had a lot on my plate for some reason, and Sundays are always stressful because I feel a lot of pressure to get my life put together before the week starts, but I think I did alright for myself given it all. 
• Oh this is random but I have to share: I bought cookie dough (which is not a thing that I do) and I made myself a small batch of mini chocolate chip cookies that I ate after my workout (yeah, I know, not real recovery food) and it was delicious and amazing and it made me really happy. And the best part is I still have like 4/5 of the thing of cookie dough left so there will definitely be more cookies to come. Good decisions past-Jess (:

Only one session on the books for tomorrow, a lift in the morning with a short treadmill run, probably much the same if not identical to last Monday. Hopefully it'll tear my body apart a little bit less this week because I would really like not to spend all of it really sore. We shall see. Fingers crossed!

Much love,

Jess

Rest day and long run

I totally started to write a blog post yesterday and failed to complete it...So let's try this again. Sunday (yesterday) was a rest day, which was fairly uneventful and actually quite restful and nice. I spent a lot of last night freaking out on Skype to Henry just with pre-race jitters and he did a great job of calming me down about everything. I'm not building anymore fitness this last week, it's just a recovery/maintenance week and my focus should be on my sanity more than anything else. Everything sort of goes out the window on race day: I'll be in a completely different place in terms of mindset and there's no way for me to be prepared for racing other than by racing frequently. We decided that it would be best if I took my eyes off of goal times and paces during the race and focused instead on just running the best race I can by feel. So I'll wear my watch in order to get data for later on, but I'm going to tape a piece of paper over top of it or something so I'm not tempted to look for splits. It will take a bit of pressure of in terms of hitting certain paces and it'll prevent me from psyching myself out in case I think I'm going too fast or too slow or whatever. I have a pretty good understanding of my body, this distance, and my pacing, so I really need to trust that come race day.

This morning I took a long run, basically fasted. I woke up, drank a bottle of water and downed a Clif Shot, then headed out for my run. Details below:

Today's Workout: Long run (10-12 mi)
Summary: 11.27 mi, 1:50:29, 9:48 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:43, 9:58, 9:51, 9:54, 9:55, 9:55, 9:49, 9:50, 9:40, 9:43, 9:38, 9:27.
Hit rate: 14/16 (87.5%)

Thoughts about today: The back end (3-4 miles) were much rougher than I was expecting, and I had taken the initial 6 miles at a very relaxed effort, so it's all just a great reminder to stay in control on the way out during the race and err on the side of too easy rather than too hard. That having been said, the last couple of miles were still quick without me maxing out on the effort, which makes me confident that I'll be able to push harder than that and pull out a bigger sized negative split during the race so long as I stay relaxed during the first half.

The cadence today was fantastic. I was up above 170 consistently the first 4-5 miles and never dropped below 165 even in the later parts of the run, which is exactly what I want. I focused a lot on turnover today every time I felt myself slowing down and I think it was really important. Ideally, this is how I want to run my race on Sunday, but with a bit more edge in all my efforts. At the very least, I now know that I will be able to finish under 2:10 even when running not so seriously, so that's comforting.

I also tried not to look at my watch today, and checked only at 3 miles, 6 miles, 8 miles, and 10 miles onwards, and I still managed to hold a nice steady consistent pace, which I'm really happy with. It gives me a little bit more confidence about this whole running by feel business.

Tomorrow will be a swim only day in order to give my legs some time to recovery. Only 3 more runs left on the schedule between now and race day!

Much love,
Jess