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

Soreness and compromise

The rest day was not as relaxing as I would have liked. It was a pretty non-hectic day though which I appreciated. I still woke up pretty early and basically just chilled in the morning. Had a long school day (9-4) but a good chunk of time to stretch and take care of some chores and errands before dinner which was nice. I went to bed later than I would have liked, but it wasn't a huge deal. The main complaint I have about yesterday was that the gym wrecked my body pretty hard. In all honesty, I've had worse before, but even this is pretty bad. I'm expecting most post-lift days to feel like this, maybe slightly better once I get into the swing of things, but overall I'm going to have to learn how to manage with the soreness.

This morning's masters practice was pretty brutal. Our lane leader was really fast and the main set turned into a lot of "just turn at every wall" and I wasn't getting much out of that so I skipped a few things in order to get rest and try to improve the quality of the rest of my swim. I was pretty drained today. Between the continuing soreness and my inability to get any food in my body this morning, it was an exhausting ordeal. I did the best I could though and even with the skipped 300 total meters, it was a 3500 LCM workout, so I'm not going to berate myself too much. I made the best I could have out of a non-ideal situation and I showed up despite feeling exhausted and sore and under-motivated, so I will give myself credit for that and forgive myself for being imperfect. I have to remind myself sometimes not to accuse myself of always making excuses: real valid situations get in the way of your performance sometimes and what's important is to try and do the best you can given the cards you're dealt.

Today's AM Workout: CSP practice, IM day.
Summary:

• WU: 500 swim
• Pre-set:
• 4 x 150 IMO kick/drill/swim by 50
• 4 x 200 rotate 50 stroke IMO and free
• Fly/free/free/free, free/back/free/free, free/free/breast/free, all free
• 6 x 50 free @ :55, 2 fast, 1 easy
• Main Set: pace times were just sort of whatever we could do…
• 200 IM
• 2 x 100 free - I only did 1
• 200 IM
• 4 x 50 free
• 200 free - I only did 100
• 2 x 100 IM
• 200 free
• 4 x 50 IMO - I only did 2
• WD: nope, no time…
• Total Distance: 3500 LCM (3800 as written)

Hit rate: 31/33 (93.9%)

The plan was to do an interval trainer ride followed by a transition run this afternoon/evening but that's probably not going to happen. I think if I put that kind of load on my legs today, I'd be asking for an injury. The temporary plan is just to do the interval ride portion of the workout. Although I may swap the real workout for just a steady state ride (indoors or out) to clear some of the gunk out of my legs because they are still really hurting. We'll see how I feel as the day progresses and how much time I really have in the evening after school today. Trying to make the best out of what I've got. I'm proud of myself for plowing onwards despite it all. (:

Much love,

Jess