Week 2.
The first bike workout of the week was my first interval workout with measured power. The goal was 8 x 20-second intervals at 200% of FTP. I was able to ride the intervals at almost 300% of FTP (almost 600 Watts), so I was happy with that! I rode this in the morning before work and I spent the next few hours really wanting to go work out again.
I ran a lap around the lake and it felt great. I run by heart rate, so I rarely look at my pace. Every mile my watch tells me how fast the last mile was and I was surprised at how fast my miles were given the heart rate I was holding. After the first run of the week, my Garmin-estimated VO2-max was the highest it’s ever been, matching my peak from around the time of Ironman Boulder 2015.
I started the last bike workout of the week at the planned intensity, but it felt like I was soft pedaling. So I bumped it up to 10% higher than the training plan indicates. It was still pretty comfortable. But since I had a brick run coming up, I decided not to push it any further. This was the same workout I did mid-last week. I did it at 8% higher average power at the same average heart rate. Decent improvement for about 10 days. Let’s hope it sticks!
I was able to do the brick run at 10 min/mi pace in a low Zone 3 heart rate on the hills of my neighborhood. About the same as my run around the lake earlier in the week, but this one was preceded by about an hour and a half on the bike.
I’m about 6% of the way done with my training and I’ve already improved my running and cycling a bit. I feel like I have a real shot at breaking 12 hours. I know I’ve got a really small sample size right now and there will be setbacks along the way, but things are going the right direction now, so I’ll take the tailwind.
Week 2: 3250yd/1h41m swimming; 48.3mi/3h15m cycling; 5.7mi/0h57m running; 2900 calories
Cumulative: 4950yd/2h41m swimming; 131.5mi/9h0m cycling; 8.8mi/1h34m running; 6400 calories