7...

After a recovery week from training, tonnes of sleep, a much needed weekend off work, catching up on my (much neglected) study & lots of chocolate, I actually felt human again at the start of the week.

Mon: Headed out at 6am for a run. Covered 5km including a walk to warm-up & cool down with 3 x 9min runs w/90sec walk recovery in 35:39. I still wouldn't say that running is comfortable but its getting closer. Unfortunately some tightness crept into my left hip (my old nemesis) later in the day. Bah humbug.

After work I made it to swim squad for the first time in a couple of weeks. Finished the session with about 3.1km in total; my longest swim in quite a while. I've got some work to do in the next 8 weeks...

Tue: a scheduled rest day. But given how uncertain and busy work has been of late, I decided to get my sessions done when I can. So I headed to the gym at lunch for my strength session. Glutes & legs very unhappy with me afterwards.

Wed: packed up work at 10pm last night so that I could get up in time to get this session done at 5am :-0

71mins bike session on the windtrainer including 3 x 12min of low cadence, simulated hill climbing. As I write this on Sunday, I had forgotten exactly how far this was but 28.4km is ringing a bell for some reason...

Thu: another day, another run. Same session as Monday in fact; covered 5km including a (walk) warm-up and 3 x 9mins run w/90sec walk recovery in under 37mins. Hip pulled up a bit tight later in the day. Bah humbug. I also had to run the last 9min interval without my glasses on as I managed to fog them up thanks to a combination of a pea soup fog & my heavy, rather laboured breathing. Somehow I managed not to fall over; it was a close call though.

Then it was off to the pool at work at lunch for a swim which included another 10 x 100m on 2:10 (in addition to the 10 x 100m on 2:10 I did on Monday night at squad). I was pleased with my splits for this swim. They were very consistent & give me some confidence that I'm not going to drown at Yeppoon ;-) 2.6k in total

Fri: 45mins pilates with Carly.

Sat: 2hr ride on the program for today so I decided to head to Richmond and back. This has become my standard 'short/long ride' as it is a relatively flat route but with large sections of dead road surface like the Yeppoon course. I really struggled to get myself out of bed - even at 8.30am - to do this after another long week and working until 11pm last night. But I'm very glad that I did. It was one of those sessions when you get a glimpse of the fact that all the hard work might just be paying off. I managed to keep up a good pace throughout the whole ride, helped by the fact that there was no head wind coming home (a head wind is common on the return trip). Finished with 47.6k in 1:58. Av. 24.2k/h!

Sun: t'was a bit of a struggle to get out of bed for this session on a cold morning. The (revised) program said a 4:15 to 4:30 ride at a maximum of 95km. Today's route was a tough one (for me) - Lapstone Hill (ouch!) to Blaxland, down the hill via Mitchells Pass, back onto the M4 then onto Mulgoa Road (which is a dead surface) and then out & back along Greendale Rd (more dead surface) and then home via the Northern Rd.

This was the first time I've ridden Lapstone Hill on my second ride of the weekend; I've always done it as my first ride on fresh legs. I also don't think that I've spent as much time on dead surfaces as I did today; it really messes with your head & body. Finished with 90.3km in 4:12. Av. 21.4k/h

I'm feeling rather tired this afternoon while I type this. No chance for a nana nap though, I have to work before heading over to Ma & Pa's for a baked dinner tonight :-) But I am pleased with my week. I've managed to do all of my programmed sessions for the first time in a long time - almost 12 hours training in total!

MTD:
Swim - 11.7km
Bike - 542.2km (no wonder I'm tired!)