Weekend Mistake and Speed Swimming

March 10th (Day 1 Week 4) Ironman Triathlon Training

March 6th
Friday night I finished up the night doing a nice easy 90 minutes on the bike trainer I was able to keep good speed throughout the workout and finished about 27 miles. No real problems to speak of still sweating more then I want to but this could be because I don't use a fan so my body isn't getting the air resistance that it would if I was doing street ridding. During this ride I also tried just to use water on Sunday my plan was to add in Gatorade and see the difference.

March 7th
Originally my plan was to finish up my swim today and then do the bike on Sunday, this would allow me to finish all the training I was to do for the week but it would have been without a day off. Well I started reading online that you should really give yourself at least one day off a week it allows for your muscles to truly recover and will actually build strength and endurance faster. So I figured, we'll I'm training to be an endurance athlete anyway why not do my long swim and long bike on the same day. So...

March 8th
My Plan was to wake up early get my swim in come home have lunch and then go for my bike ride (it was finally supposed to be nice out so I was going to do my first outdoor ride). I woke up early to head to the gym and get my swim in but there was one problem, I couldn't find my gym back anywhere and it had all my swimming equipment in it suit, goggles, everything. Well my fiance had gone to a friends for the weekend because it was her friends birthday and on Monday she had a workshop that she needed to go to that was near her friends house so her plan was just to stay until Monday and then come home, my problem was I left my gym back in the back of her car because I had taken it to work on Friday. So now I wasn't able to do my swim, I decided to just eat my training loss and go for my bike ride. Well at just that moment the skies decided to open up and it started down pouring. I was going to try and get in a few rain day rides before the race (many experts say to train in all types of weather because race day conditions are not always pristine) but this was not going to be one of them. It was in the low 40s out and I don't really have the right rain gear to bike ride in plus it was going to be my first out door ride of the season. So I did my 120 minute ride on the trainer again. Gatorade made a big difference in the ride, it was much easier to sustain a higher tempo and I didn't even feel a bit fatigued until I passed the 90 minute mark. I could even notice a difference between when I was drinking the water during this ride and when I drank the Gatorade. When I would drink the water I could feel myself getting hydrated but when I would drink the Gatorade I could also feel my leg muscles getting energy. I know that sounds weird but have you ever been really dehydrated and drank something and you can almost feel it travel to you stomach that was the same feeling I was getting with the Gatorade but it was traveling to my Quads and Hamstrings.

March 9th
Yesterday morning daylight savings time really had my body all screwed up, I know it happened Saturday into Sunday and this was Monday but this is when I really felt it, so I didn't get a workout in because I was exhausted in the morning. When I came home from work though I headed to the gym with my fiance to get a goo swim in. I did the following set

300 WU, 400, 4x100, 300, 3x100, 200, 2x100, 3x100 CD

Each of the long swims were swam at about a 40-50% exertion and the 100s were swam at about a 80-90% exertion the last 3 100s for the cool downs were swam slower then the last.

It was amazing to me I haven't timed myself in the 100 since college and probably haven't broken 1:15 since high school (in high school my best time was 0:54:9). The first set of 100s the first 2 broke 1:15 and then the last 100 of the entire swim was at 1:10. I was dumb founded at how fast I was able to swim and this was with very little rest between sets (1 minute at the most) it felt really good to see the results in a way that I had been used to seeing them my entire life, when I was seeing a minute drop off my 1000 time it really didn't mean that much because I didn't know how to equate it but to me this was real proof of the results.

March 10th
This morning again my body just wasn't adjusted to the time change I was able to get up at 7 pretty easily, which a week ago would have been 6, but that isn't early enough to get a good workout in. Tonight I'm supposed to play in my Tuesday night poker game lets hope I get to play after being canceled the last 3 weeks.