Weekly workouts – rolling strong

This week was a bit different for me.  I had to work all week!  It was a big difference from my typical 2 days a week gig.  It’s been a while since I’ve needed to make adjustments to my workouts based on work start time so that was a bit challenging.  Given the option of getting up extra early, I opted to just skip some workouts!  Right now my training plan is going to focus on adding more recovery and cross training. As much as I hoped my glute/hamstring pain would go away if I ignored it, I did end up investigating the issue this week and I’m convinced it’s the dreaded Piriformis pain.  Also, I was reminded that it could be overstretched, so I am avoiding stretching it and working on strengthening it (clamshells & bridges).  Fingers crossed recovery doesn’t take forever, like it has in the past. Miles run this week = 24.5, miles biked this week = 124(!!). Let’s get into it…

Mon – 4 “easy” miles.  Is anything ever easy in the heat??  I was going to run on my treadmill but when I opened the window to check the temperature outside, I heard birds chirping and figured why not give it a go outside!  It was a sweaty one #sportsbrasquad

Tues – Bike, swim, bike!  With temps in the 90’s it was definitely the day for something OTHER than running.  I started with an early ride.  22 miles before work.  Perfect morning for it! Then coffee and work email on the patio.

On my lunch hour I swam some laps in our pool.  The water temperature was 89 degrees!  I have no idea how far I swam, but 15 mins was a good enough workout for me [I almost died of boredom!!].  It was interesting because my glute didn’t hurt until I did the breaststroke.  The motion of moving my leg out in that direction caused pain!  This is what led me to investigate the area of pain.  I kept doing it slow because I thought maybe it was good exercise for it.  Sad part of my swim – despite wearing a swim cap, my hair was completely soaked.  Wet hair is the bad part about swimming!

27 miles biking – Tuesdays are Ladies Ride night!  Since it was 93 degrees I thought we might pass on the ride since my husband and son have a challenging group ride.  Even though they had plans to ride on their own, they ended up talking to the group as they passed by and were convinced to join the group because they “would go slower”.  hahaha!  Of course they didn’t.  Our ladies ride was very pleasant in the heat, rolling through the shade, and the guys ride was grueling, with avg speed of 20.5.  oof!

Weds – Rest day!  It’s Zach’s 20th birthday, so I was in charge of pancake making and my husband picked up his Starbucks birthday drink. Lucky guy! We also went out for dinner to celebrate. We are actually the lucky ones to have him in our lives ❤️

Thurs – 5 miles, tempo run.  Written plan was miles 2-4 as marathon pace miles.  Ok, sure, whatever pace that is!  The fun part about doing this run so early in the training plan is that it acts as a baseline which can be referred to in later weeks.  The pace was decent enough, especially considering the humidity.  I even had one mile with an 8:xx.  Wow!  I got to run on a new path that is being built near my home.  I’m not sure if they will pave it, but at least it gets me off the busy street.

28 miles, biking – Group ride night!  This week we decided to bike to the group ride, which is 6 miles from our house.  This was a great idea, until my husband got a flat just a few miles into the group ride!!  Upon inspection it turns out that it was TWO flat tires.  Doh!  Luckily our daughter was able to come pick him up since he only had one spare tube.  For the rest of us on the ride, it started out a bit sketchy because we had a big group (17 people) and it was sprinkling.  I’m always concerned about the roads being slippery when it rains.  Due to the questionable weather, a few pace groups were grouped together which resulted in a bigger and faster ride.  We were flying!  I am trying to improve my cycling by increasing my cadence.  The optimal cadence is between 80-100 and I’m usually closer to 60! I ended up with an average of 74.  I don’t know if it was the cadence or the weather, but this ride felt easy despite having an average speed of 18.3 mph during the group portion.  Well ok, it could have been me drafting in the big group 😉 So fun!  I will continue to work on my cadence.

It’s great to have two experienced bike techs at the house (daughter’s boyfriend and Zach). They changed the flat tires in no time!

Fri – 3.3 mile run.  Another sweaty humid morning!

Sat – 12 miles, long run.  My plan was to get up early and knock this out to avoid the heat.  I also wanted to catch the sunrise at the river.  I almost made it!  Close enough, I was rewarded with some beautiful views.  I was soaked in sweat at the end of this run.  

I tried a “new to me” Starbucks drink – an Iced Horchata Oakmilk Shaken Espresso.  YUMMMM.   This one is one of my top 5 favorite drinks for sure!

30 mile bike ride.  My husband and I went out for a ride in the midday.  Guess what?  It was hot then too (84 degrees)! 🙂  No pictures were taken because we tried to avoid standing still.  I used the feature on Strava to come up with a route for me and I think it did a good job creating one. Avg cadence was 76 on this, increased a little!

Sun – planned 16 miles, biking. We are biking to a diner for breakfast. If pancakes are involved, it’s easy to talk our daughter into joining us 🙂

On Monday we dropped off our litter of “coffee” named kittens and of course we brought home another litter to foster!  They were described as “hissy”. The group of three are the most adorable fuzzballs!  So scared, and yes, hissy.  We are working on it!  The first night they woke me up at 3:30 am crying.  Oh man.  The little tabby is not eating well, so that’s another one of our challenges this week.   It’s always something!

Need some more inspiration? I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Check out all of the fun blogs there!

Q: Do you ever use biking cadence as a performance stat?

Q: Are you a fan of Horchatas?