The week started as always with a Monday morning swim. For once it went really well — no surprise, since I’d barely trained the day before. Tuesday started very early with a 1.5-hour easy bike ride and ended very late with a 1.5-hour fast run. The 10s were back on the program — they start out fairly easy but get increasingly brutal as they go on. They did their job: the next day not much was working. ...
Last week started Monday morning with a one-hour swim that got harder toward the end than originally planned. Not surprising — I was nowhere near fully recovered from the efforts of the day before. On Tuesday I tried a run format I’d never done before: 100 minutes split into 10 blocks of 10 minutes each. Every block consisted of an easy portion and a tempo run segment, with the duration varying throughout. I started with 9 minutes easy and 1 minute at tempo, the second block was 8 minutes easy and 2 minutes tempo… all the way to the final block: 1 minute easy and 9 minutes at tempo. That was pretty brutal toward the end, due in part to the weather. The last 30 minutes I got absolutely drenched and arrived home soaked through. The 1.5-hour bike ride later that day was doable in dry conditions — more of a recovery spin. ...
The week started Monday with an easy swim — legs and arms were still pretty beat from Challenge Kraichgau. In hindsight I could have saved myself the trip, since I lost my swim cap, goggles, and swim watch at the pool. The first two I can live with — I have more than enough swim caps and the goggles were already well-worn… but the good swim watch, that really wasn’t necessary. ...