The Rest of the Week . . . After my humbling experience on the hills of Lost Creek on Wednesday, the rest of the week was a piece of cake . . . or maybe not!

Swim practice on Wednesday was not too bad. We warmed up with a 600 that was 50-drill, 50-kick, 100-swim (done 3 times). Then, we did a ladder set of 12 x (50+25), in which we did the 50 and the 25 on the same interval and decreased the interval by 5 seconds for each of the first 6 sets, and then increased the interval by 5 seconds for each of the second 6 sets. The 50s were to be swum steady, focusing on stroke form and breathing. The 25 was to be swum hard. The long and short of it was that we'd have lots of rest on the 25s, but less and less on the 50s for the first 6 sets, and then increasingly more rest to finish up the set. Here's an example:

The lane I swam in swam the first set on a 1:05 interval, meaning that we had 1:05 to swim the 50, and then 1:05 to swim the hard 25. The second set, we dropped to a 1:00 interval, etc., down until we hit a 40-second interval for the sixth set (that was rough on the 50!). Then, we did the seventh set on a 40-second interval, the eighth on a 45-second interval, the ninth on a 50-second interval, etc., on back up to a 1:05 interval on the last one. It was a bit complicated keeping the time accurately, but the drill was good.

Finally, we ended with a 300 pull. I got leg cramps about 175 meters into it (probably from the Lost Creek hill climbs!), but I worked them out and finished up.

Thursday, March 8

Thursday was a double workout too. I did a very easy 20-miles on the bike, very few hills and an easy spin to work out the soreness from my legs. The bike ride was uneventful, except for the wind, so the spin wasn't as easy as I'd have liked. Regardless, it was nice.

The real workout was after work with Texas Iron. Thursday was a run day, so we met at Jack & Adam's Bicycles on Barton Springs at 6:00. Then, we did a 15-minute warm-up run over to the Town Lake trail and followed it over to the Zilker Park soccer fields. Once there, we did our drills and strides to warm up a bit more, and then did a surprisingly tough speed workout. The main set consisted of a very simple exercise. We started at one end of the road and had to run toward the other end as hard as we could for one minute. Then, we got to rest for one minute, turn around, and run back the other way as hard as we could for one minute. We did this 10 times. It was quite tiring, and my legs are pretty sore even today, 2 days later. I'm surprised I could run back to Jack & Adam's, but I did.

Friday, March 9

This was another bike day. I rode out with my friend Jason and we did the route from MoPac to Southwest Parkway, up to Barton Creek Road. Then, we turned on Lost Creek and did half of the hills we had done on Wednesday. It was hard, but not as bad as Wednesday, because we only did half as many hills, and because we had a nice warm-up spin before we got there. I wasn't nearly as tired after this route. It was an additional 26 miles to the weekly total.

Saturday, March 10

Today was a short ride-run brick. After taking Lisa and her mom to the airport for their trip to Pennsylvania, I came home and jumped on the bike for a 20-mile flat ride from home, down to Lakeline Mall and back via Crystal Falls Pkwy and Lakeline Blvd. My legs were still very sore from the previous two days, so I just tried to spin easy and work the soreness out. Of course, since it's March, it was pretty windy, so the effort was harder than I had hoped.

The worse part was the run after. Sadly, because my legs were so sore from Wednesday and Thursday, the run after the bike was pretty pathetic. I only went 2 miles and my back was a bit sore. Even worse, my legs felt like 2-ton weights and I couldn't take normal strides. My last few bricks weren't so bad, but then, I haven't been this sore in a while, either. Perhaps it's all normal, but this is the part of the training I hate . . . the pain before I get more used to it. At least, I'm liking the fact that I'm back on the bike more regularly.

On a related note, I'm closing in on 2000 miles on the bike since August. That's not great, but it's not too shabby either. I expect I'll hit the 2000-mile mark sometime this weekend, as I've got rides planned for today and tomorrow. Today will be a long ride, short run brick workout. Tomorrow will be a long ride with my friend Shelley and her workout group.

One last bike-related note . . . my Colnago road bike frame finally arrived and the bike is at the shop to be built up. I'm told I should have it by Wednesday, and, although I love my Guru tri bike, it'll be nice to have a road bike again.