Two Long Days

I was originally supposed to be traveling on business this coming week and leaving Sunday, so I re-arranged my training schedule. I put my 2 long days on Thursday and Friday. So on Thursday, I did an hour on the trainer followed by a 12 mile run in 90 minutes with big hills. I was tired, but it was a pretty strong run. I did all of that before work. Then, at lunch, I did my 3000 yd swim and decided to experiment with bilateral breathing. I have always been a one-side breather on every-other stroke (what can I say, I am not a "real" swimmer... I don't do flip-turns either). I decided to spend 400 of my drills doing bilateral breathing every 3rd stroke. Every single 100 of that set was 1:26. I have never seen 1:26 before; usually my 100s are around 1:30-1:34 or somewhere in that range depending on what else I'm doing. It was a good day.

Then on Friday, I took the day off work and since the in-laws are in town, I took advantage of the playmates for the kids and went off on my long training day. I went to the pool first thing and did 3000 yds again. Then, I get on my bike and headed out for my long ride. I was hoping the rain would die down, but the first 2 hours were pretty miserable. Fortunately, I was at least prepared with booties, two pairs of gloves, and my jacket. I was scheduled for 65 miles and about 1.5 hours in, I was about to cut it short because I was absolutely sick of the hard-driving rain. Then, it started clearing and my mood improved. I finished off the ride, with hills, in 3:45 or so. I got off the bike, changed quickly and headed our for my hour run. I didn't feel great, but I was still cruising along and ended up doing 7.9 miles in 58 minutes. So even on my runs after long rides, I was still hitting 7:20 per mile and I felt like I was going fairly slow. My running off the bike is definitely getting much stronger.

Now, I am not traveling for business this coming week, so I'm really looking forward to another good week of training.