Tidbits...

Lots of little tidbits going through my head lately but I'm not going to put them all in here... too boring and I don't really have the time.

Training has been going well. I continue to hit the pool very hard. Every time in the water is tough with my swim workouts from coach reading "ALL OUT" a lot. I'm doing between 15K and 19K yards a week and my body is feeling it. In the first 2 weeks of this, I made huge progress on times, but then I think the volume caught up with me. Over the last two weeks, it seems that the only pace I can swim is about a 1:30 100. This is a pretty good pace for me and I'm learning to swim this pace more consistently, but no matter how hard I push, it's still only like 1:28 per 100 yds. I think I've hit a little mini-plateau.

I had lunch with Coach yesterday to talk about a whole bunch of things (but that's another post), and with respect to the swimming effort, we decided to hit it hard for 3-4 weeks at a time and then take a recovery week. I think I'll do one more week hard next week and then do an easier week with 9-10K yards to let my body catch up. Then start the cycle over again. I did manage a 15:33 1000 yd TT compared to a 15:58 when I started this process less than a month ago. 2.5% in 21 days is pretty good, but I haven't been making progress beyond that in spite of the hard work. I am sure it will continue to come though.

On the bike, I have hit it pretty hard, too, doing 3 quality rides a week. One set of intervals on the trainer, one power/spin workout, and one long ride with lots of hills. My most recent test on the bike was a 12:36 compared to a 13:15 with 313 watts compared to 298 watts average. That was after 3 weeks, too. I'm going to keep at it on the bike and in the pool and see how it goes.

In addition, I feel like I FINALLY have my running legs back. I did a ~10 miler this morning with hills and it wasn't that hard at all. Plus, I didn't have any sort of weird feelings in my hamstring or with my stride the way I have been since a few weeks before Louisville. Sort of makes me wonder if doing 4 20+ mile runs leading into L'ville was too much. Maybe I should have more of a bike focus. I'll have to have that discussion with Coach sometime soon.

In other news, my wife did a half-marathon this past weekend and is doing another this weekend. Last weekend was the Nike Women's half to benefit the Leukemia Society and she ran it with a friend. The goal was not to go fast, but this weekend, we are going to see where she is at with respect to getting back from her injury after the last marathon she did in July. I am anxious to see how she can do.