WEEK 6 – February 1, 2016 – February 7, 2016
This week was your typical meat and potatoes week of training. I think this would be an ideal workout week for training for an Olympic distance race. It’s just a good mixture of two quality hour long swims, two easy bikes with a longer two hour Saturday ride, and three, one hour long runs and a 15 minute brick. Play with a little less and a little more distance, add some speed work to both the bike and run, and Week 6 is a great training week to build an Olympic distance plan from.
I once again had a pretty good effort this week in the pool. I find that a combination of improving my kick a little, and the fact that after 6 weeks in the pool I am starting to gain a little more arm strength, and speed and confidence in the water.
The bike again was an outdoor ride on Saturday for two hours. It was a little colder than last week, but the sun was shining brightly, and the wind was gentle. I stayed on the Old Plank Trail instead of venturing onto the back roads of southern Will County. Very little ice left on the trail, so there was nothing really to worry about.
As far as what I am wearing on these cold rides, I better note it down because I can’t remember this stuff for some reason. I start with a trisuit, a onesie as I call them. Then add calf compression sleeves. Over that I add a long sock that covers the calf, and cover that with a thin cycling ankle sock. On top I do a thermal compression long sleeve shirt on top of arm warmers. I add a long sleeve tech shirt over that, and a long sleeve cycling jersey over that. Then comes a regular cycling jersey on top to show off what kind of dumb things I am into. I wear a Headsweats head band under a balaclava, and add a thin beanie-type hat over that. For gloves I use a thin pair of running gloves under my Windstopper thick gloves. A pair of cycling booties cover my cycling shoes. And a thin layer of Vaseline on my exposed face, a trick that makes a big difference for my cheeks and nose.
After finishing the two hour long ride, I added an hour long brick run after it due to being busy on Sunday. I bonked a little after that three hour effort, which is a mistake that I consistently have to relearn every time I train for a race. Makes me realize that I need to also focus on nutrition and not wing it in training. I can’t afford those mistakes on race day, so learn from it now!
I also used my heart rate monitor for the bike ride on the long ride. I had not used it since starting the plan because I forget about it, and by the time I glance and see no reading on the bike computer for heart rate, there is no way I’m going to shed all the above clothing and put the damn thing on. But it was nice to see that for a Zone 2 ride, I was comfortably riding in that zone with not much extra effort. I think I pushed into Z3 about 6 times, only to dial it back to Z2 when the computer’s alarm sounded. A fairly easy pace at this point in the plan. I replaced the battery in the strap, as it had been in there for a while, and I will try to use it more on rides.
WEEK 6 TOTALS:
Swims: 2 total, 2 hours, 5000 yards
Bikes: 3 total, 3:45 hours, approx. 58 miles
Runs: 7 total, 3.5 hours, approx. 28 miles
an amazing run 
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