World Triathlon Chronicles: Straight From the Training Log

It’s almost taper time! I’ll be taking off from Tucson soon. No complaints here, because I go into survival mode when temps hit 90F every day. My goggle tan is so strong I’m afraid it’s not going away for the rest of the year. Training is getting fiery too with more short, fast sessions mixed in. I’m down to the last couple weeks before my season starts at Yokohama WTCS on May 14th. After five months of straight training, the last couple weeks feel the hardest. My mood randomly flips between exhausted, excited, and pre-race nerves that always hit way too early come the first race of the year.

Since I have fuzzy athlete brain right now, I thought I’d throw up a training log. Things have looked pretty different week to week lately, so this isn’t a copy and paste template that I did on repeat. This particular week had a lot of race-pace swimming and two solid run workouts. My riding had a lighter overall load with more skill-based sessions. I’ve also noted times and how I felt in particular sessions.

The whole week is also available to view on Strava here.

April 11-17 Training Week

Totals: 23 hrs + 1 hr strength
Swim: 22500 yards
Bike: 11.5 hrs (182 miles)
Run: 4.5 hrs (36 miles)

Monday

Swim: 4450 yards, main set: 8x (25 fast @ :40, 50 easy @:50) and 8×200 at mid-aerobic effort with a rotational strong 25 @2:45
*notes: I did the 25s in 15-16 seconds. For the 200s I descended from 2:32 down to 2:26.

Tuesday

Swim: 5000 yards, main set: 7×300 at olympic distance effort @4:30
*notes: I wrote “quite blah” in my TrainingPeaks notes for this swim. I came in 3:27-3:28 for the 300s which is a couple seconds slower than I would’ve been aiming for, plus I felt terrible doing it. I hadn’t slept well the night before and was totally feeling drained.

Run: 1hr15m, main set: 5x 6 minutes around 20 seconds/mile slower than 10k effort with 1 min walking recovery
*notes: You can come back from feeling terrible! I was very surprised that my legs were actually feeling ok on this run after how I’d felt on the swim and given that it was a very windy day. Average pace was 6:05-6:08/mile. Did this up and down the Rillito path in Tucson.

Bike: 1h30m, easy spin.

Wednesday

Bike: 2hr, easy spin with 15x :20 high cadence / :40 easy

Swim: 3000 yards, main set: 1200 continuous smooth and relaxed
*notes: 15:22 for the 1200

Run: 30min, easy run

Thursday

Bike: 3hr, main set: 4x (8x :30 strong/ :30 easy but still pedaling) all on gradual uphill, descend for recovery
*notes: I didn’t lap all the 30 second intervals because sometimes I decide it’s too much work… but my normalized power for each 8-minute segment was 253w, 233w, 235w, 237w. The first rep I had thought the workout only had 3 rounds, underestimated how hard it would get, and probably blew myself up some for the following rounds.

Run: 1hr15m, easier running on a hillier route

Friday

Swim: 5000 yards, main set: 2x (6×150 at aggressive olympic distance effort @2:15, 100 easy @2:30) directly into 6×100 at aggressive olympic distance effort @1:30
*notes: thankfully felt way better than earlier in the week, 150s came in 1:40-1:42, 100s came in 1:06-1:07

Run: 30min, easy run from the pool

Mountain bike: 2hr, easy riding on some single track

Massage (the best part of training!)

Saturday

Bike: 3hr, main set: 4×12 minutes circuit practice with focus on smooth corners and getting up to speed quickly out of corners (heart rate 150-160) with 4 min recovery
*notes: I made a circuit between empty roads and parking lot that had 10x 90-degree turns and 6x u-turns in about 1.25 miles. My normalized power for the reps was only about 200w, but I was going just over 21 mph for the intervals which probably more accurately conveys the workout than the power numbers. My boyfriend rode my wheel and would only come around me during a corner if I did it poorly. And if you’re looking at this one on Strava, yes we stopped for slushies on the way home!

Swim: 3000 yards, main set: 6x 250 at low-aerobic effort @3:30, generally an easy swim

Sunday

Run: 1hr15m, main set: on the track 10x800m at 10k effort @4:00
*notes: times descended 2:54-2:50 for the first 7, then put carbon shoes on for the first time this year and went from 2:48-2:46 for the last 3 reps. Usually with these kind of workouts I’d stay within ~2 seconds range for every rep, but I hadn’t done a session like this at sea level in quite a while so was surprised where I could get down to without going over my heart rate limit.

Strength

Swim: ~2000 yards, drove to Phoenix for a technique session with a swim coach in an endless pool. Lots of work on body position.

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