Monday, September 2, 2019

Journey to Kona Day 209: Back on Track

The key word today was patience.  After hitting the proverbial wall last Thursday, today was a welcome reboot of my training.  We're in the middle of babysitting, so I needed to fit some training into the day.  I needed to do some grandpa chores this morning, so by the time I got on my bike, it was already over 80 degrees out.  My goal today was to ride my hilly neighborhood loop while keeping my wattage below 200 and my HR under 140.  I briefly bumped above both (the HR was a little harder to manage today due to the heat), but was really please with my wattage today.  It's really easy to push too hard on climbs, and I will definitely need patience at Kona to keep myself from burning "matches" too early.

The best part about today's ride was that it wasn't that much slower than most of my "easy" rides around my loop.  In fact, it was pretty much on track with most of my long ride paces.  Another lesson about consistency and moderation.  After getting home, I realized that my daughter was occupying my grandson, so there was time for a short run.  My legs were definitely a little "out of practice," but I quickly decided it was time to run a 1.8 mile extremely hilly loop near my house.  Of course, it was 85 degrees, and the humidity was 50%.  I didn't worry about my heart rate too much, except to walk on the steepest parts of the loop, when my heart rate exceeded 150 bpm.  Before I knew it, I had run for 3 miles, with plenty of climbing.

The best part of today is the feeling that I'm back on track.  Over the past four days I did very little training, focusing on getting sleep and starting our babysitting gig.  I had originally planned for a high volume week last week, but that plan went out the window on Thursday when I hit the wall.  I have always assumed that this week will be relatively low in volume while we're babysitting, but I'm now wondering what I can accomplish if I am dedicated to keeping my efforts in check and just making sure that I put some workout time in every day.  My longstanding struggle, as my coach knows, is that I tend to need to include some intensity in my workouts, but those ultimately reduce the total volume that I'm able to absorb.  I'll try to absorb volume this week.  I've even entertained the idea of trying to run every day, although that may not work the day after my Wednesday long run.  We'll see what happens.  No matter what, I'm feeling back on track.

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