Target Practice

I like to play little games with myself on bikes and runs. Makes the time pass by faster and I tend to push harder. One of them is something I call "target practice." Basically, I see a cyclist or runner out in front of me, and it's my goal to catch that person and leave him/her/them in the dust. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail miserably. Well, today, I was on fire! I passed about five people and/or groups on my bike ride. Maybe it's cause I got a late start and all the fast morning-ride guys were already done. Oh well, I was happy.

Then on my T-run, I had a hard target to catch about 4 miles in. He was probably 2-3 minutes ahead of me and running at the same pace, so I had to pick it up if I wanted to get him. It took a while, but I was successful! Passed him, held a good lead, then I think I fired him up and he sped up and started pacing off me, which made me run farther than I planned. Got in about 7 miles and it was the best T-run I've ever had after a decently long/fast bike. I averaged 7:30-min miles on a hilly run, which is an improvement from past T-runs.

On top of that, I put in a hard week of work trianing-wise. I was logging in my weekly totals and was impressed! I got in four swims, three bikes, four runs, three strength-training sessions and multiple stretching sessions. Although I didn't log in major mileage (or time) in any one workout, I did more workouts at harder intensities across in all the sports, and my total mileage was just about where I wanted it, including an intended increase in swimming yardage (about 9,000 yds). I had to miss one scheduled run due to majorly sore legs from a killer weight session, but oh well, learned my lesson.

I was reading Matt Fitzgerald's plan for IMAZ training, and he's doing something similar - "spend as little time training as necessary to achieve [his] goal." This entails about 12 workouts a week that are generally shorter and harder rather than fewer total workouts that are longer and drawn out. His reasoning is that he wants to keep his wife (haha), but from my single-girl point of view, I kind of like this approach, it's nice to work out A LOT and still have time for the rest of my life. I think my longest training sess was today - about 3 hours for my bike-run. I may switch up the weeks because I think getting in 70+ mile rides with long T-runs is important, but it's fun playing around with training. I don't get bored.

PS - Congrats to everyone who raced this weekend. I checked out some of the Wildflower times and was super impressed and proud of the people I know of who competed, way to rock it out there!!