Oh sweet cut back week. You were fabulous while you lasted. Short swims, hardly any running, and coincidentally a pretty easy week at crossfit as well. It was exactly the break I needed as I ramp things up into peak training these next two weeks (ummm, it’s already begun, and it is hard already!). Here’s a look at how last week went down.
Mon AM: 45 min swim. I am seeing a lot of improvements in the pool! I made it 1700 yards in the 45 minutes which is the fastest I had ever gone to this point. Spoiler alert: I was a little faster on Thursday. 
The first time I swam a mile it took me 55 minutes, and I got 100 yards short in 45 minutes! Not too shabby, eh?
Mon AM: Crossfit. Today was one of those “Do all of this crap in 45 minutes, or as much of it as possible…” We had 3 x 200 meter run (we had an option of running or rowing 250 and obviously I chose running) / 30 pull ups (I did jumping pull ups with a box) // 400 meter run / 30 snatch / 400 meter run / 30 over head squats / 400 meter run / 30 clean & jerk /400 meter run / 30 push press / 400 meter run / 30 front squats. I finished in 40 minutes (even including a bathroom break!). I felt awesome during this workout. I mean, I was exhausted, but I just felt like I was busting through everything. Rx for the lifts was 65 lbs. For the first two, I used 45, but then the coach told me to bump it up and I used 55 for the rest.
Tues AM: Crossfit. Today we were finding out dead lift 1 rep max. The nice thing about the first time you find your max is that it’s an automatic pr, but the less than awesome thing about thinking you have really strong legs and expecting a lot out of yourself is that you end up a little disappointed. I maxed out at 185 and it was RIDICULOUSLY hard. Like I lifted that weight so slowly and was shaking and I’m not 100% sure I could do it again. I realized that while my legs might be strong, my lower back is…not. At all. Oh well, I know it wasn’t that bad, and I will only get stronger!
Tues PM: 90 min bike. This workout should have been so easy, but instead it was just so funny.
Right before we left Nicole and I both got a dust storm warning on our phones, but we looked outside and thought it looked perfectly fine. I left my phone at home, but as the ride went on, Nicole must have gotten at least 3 more warnings, and then about 40 minutes in, we look up and all the sudden the sky looks like this:
Notice how half the sky looks totally normal, and the other half looks like the inside of a vacuum?
Then we turned around and went into the 17-20 mph headwind and we were going so freaking slowly that all we could do was laugh. We ended up only going for 1:24 and we made it almost 19 miles which would normally be really depressing, but it was one of those days where we just had to be happy that we made it through alive, haha.
Wed AM: Track.
This was awesome! Super confidence building and surprising! We had 1600 / 1200 / 800 / 400 / 200 (+ warm up and cool down). The 1600 was supposed to be at 10k pace and then get faster from there. We ended up doing them at 9:00 / 8:45 / 8:14 / 7:19 / 5:32 <—I don’t even know what happened there, but I have never seen a 5 in the minutes place before. It was only 200 meters, but it still made me feel pretty awesome. The best part of track? The rides home when Nicole and I are all hopped up on lack of sleep and runner’s high. Last week we literally blasted I Love It and sang and danced along in the car. This week I think it was High School Musical? I don’t remember, but I wish someone had video taped us blasting I Love It that first week because it was just…one of those moments.
Thurs AM: 30 min swim. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to push myself or take it easy, but after the first couple hundred yards, I decided it was time to get to work, and I logged my fastest swim to date! 1200 yards in 30 minutes! I know, I know…it’s still slow, but it is huge progress for me!
Thurs PM: Crossfit. This month we’ve been doing a lot of dead lifts and push press, so this week was 1 rep maxes for both of them. It’s funny how much your expectations effect your attitude about the result. Here, I expected to be super low because I have next to no upper body strength, but I just kept adding and adding to my barbel until I nailed 120 pounds. I couldn’t even believe it! I felt so awesome and super proud of myself. I’d even had a pretty crappy day, but it totally changed my mood and lifted my spirits! I love how working out does that!
Fri AM: 1 hour bike intervals. This ride was all over the place. There was a really strong headwind going east, so we had intervals as slow as 15.9 and as high as 21.1. I ended up with 16.67 miles in 1:06.
Fri PM: Dance. Totally counting it as a workout since I was a sweaty beast (as always) by the end. My friend Molly teaches an adult musical theatre dance class on Friday evenings that I’ve been meaning to get to, and I finally went and had a blast! I miss dancing. It was great to remind myself of the muscles that haven’t been used in a while and get to do my very favorite physical activity.
Sat: Rest.
Sun AM: 26 mile bike ride. My plan actually called for 2 rest days (since there was no long run) this week, but I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to spend Sunday morning riding with Steve. We just kept the pace easy, but I was kind of a mess. I had fallen on Friday trying to turn my bike around with one foot clipped in and my seat had gotten messed up. The height was off and literally ALL OF MY LIMBS were asleep. Everything other than my core was tingling, so it was less than pleasant. Just one more reason why bike fit is so important!
I don’t even know when I took this, but it’s pretty.
Totals: 9 workouts, 9 hours of training (+ 1 hour and 15 minutes of FUN!), 68 miles (6 miles running, 68 miles cycling, 2,900 yards swimming).
Favorite workout: This was a really good week, but I’d have to say it’s a tie between dance class, track and push press crossfit day.
Quote of the week: Something about dusty boogers…
Most embarrassing moment: Falling off my bike for basically no reason. Story of my life.
Most hilarious workout: Definitely the dust storm ride.
YOUR TURN! Tell me about your training! Fav workout? Worst workout? Most embarrassing? Most hilarious?