Week in review Feb. 3-9: Training ebb and flow, ice and snow

Lots of trainer riding, and some other stuff too.

I started out last week great, petered out a bit, had a strong Saturday due to being a hermit, and then fell off Sunday due to family being in town and a snowstorm.

Try as I might, I couldn’t squeeze in my workouts around everything else that needed to be done, so Sunday ended up a rest day. But that’s OK. I was still a bit sore from weights the day before, and I got to hang out with loved ones, and meet my new “nephew” (sister’s best friend’s kiddo), so it was all worth it in the end.

I was kind of beating myself up Sunday evening, telling myself I should have gotten up early to run, I should have gone grocery shopping Saturday night instead of Sunday afternoon, I should have done this, I should have done that. But I did a lot of fun stuff and had some quality rest time, too: I baked chocolate pumpkin bread and cookies, I watched a few episodes of The Crown, I cuddled with the mutts, I slept in a bit both weekend days, I enjoyed a rare hour of sunshine in the living room with my coffee Sunday morning. I could have squeezed something else in but I also need to remember that I’m not a machine and do need some down time.

I’m not unhappy with how the week shook out, as it was still pretty solid:

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 63.5 fake trainer miles in a hair longer than 4 hours. There was nothing remarkable about this: It was two, 1-hour long rides after work, and a 2-hour long ride on Saturday. I finished Derry Girls and started Cheer. My knees didn’t hurt. Everything was fine.

Swim: Twice, both in the pool, for 1600 meters + 1750 yards (about 1 mile each for 2 miles total) in about 1:38. I’m still pretty slow, and I’m still doing a lot of even slower drills (I’m sure I alarmed the lifeguard during my one-handed drills on Friday), but I am getting in the yardage/meterage here and there, so I’m counting it as a success. After I had to stop my swim a bit early last week for foot and calf cramps at the very end, I think I’m going to keep these at about a mile for now.

Friday’s swim also included 20 minutes straight to see if I could do it … because that is the length of the swim in the indoor triathlon I got coerced/talked into signing up for this coming weekend. It’s been 8 YEARS since I’ve done one of these. Stay tuned.

Run: Twice, both on the treadmill, for 8 miles in slightly less than an hour and a half. Nothing flashy here, just me trying to get back into the swing of things after a tender knee took me out for about a week. I really would have liked to do a “long” run yesterday, Sunday, and maybe I should have forced myself to get up early and do it before it started snowing and family and friends came into town, but… yuck. I enjoyed a good night’s sleep and a nice breakfast instead.

Weights: One round of my heavy/body routine for about 1:15. I was able to bump up some weight here and there and add a pullup and pushup here and there, and am still a little sore two days later, so I consider this one a success.

PT: Two rounds of my homework and then rolling out my quads and calves for about 1:10 total.

Total: 10 sessions in just longer than 9.5 hours. Considering I had a full day off, that is GREAT for me. I would have liked to do a bit of yoga Sunday evening, but I was already pressed for time trying to finish prepping food for the week after racing home from the family get-together, and it didn’t happen. The silver lining to a rest day on Sunday is that my legs aren’t THAT tired today, so that’s a small win there.

My plan is to take it easier tonight, finish some stuff around the house, and get a good night’s sleep. Hopefully that will propel me into another good week. Sadly, there is more ice and snow predicted, so I'm going to try to front-load the week again. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully I can stay out of the snow and ice for another week!