Week in review July 22-28: Hot and hermit-ing

Not a bad mix of activities.

Last week was pretty good. I did a nice round of my typical training plus a few extras, spent some time relaxing at the pool and eating barbecue with friends, and otherwise quietly flew under the radar for the week. I had my usual work and not-enough-sleep stressors, but making sure I had a decent training week really helped to alleviate some of that extra tension.

I did a couple of fun things, like try a new Trainer Road ride (I need to do this more often instead of rotating my three favorites), go to barre class, ride outside, and sneak out of work early Friday for a speedy-ish run. My Saturday outdoor ride was windy and hot, but at least that kept the little kids and most of the casual riders off the route.

I didn’t get to do anything beyond a long-ish run yesterday (Sunday), but lounging away part of a summer afternoon and eating too many ribs counts as rest and recovery, right? And my running seems to be coming along: I haven’t had any hamstring pain in a while, knock on wood, and have progressed with my “slightly faster than normal” and “slightly longer than normal” runs.

All in all, not spectacular, but a decently solid week. By the numbers:

Bike: Three times, twice on the trainer and once on the road, for 31.25 fake trainer miles and 25.25 road miles in about 3:44. The trainer rides were a new, fun one and later an old reliable when I was exhausted and didn’t want to think too much, and the road ride was shorter than I would have liked but it still felt good to get outside in the fresh air on two wheels.

PT: Twice, both home exercise sessions, for about 2 hours. This included one day of everything for my knee and hamstrings, and one day for just my hamstrings.

Run/Walk: Three times, all on the road, for one easy, one speed-ish (slightly faster run intervals), and one long-ish (one extra running interval) for 9.8 miles in about 1:53. Never did I think I would be excited to run almost 10 miles in one week (haha) but I feel like I’m getting there, slowly but surely. I was able to maintain somewhere between 5K and 10K pace on the speedy intervals and Sunday was my fastest “long run” pace for the month, even with the heat and humidity, so I’ll take that as a win.

Weights: One barre class for about an hour.

Total: 9 sessions for about 8:37. Sneaking out of work early on Friday definitely helped, as did having no plans until Sunday afternoon. I do much better with squeezing in training when I can live life like a hermit, haha.

This week, we are supposed to have much milder temperatures, so the runs should be a little less brutal. It’s also looking like my week is light on the evening plans, so I am hoping for a good amount of training, hermiting, healthy eating and food prep, and some quiet time before bed. It’s only Monday, so there are plenty of chances for things to go awry, but I have high hopes for another pretty good week.