Share a Build Week: Day 1

I shared a good workout on Facebook about a week ago and as I did, I realized I only share the good workouts.  I don't do that intentionally...or should I say consciously.  The easy ones don't seem interesting enough to share.  But as I thought about it more, I realized they might be more interesting than I think because they complete the plan.  They fill in the gaps.  Maybe other people would find it interesting to see exactly what I do to prepare for an Ironman, instead of just seeing bits and pieces of what I do.   

So I decided last week that I would share an entire week of workouts.  For better or worse, I'm going to share the entire week.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  I'm going to share it all, every workout, even if I blow up and the workout is a complete disaster.  I've been blogging about my training since I signed up for my first Ironman (IMWI 2008), and I don't think I've ever shared an entire week's worth of workouts.  

To give you a little background on where I'm at this week, I'm in week 3 of my last full build cycle for Kona.  I do 3 big weeks followed by a recovery week.  My weeks run Monday through Sunday.  In the past 28 days, I've biked about 850 miles, run roughly 160 miles and swam about 42,000 yards (24 miles).  Saturday, I biked 100 miles.  Sunday, I swam 3.75 miles and then went for a hilly 17 mile run in the evening. Today, Monday, I'm tired like I am every Monday.


Aside from this being a big week, it's a tough week at work so this isn't going to be an easy week for me.  My entire job revolves around our month-end sales meeting, a 4-5 hour meeting where we go over the forecast for all of our major accounts.  That's Wednesday.  Monday and Tuesday is filled with meetings to prepare for the Wednesday meeting.  It makes for 3 busy, stressful, tiring days that sometimes force me to alter my training schedule because I might not be able to get my lunch run in.  Once the meeting is over, things die down quickly so Thursday and Friday should be pretty easy days at work. 

Even though this is one of my final build weeks, the overall structure of my week remains the same as a typical week for me.  Mondays are rest days or easy days.  Sometimes I go for an easy recovery run, but if I workout on Monday it's usually a short swim.  Today that's what I did.

Day 1:  45 minutes, 2000 yards

Monday swims are hit or miss for me.  Sometimes I'm tired and lack energy and motivation and they're horrible workouts.  Sometimes I feel good and they're great workouts.  Today wasn't a complete miss, but it wasn't a good workout either.  Certainly not the workout I was hoping for.  The plan was to do a short workout, but one with some intensity in it.  

I said I was tired today, and that was part of the issue, but not really what kept me from having a good workout.  I had a tuna wrap and couscous for dinner.  The couscous was fine, but the tuna didn't sit well when I upped the effort level.  About 3/4 of the way through the workout I thought I was going to vomit, and the pool was closed last week for cleaning so vomiting in the pool wouldn't have gone over very well. My stomach was really bothering me and it was hard to keep pushing the pace.

No more tuna before swimming....or any workout for that matter.  Lesson learned.


Here's the workout:


Warm Up:  100 swim, 100 kick, 100 pull, 100 kick

Main set:  
1x100 on 2:00 (easy)
1x100 on 1:35 (hard)
1x100 on 2:00 (easy)
2x100 on 1:35 (hard)
1x100 on 2:00 (easy)
3x100 on 1:35 (hard)
1x100 on 2:00 (easy)
4x100 on 1:35 (hard)

4x25 on :30 (all out)

Cool down:  100 easy


On the easy 100s, I swam around a 1:30ish pace.  On the hard 100s I swam about 1:20-1:23.  That's not a bad pace for me, but I really should have hit all of those in 1:18-1:20 so I was off by a few seconds. 

So not a terrible workout, but not a good one either. Not really the start to one of my final build weeks that I was hoping for, but my legs loosened up while swimming and they felt better after the workout than before, which is part of the point of the workout so that was good.  My times weren't terrible, but with my stomach bothering me I didn't enjoy the workout at all.  

So it goes.


Day 2 is a lunch run and an evening bike ride.  Hopefully no meetings are rescheduled around the lunch hour tomorrow.