Share a Build Week: Day 6

Workout:  Bike.  6 hour bike followed by a 15 minute run.  

2 hours @ 10w below IM power
2 hours @ IM power
2 hours @ 10w above IM power

Once again, the radar didn't look good:

I hate the trainer, but it does have some benefits and one of those benefits is avoiding thunderstorms. I guess I'm getting soft because a year ago I wouldn't have considered riding indoors.  I would have dug out my rain coat and ridden outside.

But this is one of my key rides, and I didn't want it ruined.  I also wanted to do a sweat rate test and I drive to a route for this ride because it's supposed to be a flat route with no stops so you get no chances to rest.  That makes the trainer good for this ride, but 6 hours on the trainer is tough to do.

It's a great test to see if your Ironman goal power makes sense.  If you can't complete this workout, you might want to reconsider your goal power.

Since I was riding indoors, I figured I'd try to do a little heat training.  I set up my own little heat/torture chamber.

The heat chamber.  My space heater died so I only got it up to 79.

I moved the TV, set up the fan, dug out the space heater and found the humidifier.  Then I dug up some old motocross tapes for entertainment.

This is only one of the boxes.  I have a lot of motocross on tape.

My space heater died on me so I couldn't get the temp up where I wanted (mid 80s) so I was stuck in the upper 70s.  Much better than outdoors where it was only 69 today, but I'm going to need to look into ways to get that little room a few degrees hotter.

79 degrees, 60% humidity.  I got it up to 65%, but couldn't get the temp above 79.

This workout was great.  I absolutely nailed it.  I'm aiming for around 210 watts in Kona so I needed 200 for the first two hours, 210 for the second two, and 220 for the final two.  My numbers were spot on:  199, 210, 221.  The final two hours weren't easy, but I never really struggled.  I held my power steady the whole time and was able to step it up if I needed to.  Very encouraging.

One thing I hate about the trainer is how far off the speed is.  I got in 112.9 miles today.  Last year when I did this workout I got in about 135 miles.  Big difference when you do this outdoors.  But it's not really about that.  It's about the power and the total work and training stress....but I do like to see the high mileage numbers.

Run:  15 minutes.  1.92 miles.  7:51 pace.

The run was good.  I felt strong the whole time and my running legs came around quickly.  I ran the first half at an 8:06 pace and the second half at a 7:37 pace.  It always feels good to negative split.


Daily Total:  6 hours 15 minutes
Weekly Total:  18 hours 17 minutes

Tomorrow:  Long run and a swim.