Week 2
Planned: 8 total hours (1:30 swim, 2:30 bike, 3:00 run, 1:00 brick)
Completed: 8:22 hours (1:29 swim, 2:40 bike, 3:07 run, 1:06 brick)
This week got a little mangled schedule-wise. I tried to be pro-active and do my Wednesday bike on Tuesday when I had a wide open day, knowing that Wednesday my afternoon would be really tight. That worked out fine, but I didn't realize how nice it would be on Tuesday and then I was kicking myself for riding indoors. So of course I had to compensate for that on Wednesday, also a ridiculous 60 degree day, and do my Sunday brick mid-day to enjoy the great weather.
So that made for back-to-back double days on Tuesday and Wednesday. Apparently my legs didn't realize it because my little run for the Wednesday brick was AWESOME. I will never, ever be able to make sense of the fact that I run better off the bike than I do just running, but I will take it! Makes me love doing bricks, actually - I enjoy those workouts so much more than a bike-only or run-only workout, and Wednesdays brick was no exception. So happy to have those bricks on the schedule again!
Fast forward a few days, and we're at Friday afternoon - my third double in four days. Kinda crazy, and two years ago I'd never have believed that I could do that. But for some strange reason doubles just don't feel that overwhelming - they actually feel somewhat normal - and my body was holding up better than I'd have thought it would. So Friday's bike rocked. We did a bunch of time trials on the computrainer, and I blasted through all of them. My watts were high, my speed was good, and I was thrilled that I had that in my legs given all the other workouts!
Given how front-loaded my week was, I took Saturday off to rest my legs for the weekend long run. Since last weekend's long run was pure hell by the end, I was not looking forward to this one. The week as a whole had been better than the last, but still that long run worried me. My one ace in my pocket was my running metronome - which I'm convinced was the reason for my big pace improvement last winter, but I'd been without it for months because the battery died and I couldn't get the screws out to replace the darn thing. Well, it worked! 10 miles, 9:08 average. Phew! Wasn't too painful - although not sure if that's due to the metronome or just the fact that my legs are acclimating to the new schedule - but better than that my pace is finally becoming respectable again.
So - week 2: check! And this one felt good, much better than week 1. Now I have to get through week 3, very nearly 9 hours of workouts, and the increase is nearly all on the bike. But for today, I'm just gonna be happy with my week, and enjoy my day off tomorrow. Tuesday we go at it all over again.