Recovery Week In Review

A recovery week never felt so good! Not only did the lower mileage and slower paces excite me, the extra sleep time in the sack was what I was really looking forward to. Here is a recap of last week with any coach’s instructions and/or my notes:


08/13/2012 “Sleep In”

• Carlos - Eat nutrition for recovery. Low carb intake today. Salads and good proteins. Water and no caffeine after 2PM

08/14/2012 “40 Min Easy Run”

• Carlos – Embarrassingly slow with good form. Finish with 5x50 yard strides.

• Me – Erratic HRM readings for about the first 10min. Looks like it’s time to clean my strap! Strides felt awesomely fast and strong with great form.

08/15/2012 – “Masters Swim With Frank”

• Carlos – 2500 – 3000

• Me - W/U - 500S, 500P, 6x50S, 8x25K D/S - 4x50 (Arm on kickboard other arm practicing high elbows and early catch of water ~ Left arm down, right arm back), 50S M/S - 10x50S (1:00 RI), 50S, 4x75S (50Sprint/25EZ then 25Sprint/50EZ) C/D - 100S NOTES - Felt efficient and strong. Was doing the 50s (in the 4x75 set) in about 25.5 seconds.

08/16/2012 – “Recovery Bike”

• Warm up, then 3x3min in big ring @ 70RPM, then rest easy and steady

08/17/2012 – “Recover Run” and “Swim 3k Drill/Descend”

• Carlos - Run in easy recovery mode. Comfortable pace with good rhythm. Don’t let slower speeds impact your form.

• No notes for Carlos after putting in a whopping 2.64 miles (10:17 pace)

• Me (for swim workout) - Opted for a Bartlett open water swim this AM. Recovery paced swim. Concentrated on proper form and did a few drills. Stopped twice, once to chat and once to help a fellow teammate with his stroke.

08/18/2012 “2 Hour Mix”

• Carlos - Warm up. MS: 2x40min @ IM pace. In each set, at 10min, push for 2min at Olympic pace. 10min rest between the 2 sets. Purpose of the set is to build aerobic endurance and to hold IM pace after efforts that tax the system.

• Me - Solid ride. Felt strong during efforts and didn't experience any fatigue. Did move my saddle forward before the ride. That seemed to make a difference in comfort and power too. Dinner the night before = Steak, brown rice, asparagus, and red bell pepper. Bfast = 1/2C egg whites, 2 slices whole wheat toast, tomato. On bike = water.

08/19/2012 “Negative Split 70min”

• Carlos - Warm up 10 min easy with strides, then on an out and back course, run out for 30 minutes (easy to moderate pace), then negative split on the way back--Goal is to run back faster than on the way out and to acclimate the body to running faster on the 2nd half of the run. Mentally this also is a great confidence builder so that you learn that you can run faster on the 2nd half of your runs in workouts and races.

• Me - Felt VERY comfortable the entire run. Interesting to compare with the exact same run on 07/14. Then, I had the same average HR (159) with an average pace of 9:43 (This time my average pace was 9:14 which includes warm-up)