Monday
Monday is typically my yoga day, but I decided to not go for a couple reasons. One was that my work schedule had me driving out to W Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I knew the commute would make getting a bike workout in pretty rough - so I wanted to get one in on Monday while I could. The other is that the legs just didn't feel quite ready for yoga. As helpful for recovery as it is - I have found that in some cases its usefulness is diminished if I go to class too soon after a tough workout.
So the bike workout was called Smith. With nine weeks to go before Lake Placid, I figure the time for workouts being primarily intervals with a focus on FTP boost is over, and now it's time to extend that out a bit. As a result, I am starting to opt for more threshold workouts near FTP. However since my FTP value just bumped by significantly, I didn't want to start with some workout with lots of time @ FTP, so this workout comprised of 10 minute segments @ FTP, seemed to fit the bill pretty nicely.
I definitely feel the effects of the higher FTP. The power numbers are closer to target, and I don't have the excess energy to float my power numbers above the target by 5-10W like I did before. So, whereas before I didn't want my average power for the interval dropping below target - for the time being I'm ok with it as I get used to the increased FTP.
Tuesday
Throughout the day on Tuesday, I planned on it being a rest day - especially in the morning when my legs felt like they were dragging. When I got home, I succumbed to the trap of over-training, and felt like I was being lazy if I didn't do something. So I picked another threshold workout called Mary Austin. Turned out to probably be not a great idea. About an hour into it, I could tell my legs were still cooked. I felt as though I could manage to finish the workout, but by the time I got halfway through the last interval, I decided it was time to pack it in. I was having more and more difficulty hitting and sustaining the target power, and the HR was getting higher and higher. Although I hate to abort a training session, the fact that I was having a hard time with the power numbers told me there was little to gain by continuing, so I bailed about 15 minutes early.
One of the toughest things is to moderate workouts and avoid over training. This usually takes the form of not doing enough easy workouts to allow recovery, as you get into the mindset that every workout must require some effort. So sometimes it's best to swallow pride, cut a workout short and just admit that rest is necessary. Wednesday would be that day.
Wednesday
After a few days of my ankle continuing to feel normal, I decided to give it a brief test with a 3 miler with the foot taped up. Keeping in mind that today is supposed to be a rest day, I kept the pace nice and slow (plus, I had the dogs with me) to keep the HR down. Fortunately, the ankle felt perfectly normal afterwards, which is a very good sign. My plan is to do another bike workout tomorrow, and then do somewhere around 6 miles or so on Friday with no tape.
Thursday
Today I repeated a workout I did a few weeks ago - 90 minutes on the trainer with 3 x 20 minutes @ FTP. Once again, it was a pretty tough workout, this time especially since the FTP was recently raised. However, like last time, I also found that the first couple minutes of each interval was the worst - after a few minutes, the legs and cardio system seem to get into a steady state and the burn in the legs subsides a bit. I don't recall from last time, but I definitely felt as though the heart and lungs were fine - the bottleneck was more the strength of the legs.
The other thing I looked at, just for comparisons sake - was the heart rate zones from this time and last time. The first time around, 45% of the time my heart was in the VO2max zone, and 16% of the time it was in the threshold zone. This time, it was more even - about 33% VO2max, and 30% threshold. I'm sure much of it can be attributed to the increase in LTHR from the most recent power test (I forget the numbers), as what was VO2max would have fallen into the threshold category. However, in a sense that doesn't matter - the fact is this time around my fitness had increased enough so that the exertion demanded by this workout decreased.
Friday
This was just an easy 5 miler, mostly to see how the ankle was feeling. I originally thought about doing six, but opted to go a little more conservative (although at the end I felt like 6 wouldn't have been an issue). I had a brief moment around mile four where I felt like it might be getting a little bit more, but that went away. Still, I soaked my foot in ice water for 10-15 minutes afterwards. As good as my ankle has been feeling, it has been varying between 95-99%.
I'm still not sure whether it's the peroneus longus, or possibly the peroneus brevis tendon. The two are very close to one another. Also, if you look up peroneus brevis tendon eversion, you can find hits that describe how I can move the ankle to test it, as there are times it feels ok normally, but putting strain on the tendon (via eversion) highlights a sore spot, indicating that it's still not fully healed. Performing this motion had always produced soreness until last Sunday, and when/if I do feel anything now, it's isolated to where the tendon is kept in place just below the bump on the outside of the ankle.
Fun fact - it's the peroneus brevis tendon that Curt Schilling had sutured during the 2004 post season.
Saturday
I had kinda planned on a bike workout, but had too much stuff around the house going on. Although it doesn't count as a workout, between mowing the lawn and walking the dogs, that accounted for about 5 miles of walking throughout the day. Normally nothing to write about, except that the fact that my ankle still feels no worse for wear is a good sign.
No comments:
Post a Comment