Triathlon Training Week 3

Monday Feb 28 - Basketball 90 min. Somewhat strange team divisions, but the games were competitive. Back felt tired, but not sore. I just kept stretching it out through the rest of the day and it felt alright. Progress!

Tuesday Mar 1 - Rest

Wednesday Mar 2 - Rest. My back feels pretty well healed, but want to give it one more night of rest before testing it out.

Thursday Mar 3 - 3.6 mile run. My back still feels good, so it's time to test it with an easy-ish run. Macken Park is completely flat and not very busy after dark, which is when I get a chance to go. I kept the pace kind of slow, but my back didn't tighten up, so I sped up (slightly) for each 1 mile lap. Finished with 3.6 miles and no tightness! I could be ready to get back into training then... but should take it easy for the next week to try to not make things worse.  Times were 10:19, 10:16, 9:58, 6:01 (0.6 miles). 
Distance/Time - 3.6 miles/36:35

Macken Park Run - Easy Pace 3.6 miles by daskaff at Garmin Connect - Details

Friday Mar 4 - Cold and rainy day, so didn't really want to do anything outside. Ended up doing the AbRipperX workout from P90X. And by "doing", I really mean "tried" as in I probably did 1/3 of it. Yeah... not prepped to do well in that workout yet. But, you have to start somewhere.

Saturday Mar 5 - 6.7 mile run.  The goals for the run were A) increase distance (hopefully out to full 10K - the distance of the run for the triathlon) and B) keep the pace slow to ensure I can finish the 10K but also establish a slow enough time that basically any future 10K completion would be faster than this.  It was much colder than Thursday's run (25 vs low 50s), but tolerable.  I kept a pace of about 11 min/mile throughout the run, which was almost too slow of a pace to maintain and I was barely ever breathing over a normal rate.  My left hip flexor started getting tired in the fifth mile (no biggie) and my left ankle got a little sore in the sixth (also no biggie).  I ended up finishing the 10K in 1:08:00.  To prove I still had something in the tank, I decided to run an extra half mile at a much faster pace.  Actually, I got the half mile point way before I expected, but I decided that was enough.  My back never tightened up or even felt tired.  I might actually be over that injury
Total time/distance - 1:12:50/6.7 miles
Laps were - 10:43, 11:06, 11:05, 11:00, 11:00, 10:51, 2:15 (0.2 mile).  Bonus (0.52 mile) - 4:48 - 9:16/mile pace
Macken Park 10K+ by daskaff at Garmin Connect - Details

Sunday Mar 6 - Rest.  With basketball in the morning tomorrow, I decided to take it easy after that long run.  Ended up just doing two different stretching sessions, but nothing taxing. 


Week 3 Summary - Injuries are basically not a problem by the end of the week.  I'm pretty happy that I managed to run a 10K+ nonstop.  The time (1:08:00) was slow - purposefully, but is (after some checking) 7 minutes slower than my final practice 10K before last year's triathlon.  So... maybe I'm not too far behind last year's training after all.