June focus: July 4th races

I’ve decided to switch out the Morgantown Half IM with the Williamsburg Patriot’s Half IM in September.  There were a couple of reasons, none of which are worth writing about.  However, this pushed the need to start training back a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, Aaron and I decided to race the 4th of July races here in Roanoke.

I’ve been lifting religiously and loving it.  I finished with the 2nd phase of lifting and have moved on to the third.  I’m lifting two times a week, and I feel like I’m starting to see some physical changes (that no one else would ever likely notice).  However, as is also emphasized in the book, I’m starting to realize that bulking up (lifting) while training for endurance sports (for which you need to be slimmed down) is stupid.  Well, not stupid, just counterproductive.  I mean, in lifting you’re essentially trying to put on weight (although in muscle, obviously not fat) while as in endurance sport you want to be carrying around as little weight as possible so that the muscle you do have has the least amount of work to do possible.

BUT, I don’t think I can quit lifting.  I mean, obviously I can… but I don’t want to!  I’m having fun lifting, I like being sore, and I like the change in routine.  I’m contemplating just doing upper body weights until the end of the season, but I really like lunges and squats…

So as I’ve said, Aaron and I put 3 days of back to back racing on our calendar in July.  And unfortunately both of us have spent the past 3 weeks totally slacking off and hardly riding at all.  So I sat down and wrote out a training plan for the next 4 weeks that will hopefully get us back close to peak shape by July 4th.

Somewhere in the midst of all this cycling I’m going to need to find some room for a little running and swimming.  And maybe I should stop eating so many cookies.

Schedule for the week:

Mon: Weights, 1:30

Tues:  Recovery ride, 2 hours

Wed: Pyramid Intervals

Thurs:  Swim 1:00+ Weights

Fri: Steep Hill Repeats, 8%, 4 x (2 min climb + 4 min recovery)

Sat: Run 60 min

Sun: 3:00 Endurance Ride