Marathon Training Summary - Week 4

Run training went very well this week, but swim and Bike training took a little hit due to some family obligations and nasty, rainy weather that book-ended my training week. On Monday, I went out for a two hour ride, and got absolutely poured on by one of those famous Colorado afternoon thunder showers. I ended up cutting it short to a little over 1 hour.

On Saturday and Sunday, we had a freak weather occurrence where it literally rained all weekend. I've never seen it rain that much here for that long. Usually, we get a 15-20 minute shower and we're done.

Key training sessions this week were the ride and run on Saturday and the long run on Sunday. On Sat. I went up to Boulder to ride the Boulder Peak bike course. I've heard that Old Stage Hill is pretty tough, and since I didn't get to do the race last year, I hadn't actually ridden the course yet. A profile of the hill, which I stole from someone else's blog, is pictured here. Ignore the wavy lines, as they refer to someone's power and heart rate profile for the climb. I just needed an elevation profile, and this was all I could find.

Well... Old Stage Hill is very tough. It's said to be a 15% grade for about half a mile to two-thirds of a mile. That ain't an easy climb. What was more depressing was the gradual ascent to the start of the real climb. Leaving the transition area and heading out toward Old Stage Hill is mostly an incline, although admittedly, fairly gradula for most of the way. But that cuts into your speed in the first part of the course. Particularly for someone like me, who's not a great climber. Fortunately, the remainder of the course is mostly downhill or flat, so it's very fast. I had planned to do the course loop twice for a total of a 50 mile ride. However, one time up Old Stage was enough for me, and the weather helped my ego a bit by pelting me with an increasingly driving rain. Those two factors were plenty to get me off the course after the first loop.

My weekend runs were done in the rain, since it was cloudy and nasty all weekend long. My Sat. "race pace" run was done post ride in the evening. I felt pretty good, and coasted at a moderately hard pace, which was nearly a full minute under my goal race pace. Very happy with that. The Sunday long run was a 13 mile slog-fest through a steady rain. I struggled a bit, but held on to just over 9:00/mi pace, which is actually my goal race pace. I probably did the run too hard, particularly given the fact that my week was structured without the training plan's planned rest day on Friday, but I really wanted to get the run over with, so I pushed the pace a little. I'm really feeling it tonight, though.

Total miles/time this week:

Day	Swim	Bike	Run
Mon	--	1:09:04 (20 mi) Easy (cut short - rain)	--
Tue	--	--	--
Wed	1:00:00 (3000 m) End./Speed mix	--	23:20 min (3 mi) Mod Hard pace
Thu	--	32:10 (8.5 mi) Easy ride home from work	49:25 min (6 mi) Mod Hard Pace
Fri	1:00 (3000 m) Speed focus	--	25:14 (3 mi) Aerobic pace
Sat	--	1:15 (25 mi) Hill Climb/Race Preview	48:40 min (6 mi) Mod Hard
Sun	--	--	1:58:00 (13 mi) Easy Pace

Totals:
Swim: 2:00 / 6000 m
Bike: 2:56:14 / 53.5 mi
Run: 4:24:39 / 31 mi
Total Hours: 9:20:53