The build begins

Monday marked the first day of my build phase of my tri training. Essentially, I'm starting to do more intense speed and power based workouts. My runs will incorporate pickups and tempo intervals, bike workouts will be greater in intensity, and swim workouts will have longer t-paced intervals. I've been greatly anticipating this phase, as my endurance has gone way up in swimming and biking during the previous base-building phase. This is when I get faster.

Monday had a tough pyramid swim, 100-200-300-400-400-300-200-100 all at 1:26-30 t-pace. I haven't done many t-pace intervals over 200m, so doing the 300 and 400 sequentially was new and difficult. But it all went better than I planned. Afternoon run with Scott was about 80 minutes, with 4x6min tempo intervals in the middle.

Tuesday had the usual weights in the morning, and a new bike interval workout in the afternoon. My previous interval workouts called for 5x6min at HR zone 3/tempo pace. These started getting easy to maintain toward the end of the base-building period. So I'm now doing my intervals at zone 4-5a pace, which is sub-threshold and threshold, more around race pace. And it was HARD! I was begging, pleading with my watch to hit 6:00:00 and my body was yearning to quit. I ignored it all and focused on my heart rate and THE MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE on television. Good kung fu movie. Finished the workout, felt strong and tired, great combination. Went on an "easy" 6-7 mile run with Jordan and Jamie afterward.

Followed by, of course, chicken tenders. Fantastic!!!