ÖTILLÖ Training August 14-20

Monday:

MonZ swim at Scott Carpenter (LCM)

500 easy, 10 x 50 mix
Main Set (all pulling for me):
2 x 200 on 2:55
3 x 100 on 1:20
2 x 200 on 2:50
3 x 100 on 1:20
1 x 100 on 2:45 (they did 200)
1 x 200 on 2:45
3 x 100 on 1:20
1 x 100 on 2:40 (they did 200)
1 x 200 on 2:40
3 x 100 on 1:20
I was holding 2:35ish on the 200’s and 1:14/15 on the 100’s. Felt ok today, but not great.
Finished with a fin set of 200/150/100/50/50/100/150/200
4,600 meters in total.

A couple hours later, I did a trail run from Lefthand Trailhead out and around eagle/sage loop. I actually felt pretty lousy on this session. Total run was 13.5K in 1:03:34.

Tuesday:
Early morning session at the Boulder Reservoir. I did a 90+ minute swimrun session on my own to start the day. Unlike the other times, I started with the run before swimming. I did longer run segments, but similar swim segments to what I have done before. After the swim course closed up, I went out and ran a Boulder rez loop. The swimrun segment was about 15K in total and then I added another 8K+ of running. Total time for everything was 2:11:02 with a total distance of 23.2K. I’m guessing about 3K of that was swimming and the rest was running.

Wednesday:

I was fairly pleased with my lower leg over the past couple days, but I opted to not get greedy and chose to ride my bike today. Did a route that included climbing Olde Stage, then Lefthand Canyon up to Brainard Lake gate (elevation: 10,000 feet), then back down and over the backside of Lee Hill. My HR seemed to be a little higher than last couple rides, but otherwise, I felt decent overall. Legs were a little tired at the start, but that didn’t linger much. 2:52 ride time including 67.3K in distance with 5230 feet of vertical. 190 Average Power/220 Normalized, 145 avg HR, 1965 kilojoules.

Shorter afternoon strength session:
Hex Deads: 1 x 12 @ 135, 2 x 8 @ 185, 1 x 6 @ 225, 3 x 3 @ 255/65/75
Alternate: 3 x 12 Dips, 3 x 6 Pull Ups
Shoulder Press: 4 x 5 @ 75/80/85/85
30 minutes in total. Then I did another 20-25 minutes of single leg strength/balance work.

Thursday:

Early morning at the Boulder Reservoir. I tried to build this session around the opening stages of the upcoming race so after a 2K run to start, I did a much longer swim of 1500+ meters right off the bat, then incorporated a few more shorter swims and varying run lengths. Since I have a bigger run day planned tomorrow, I didn’t tack on too much bonus volume at the end of the session. My garmin read 15K+ of swimrun in 1:35:03. I’m guessing it was about 3Kswim+/11-12K of running.

I went straight from the Rez to Scott Carpenter to swim some more and jumped in the session with Gordo and MonZ.
For me it was:
8 x 50 fins on 1:00 with heads up free and builds
2 rounds of:
8 x 50 on 1:00 pull (about 35/6 for me)
300 easy fins
Then a set of
12 x 100 pull on 1:40/35/30 4x
300 easy
3,300 meters in total. I wanted to get in a slightly higher volume swim day so this fit the bill.

Friday:

My partner for the race, Lars Finanger, traveled to Colorado for the weekend to check out a few different potential race locations for a future swimrun. The first location was a combination of Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Lake and potentially beyond into Lake Granby and Monarch Lake below. We initially drove to the southern end of the course near Monarch Lake, but we decided everything was a little too spread out to recon in one session. From there, we traveled to the southern end of Grand Lake and started a recon route from there. We rounded Grand Lake to begin with two swims, then onto Shadow Mountain, we were able to do a good amount of swimrun recon including some bushwhacking through the islands that cross the southern end of Shadow Mountain. In the end, were were out there for about 3.5+ hours and 17+ miles worth of swim, run, walk, trek, get lost, etc. The added component of doing it all at 8500 feet of elevation definitely made this an adventurous session.

Saturday:
Took it easy today. I didn’t feel too sore or beat up form anything yesterday, but I definitely felt fatigued. No formal training today, but I did go on a long walk with Brooke in the late morning. Good day to regroup a bit.

Sunday:

Felt much better today. Got out quite early to ride the St. Vrain Loop (Boulder->Lyons->Peak2Peak->Ward->Lee Hill->Boulder). As far as looped cycling routes go, I have probably ridden this more than other loop in the world. That said, I hadn’t ridden it since 2020 (I think). Felt pretty good the whole time which was a nice surprise.
Took a few splits:
End of Old St Vrain Road to the intersection of P2P highway: 1:02:04 245 watts 149 avg HR (157 max) (from 5300 to 8300 feet)
End of Raymond Turnoff to high point above Overland: 16:24 237 watts 148 avg HR (155 max) (from 8000 to 8700 feet)
From the Overland descent to Ward: 17:39 239 watts 152 avg HR (160 max) (from 8400 to 9200 feet)
Backside of Lee Hill: 5:03 309 watts 150 avg HR (161 max)
Total ride: 3:11:32, 86.8K, 5089 feet of vertical, 2310 kilojoules, 201 avg power (226 normalized).

Afternoon Strength Session:
Squats: 1 x 12 @ 95, 1 x 8 @ 135, 4 x 5 @ 155/65/75/80
RDL: 1 x 12 @ 95, 1 x 8 @ 135, 4 x 5 @ 155/75/85/90
Alternate: 3 rounds of 12 dips, 6 pull ups
35 minutes in total; then did another 30 minutes of balance and single leg strength work.