My first week of zone 2 training has been interesting. As mentioned previously, I have my spreadsheets to track my running and my weight to control for any weight loss, but I am not sharing any of that for a while, because I don’t have any results to share yet. What I am going to share will be my week of training, how it felt, and anything I noticed or found helpful.
Monday: Zone 2 run. I wrote about this with my first zone 2 running post, so I will not go into much detail. I walked a lot, and I let my heart rate settle down to zone 1 when walking.
Tuesday: Nothing. I felt tired, and unmotivated. I did a lot around my house though.
Wednesday: 45 minute zone 2 bike. It was sort of zone 2, but I was on a hilly route, so I let my heart rate climb up a little during the climbs and settled back into zone 2 on the descents and flats. I have to pay close attention on descents to keep it from dropping too much. This means shifting up a gear or two and keeping my cadence up.
Thursday: Swim in the middle of the day. I felt pretty good and had time to get in some extra distance, so I made it 3300 instead of my planned 3000. I also had another zone 2 run that afternoon. I felt like I ran a little more in the beginning compared to Tuesday, but less near the end. One of the recommendations I got from Triathlon Taren is to run more to improve efficiency on the run, so I am aiming for 3-4 runs per week right now.
Friday: Swim in the morning. This was another 3000 with some speed in it. I back off a lot on speed workouts due to an old shoulder injury at the moment, so anything “sprint” or “all out” is actually just strong. I also did 30 minutes of stretching and core work in the evening. As I mentioned in Triathlon Training and Tax Accounting I am planning on trying to focus on strength and mobility to prevent injury.
Saturday: I was super tired Saturday morning, probably from my early morning to swim Friday, so I slept in before working at the bike shop for the day. When I got home from working, sleeping in meant I had to get in my 1.5 hour bike ride. I picked a pretty hilly route for it, which I do a lot on Zwift, and I like that choosing hilly routes means I think less about speed and more about heart rate and the purpose behind the workout. My heart rate still got a little high on a couple hills, but it was returning very nicely when I slowed down, which is a good sign.
Sunday: My long “run” day. I have found a shuffle that I can stay in zone 2 under the right conditions with. I ended up with a few extra minutes past the forty-five I planned for this workout, and it went very well, or as well as a run/walk when I really want to run can go. The really positive thing that has come from all of this is that I can do longer workouts without feeling like I am dying at the end. The distance may not be there yet, but the time is, so as I get faster (hopefully), my distance should build up without increasing time. Of course I am increasing time as well.
Overall, this last week went really well for me, and it felt good. I haven’t actually felt this good training in a while, and my current week is off to a good start. I think not working for two weeks has something to do with it, but I have also made a few other changes, like trying to eat better and taking a vitamin D and B12 supplement. The vitamin D is under the recommendation of my doctor and the B12 is just what else was in the one vegan vitamin D gummy I could find online.
This week I am starting to incorporate some intervals into one of my run and bike workouts each week. On the run it will be on my hard run day and will be heart rate based, while on the bike I am just going to continue with hillier routes, but also push a little bit more for short periods of time.