Week in the Rearview Mirror: April 15 - April 21, 2012

I believe I've finally overcome the left calf issues that developed after my first marathon on February 26th. Of course, it would be unfair to say that I gave it plenty of time to heal by staying off it for a couple of weeks, so it undoubtedly makes sense that it took 7 weeks to completely heal.

Once again this week, I wore my heart monitor for most of my workouts, and I believe I'm getting a feel for what "my numbers" really are at this point. Nearly every run this week just seemed to flow and be easy from a perceived exertion perspective, and it sure it nice. I kept most of the runs this week fairly steady from a pace perspective, with only one of them having a "surge" for the last 1/4 mile. Mainly just a week of nice, comfortable running.

I also completed the cycling goal I set for myself earlier this month, by passing the 2000 mile mark on my bike within the first 11 months I've owned it. It has been a GREAT bike thus far, although it really isn't anything special. I've had good luck with it, and will hopefully NOT bring that luck to end by saying that I'm yet to have a breakdown of any kind, including a flat, with no wrecks (at least not the moving kind...I did comically fall over twice last summer by coming to a full stop before I un-clipped at least one foot...not recommended if you want to keep your ego intact :-)).

Here is what last week looked like...

Day	Activity	Distance (in miles)	Avg. Heart Rate	Max Heart Rate
Sunday	Running	6.07	148	165
Monday	Walking	4.54	---	---
Tuesday	Running	6.07	154	196
Wednesday	Running	6.54	150	199
Thursday	Cycling	23.24	121	164
Friday	Running	6.15	157	210
Saturday	Running	6.41	157	203
	Cycling	20.03	137	173

These are my time and distance totals for the week:

Activity	Time Total	Distance Total (in miles)
Running	4:32:59	31.24
Walking	1:01:38	4.54
Cycling	2:44:20	43.27
--------------	--------------	--------------
Overall Total	8:18:57	79.05

In cross-training, I worked in two days of both pullups and pushups. This week increased the pullups a bit, and increased quite a bit on the pushups. Both pushups sessions were the same, with 20 sets of 10 and a 45 second rest interval. I increased the rest interval to 5 minutes for the pullups, and did 5 sets of 10 one time, and 5 sets of 10 plus one set of 6 the other. Once again, no Yoga this week...just not on "the list". I also did a few less crunches this week as well, with only three days doing 25 per day.

After examining the feedback from my heart monitor, I think my actual maximum heart rate is a lot closer to 200 than what I thought it might be earlier, so that will be my calculated maximum until I know differently. While it hasn't sustained at that level for longer than 30 seconds or so, it was more than just a spike on a chart. This puts my average heart rate for all the runs this week right in the middle of in Zone 3, with the cycling all being in Zone 2.

Happy Running Everyone !!!