Training schedule shredded with travel

A last-minute impromptu trip to New York this past weekend…American Airlines and their last-minute non-stop fare sale of $69.00…dang…just daring me not to

…so with the flight reservation window open on the computer, waiting for the final ‘Submit’, I checked Hotwire and then Priceline, and…dang…hooked a great deal on a hotel…so pulled the trigger on the flight and off to New York we went

…my wife delighted of course

…so a bit scrambly the past few days…work stuff moved aside…workouts shrunken, and reset to different days…Intensity and Volume reset for the end of last week, through the weekend and now into this week…and with another trip coming up this weekend, through next Tuesday, the feng shui of my carefully crafted workout schedule gets tossed in the shredder…at least for 2 weeks…as I work to squeeze 13-14 hours a week of training into too-few-hours-left-to-do-it

…not going to happen

When travelling, I find that there’s only one workout that I can hit with consistency…running:

…running shoes on…out the door…run…back…done

Biking, _maybe_…at least a bit on a stationary bike if it’s a good spinning class version…rare…or rental bike, but BIG time overhead to actually get that done, so I move BIG bike training before and after the travel schedule

…and swimming…_not_…well _maybe_ a few drills in the hotel pool, if:

• it’s open,
• and more than 10 feet long,
• and not filled with kids wearing water diapers…no way that those things work… 
  • …I do go through the brain damage of finding a pool in advance with a lap swimming schedule that _might_ fit my travel/meeting/eating/drinking/napping/down-time schedule…but rarely ever actually get there.

So last week, when I booked our tickets to New York late on Wednesday…with a Saturday departure…this blew up my normal long Saturday bike ride…so I moved my 3-4 hour bike ride from Saturday to Friday, cut it back to 2 hours in a busy work day, and figured that with 2-3 light days coming up, I could stand a bit more intensity in a shorter workout…also wanted to erase that old all-time CP90 (my maximum power for 90 minutes) @ 226W (Watts) from 2008 (214W in 2011, 207W in 2010, 218W in 2009) since Coach Gale is dinging me about the power numbers in the longer time frames…of course the plan has been first Fast then Long…so the time has come

…so since it was also hot and very humid, and I knew that HR would be high for effort, thought that I’d try out the Coggan 88-94% ‘sweet spot’ for 90 minutes to see how it turned out, and ended up with a new CP90 @ 237W, (88% of FTP)…142 HR avg., sub maximal effort in what would be a Z3-4 power zone

So that was cool…not even all out, but a bike fitness level that’s higher than it’s ever been…

…and humming along at a 20.6 MPH average…including a few short turnaround rolls…on the hilly Shearers route for 90 minutes…nice

…I remember as a young lad on my old Bianchi that I always wanted to be able to average 20 MPH for an hour…never quite got there…I guess that’s why that 20 MPH thing, is just stuck in my head 🙂

So my exercise in New York consisted of:

• Saturday: walking in airport…flight to New York, and ‘nap’ prior to a terrific dinner
• Sunday: ‘lie-in’, late breakfast and romantic walk with my wife in Central Park in a light rain…click for the BIG picture 
  • …follow-up 7 mile run in the park where I noted in my log that I felt ‘fat and heavy’…presumably a leftover from Saturday night dinner
  • yoga for 30 minutes back at the room with my online yoga…’Just One Dance’ with Clara…always a smile
  • and ‘nap’ prior to delightful evening of drinks then dinner with great friends
• Monday work for a few hours in the morning…walking in the airport…then flight back

…so a tight work week, with my next flight on Friday, a weekend in Toronto…business meetings in Buffalo on Monday and Tuesday with associated evening dinner and activities

…and back at it next Wednesday

…and hopefully a quieter 4 weeks, prior to travel to the west coast for the Vancouver Half Iron on July 3rd.

So the way that it looks now:

• bike is solid
• run is good to very good
• swimming is shaky to very shaky

I’ll need a good 4 weeks of swimming focus prior to the race to pull things together…no worries 🙂