Key workouts

A key workout for me, usually requires an extra day of recovery. So I schedule them on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on the weekend. The purpose of the key workout is to walk the fine line doing something difficult, but not so difficult that a) you can't workout the next day and/or b) you miss your next key workout. If you screw up and miss either one of those, you went too hard, time to dial it back.

This week featured plenty of dialing it back. The last two races strained my left hamstring, very minor, but just to be safe I did no running. Swimming, biking and walking were all fine but if I tried to run there was definite, minor, 'bad' pain. I was able to do an easy 7.5k recovery run today and the hammy is about 85% and feels good, so it looks like a I dodged a bullet. I did manage an excellent 'key workout' for both the swim and bike and the weekly numbers look like this:
swim: 9.2k
bike: 214k
spin: 4.25 hrs

Swim highlight: Friday's 3.6k swim featured 10X100m on 1:30. Was coming in on consistent 1:18's or faster. My zippiest set so far this year. Followed that up with 10X100 IM, don't why, but I just love IM.
Bike highlight #1: did the Ergvideo Lake Placid and averaged 251 watts! Another season high. This was the same workout I did 2 weeks ago and failed, so I was pretty happy nailing it this time around. My FTP is still consistently marching upward, and this is a good thing.
Bike highlight #2: completely disassembled my entire drive train. Degreased and cleaned to the FD, RD, crank and couple of cassettes, threw on a new chain and the bike is like new - silky smooth.

So for a rest week, I managed a bad ass swim set and some decent saddle time - not bad. This week, I'll be getting back into 'regular mode' with a definite eye on the hammy. I'll play it very safe and make sure it's 100% before doing anything too crazy. Promise. Less than a month to the Muskoka Chase, looking forward to my first tri of the season - I can't wait!Cheers!