Run: Run Speed
Speed/Efficiency
40
10' wu. 15' cd. 10 x 15" pick-ups, (strides) - about as fast as 5k pace - quick NOT all out -with FULL recovery, these are meant to be very fast.

All Drills

Focuses:
Compact recovery w/ leading elblow
Relaxed hands, no blocking
Arm rotation and high elbow

Even after just two days of focused practice, I think hand position change will happen quick - it's easy to feel. High elbow is going to take some serious practice - when I lose focus for just one stroke I can feel my arms break down.

All drills.
Focuses:
Compact recovery w/ leading elblow
Relaxed hands, no blocking
Arm rotation and high elbow

Pace was no reflection of effort today. 48 deg, NW wind 10-20mph.

Symphony Village and back.
Difficult run....very cold at 0600. High RPE, high HR, slow pace. This was one of my hillier routes, though.

Swim lesson with TI coach Hap Gentry. Awesome lesson...details to follow.

Swimming Lesson:

Primary areas to work on:

1. Recovery: Too wide, needs to be more compact
2. Rotation: Slightly under-rotating, need to be "on-edge" on every stroke
3. Pull: Elbow/arms breaking down big time - arm rotation and higher elbow
4. Breathing: Too long, need quicker breath and rotation back to nose down.
5. "Blocking" with extended hand - need to relax them.  L is much worse than R.

Secondary findings:

1. Lead arm slightly too high
2. L arm crossing over and hands angled on entry
3. Looking forward too much - look directly down and feel water on crown of head

Writing this list of things to work on is a little bit of a downer after having such a good week in the pool setting some new PRs.  When comparing to my first sessions back in August, I've come a very long way, but there's plenty of work to be done.  Balance was very good and head lift is under control - overall I had a very streamlined position.  After working on these areas for about 45 minutes, I swam several lengths with 11 strokes - it's amazing how much faster and easier swimming is when you simply put your body in the right positions.

Z1/Z2 endurance run. Note to self - 48 hrs rest (from running) after an LT test. Had 35 hrs since the test and I was definitely sore. The first 2 miles were torture. Probably because I haven't been doing any threshold/speed work.

WU: 100, 200
Drills:
Side: 100, 2x50 drill/swim
Fist: 100, 2x50 drill/swim
MS:
1000 (18:17) 500 splits: 9:20,8:57
5x100 on 2:00 (1:46,1:44,1:43,1:46,1:43)
CD: 100 ez

New PRs for 500 and 1k.
Felt like I was fighting the water all morning. Happy that I pushed through and did 1k despite not being on. Felt like flip turns have been keeping me from doing longer distances so I did open turns for the 1k. Went out slow, but probably paced well b/c I was able to negative split and finish strong. After reading Glen's thread with Mike Ricci yesterday, I guess this makes my T-pace 1:50.

Nice easy evening spin. Just felt like getting outside and stretching the legs out - they were pretty tender from the LT test this morning.

Run LT Test.
10' warm up: 151avg/154max, avg pace: 10:00
Start 30 min. TT:
10': 168avg/179max, avg pace:9:05
20': *184avg*/193max, avg pace: 8:00

Holy cow! Last time I did a run LT test was September and that resulted in a LT of 174. I was floored when I was half way through the last 20' and I was holding 180+. The only difference from the last test was temperature (37 vs. 90 deg) which I'm sure can have a little affect, but it's out of my control. This means I've been slacking BIG TIME on all my runs and explains why I've been very comfortable spending the majority of my long runs in the mid 160s which I thought was upper Z3. Turns out that all my zones were exactly an entire zone too low! My Z2 runs have been in Z1. I assume this is from quality training and not a fluke. When I last did the test I'd only been training seriously for 3 months. And in fact, when I did that test, I didn't even make the entire 20' because I totally crashed and couldn't finish. Very motivating finding...I can't wait to implement the new zones.

I just read in "Going Long" that increases of 5-15 beats per annum in LT are possible in the early years of training. That would certainly be the case with me so I guess this is legit.