So Long Pre-Hab. Hello Sweet Spot Training.

6 weeks of pre-hab has reminded me of a very important lesson: fitness gains are hard won and easily lost.  It's time to put in the work to regain some of that bike fitness I had at the end of last summer.  Enter: Sweet Spot Training.

Not THAT kind of sweet

The goal of sweet spot training is to increase pedal economy and build a base of aerobic fitness on the bike - both of which get sorely neglected as the season progresses.  In this phase I'll be aiming for  three rides a week (2 60-minute sessions, 1 90-minute session), running twice a week (1 shorter session before my training appointment, 1 longer session on the weekend), swimming once a week, and strength training once a week with my trainer.

The final week of pre-hab wasn't too bad.  I actually got up at 5AM every day (Monday-Thursday - I overslept by 30 minutes on Friday) and did a 20 minute yoga practice before work 3 times, and spent some quality floor time stretching on another day.  It was nice not having to fly through the morning as a giant stress ball, but I was definitely wasted by the end of the day - which made finding the motivation to work out rather difficult. My week ended up looking something like this:

Monday: 20 minute yoga practice
Tuesday: 20 minute yoga practice, 15min treadmill run, 30 minute training session
Wednesday: 20 minute yoga practice, 30 minute trainer ride (I just felt like spinning without a plan)
Thursday: 20 minutes stretching on the floor, 60 minute trainer ride
Friday: 20 minutes strength training at home
Saturday: Zero
Sunday: 1000 yd swim

Total Time: 4 hours, 7 minutes
Total Distance: 21.33 miles*

Definitely not the strongest finish, but I think next week will be better.  I has to be.  'A Race Day' is less than 7 months away!

*I looked at 2016's Garmin data and between swimming/biking/running/hiking, I put 895.94 miles on my body.  Let's see if I can blow that out of the water in 2017! I'm also working on trying to find a more visual way to display this, but in the interest of posting this in a timely manner, it'll have to wait!