B2B Training Log: Week 2

Week 2 (03.27.2016 - 04.02.2016)

The after-effects of last week's long bike ride lasted throughout most of this week. In addition to dehydration and being at an extreme calorie deficit, my best guess after some Googling is that the mouth soreness was a result of open mouth breathing. Over the ~5 hours that I biked, said breathing caused irritation in the roof and back of my mouth and allowed for dirt and pollution to enter my respiratory system. 

The pain wouldn't have been so great if I had known about this problem. Solutions for next time include:

• Breathing in with the nose, breathing out with the mouth
• Rinsing mouth with water regularly
• Avoiding tough/hard food post-ride
• Staying adequately hydrated
• Eating enough!

Sadly, in my utmost ignorance after the ride, I had 4 slices of Cheeseboard/Sliver pizza with delicious crunchy crusts (my favorite part). That is when I remember the first pangs of mouth soreness. So... I suppose I caused further trauma, resulting in extreme pain. I will remember this for years to come....

In other news, I like variety so I flex my workout plans pro re nata (PRN). As such, I threw in my first set of hill repeats and, boy, was it fun. Running uphill is a hard fact of life in San Francisco - and I relish the challenge.

I ran three half-mile repeats this week but my next hill workout will probably consist of shorter hill sprints. My overall hill training strategy is to train on hills similar in grade to B2B at a pace between 8:00-8:30. Hayes Hill, the hardest 0.75mi of the B2B course has an average grade of 5.5% (yellow highlights below) with the steepest grade being 11% (blue points below). Developing speed and power will be most important during this training cycle. Effectually, hill training is supposed to help improve VO2max. All I want, however, is for the hills to feel easier so that I don't bonk near the end.

Bay to Breakers Elevation Profile

In contrast to B2B, the SF2HM has ~2.5 miles (1.5-4.0) of an uphill incline over 200ft of elevation change. Once B2B is over, I will need to focus more on uphill aerobic fitness over that distance. Here's a neat little blog on the SF Marathon website about pacing and elevation: link.

Source: theSFmarathon.com

Workouts this Week

• Run, Tempo 5 mi | Lake Merced Run (40:04 @ 8:01 pace) Wt: 126lb (??)
• Hill Repeats 3x800m | I ran these at San Bruno Mountain SP. Notice how dramatically max grade affected my time. These were run at about 7 effort in a relatively fasted state. I had hoped to run it faster to train pace, so I'll just say that these long hill repeats were intended for building aerobic capacity. It took so much willpower to run. Seriously. Hills are difficult....!
• 1.0 mi warmup
• 800m Δ144ft (8% max 12%) - 4:28, 1' rest
• 800m Δ200ft (7% max 15%) - 4:51, 1' rest
• 800m Δ62 (5% max 7%)- 4:09, 1' rest
• 0.5 mi warmdown
• 1.0 mi downhill - 6:38
• 1.0 mi warmdown
• Full Body Strength and Core | lightly weighted squats (10-12 lb dumbells), lunges, a few minutes of inversions, and arm work, including reverse pullups, dead-hangs, and hanging leg raises
• Long Run ~12km | After a pleasant bike ride to UCSF Parnassus, I set out to meet my friends for a group run! In total: 7.18mi. Scoped out the first few miles of SF2HM. Was sore from strength training the day before so I took it easy but next week I'll probabaly try and run 14km near race pace.
• Planks! | Every other day, 3 sets of 1'30''

Totals

Run: 18.75 mi
Bike: 33.01 mi

Ran a LOT of miles this week cuz I was feeling pretty good. Scaling back on Week 4.