Only 11 more weeks until Ironman Couer d’Alene! Week 15 was another build week. I had planned about a 16 hour week in volume, but ended up with only 13 hours. This was mostly due to a shoulder bursitis flare-up issue that kept me out of the pool and some dog emergency issues on Friday. I was able to get in some more strength training time with the time freed up from swimming. The weather has also perked up a bit so I was also able to get some more time on the roads.
HRV
HRV was good most of the week until Monday morning which is highlighted in orange in the Training Guide chart . I would guess this was mostly from my 17 mile run on Sunday. The rest of the week was in the green sweet spot of the chart. I actually felt pretty good Sunday night, but was slightly fatigued on Monday morning. Then again I always feel that way on a Monday morning.
iThlete HRV Training Guide Week 15 – April 5 -12
iThlete HRV Timeline week 15 – April 5 -12
Things rebounded early in the week after a big dip the week prior, but continued to decline a bit towards Monday AM. I missed my Sunday AM reading due to my dog waking me early and I forgot to take it before getting out of bed.
Training
Monday was a beautiful day and I was able to get a good 28 mile ride in that evening. Tuesday was rainy and I resorted to the treadmill. During that treadmill run I started getting some pain in my left shoulder which continued to get worse. I tend to get some Bursitis issues in that shoulder from time-to-time due to an old high school football injury. It usually goes away fairly quickly though. I tried testing it out in the pool on Wednesday and only got about 200m in before I pulled the plug. No sense in aggravating it. So, swim training was nixed for the week.
Training Peaks Calendar Week 15iThlete HRV Timeline week 15 – April 5 -12
Training Peaks PMC and TSS chart Week 15-April 5 to 12
I supplemented the extra time with some strength training, and longer bikes and runs. I had planned to have a good long swim and possibly a decent bike ride in the afternoon on Friday since I had off of work that day. That plan quickly changed when I noticed that my dog, Yuki, was bleeding from his mouth.
Yuki
Two days before Yuki had broken into the bag which contained two doses of Prednisone I had given to my parents while they dog-sat him. This was after having his dose that morning, so three doses. I had called the vet and they said he would be ok, just may drink and pee a bit more. He seemed fine while my parents had him and Thursday night. But then I noticed him licking his paw and it was all blooding Friday morning. I thought his paw was bleeding, but finally realized it was coming from his gums. I tried to stop it, but it kept bleeding so off to the vet we went.
They took him in the back tried to stop the bleeding. The vet said she thought his liver was not clotting his blood correctly due to the Lymphoma/cancer. I told the vet about the extra doses of Prednisone, but she never said anything about that. She also brought up about trying some chemo since it the Prednisone was not working along with some VItamin K to help the liver and get the blood clotting again. She said the chemo would put the cancer into remission and help his liver. The original vet expressed that the chemo would be rough on his liver which steared us away form that, but this vet deals with more of the oncological side and she disagreed. So we decided to proceed with that.
The Prince of Lock RIdge Park
The bleeding continued off-and-on until about 7PM Friday night, which had me on high alert all day. I was putting ice on his gums to help stop it. That is fun trying to hold an ice cube on your dogs gums for any length of time. Eventually it stopped and I am happy to report he has been doing pretty well so far. He had one night where he was kind of moping around, but the past couple days he had been his normal self.
Weekend Training
Saturday was a beautiful day but very windy out. The wind and the fact I was still on high alert with Yuki kept me on the trainer Saturday morning. I think it was a record long 4 hour ride on the trainer for me. Fortunately, I did get outside for my brick run that followed.
Sunday was a gorgeous day so I headed down to the Lehigh Parkway for my long run. I logged a decent 2:40 17 miler and managed to keep my average around 9:30 all in Zone 2. This was one of my goals to keep all my LSD runs at 9:30 pace or below. I will let the photos do the talking here…
Lehigh Parkway Run April 12 2015
Lehigh Parkway Run April 12 2015 – Blue Bells
Lehigh Parkway Run April 12 2015 – Post-run recovery streamside with an Amrita Bar
Next week is going to be another build week since my schedule gets confusing after that. I am doing the St. Lukes Half Marathon on April 26th and then New Jersey Devilman the Sunday after that. I may end up doing two lighter weeks in a row or maybe a semi-light week for St. Luke’s and just train through it.
