Another brick in the wall

A really nice solid day of training today. Another good brick in this final week of race build training. One last week of work before taper time. This week is the tricky one. I have done lots of work over the last two weeks and the temptation is to take the foot off the pedal. Surely I have done enough, time for a break. But there is plenty of time for that next week. This week is about finding that little bit more, pushing on from what I achieved last week just an inch if I can. That is assuming I can do so without pushing over the edge into injury or illness of course.

So far I think I am managing to find that little bit more than last week. The recovery spin I had yesterday was very nice, but the ride I had this morning felt great. Accessible power is the term that comes to mind. Finding the power levels and speeds that I was after without having to put myself in a hole. All good stuff. I wouldn't say that I have necessarily found more speed on the bike, but I am hopeful that I am having to find less effort for that speed, which should translate to more energy for the run. Keen to see.

The run tonight was the session of the day though. Running is still such a work in progress for me that sometimes it feels like I am getting nowhere. For a while I was working intently on the connection between my upper body and my lower. I think I was getting somewhere with that, but of late I have been distracted by focusing on my hip positions and glute activation. Also very important. Over the weekend I had it pointed out that my upper body connection still has a long way to go so I was thinking about that a bit more tonight and I can see that the point is valid. So much to work on. I guess one advantage of starting at a low point is that improvements are easy to find. It does make it easy to get downhearted though. However, runs like tonight's give me hope. Still a long way to go, but moments of tonight I felt like I was starting to see where I needed to go. Plus the running was just feeling good. I got to the end of the run still feeling strong, despite the session including a set of rather nasty hill repeats.

Now that I am through today I have the prospect of some sleep and then a semi-recovery day in front of me tomorrow. Just have to get through a 5000m swim set of death and then I am home free.

Shouldn't be that hard...