A Tribute to Espresso

Early morning fuel!

Joy here...Last year I used to sometimes do double workouts in one days (I called them my "double double" days), but it seems like it's been a long long time since I've worked out consistently and done anything like that.

Well, I changed that this weekend.

Since starting with Coach Woods on a running regime this week, we had a scheduled run workout on Saturday morning, and then I had another bike ride effort planned by Coach Andrew.  So when the alarm went off at 6am, we got up, made ourselves espressos with our new espresso maker to fuel us for our run workout.  Then we headed out to the track/park to meet with the other folks, do a warm-up run of around 20 minutes easy with the other folks (five of us in total), and then did our drills--walking lunges, backwards lunges, one-legged lunges, As, Bs, Cs, hops, and strides--and then we broke out into our individual programs...which, for me was five hill repeats.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I didn't know how it would go, because it's been two years since I've done running hill repeats, but with Coach Woods standing there in the chilly air watching my form as I pushed my knees up and drove myself up the hill, I wasn't going to give up or fail.  So I just kept my legs swinging and my arms pumping for my five repeats before cooling down...meeting up with The Man who was finishing his harder tempo sets up the hill, and driving home in a car warmed up against the chilly outside air.

And then we fuelled ourselves with a post run treat...affogato!  That espresso maker came in handy for the second time in one day as we topped a scoop of vanilla ice cream with espresso, and then sorted ourselves out to get ready for workout #2 of the day on the bike.

Affogato!!! 

The bike workout included drills to warm up my legs and then four 6-minute sets at ME effort, which is "moderate effort," or one wattage zone below my full tempo pace (i.e. 156-177w).  Ugh.  With hills in my legs?  Really?

So with some Lord of the Rings on the DVD, The Man joining me on his bike beside me, and an affogato in my belly, I was set to go.  I diligently worked through the warm up, and then it was time to go with the first ME set.  I kept my eye on my wattage meter and also on the clock; at the 3 minute mark I was already ready to stop, but was only halfway!  Then I broke that second 3 minutes down into 90 second chunks, regulating my breathing and counting out the seconds, and before I knew it, I was into my final minute and getting ready for the 4 minute rest between sets.  And basically each set felt much the same.  At the start of each one I felt like I wouldn't be able to finish; then at the halfway point I felt like throwing in the towel; and then I just breathed and counted my way to the end of 6 minutes.

And it all paid off.  Here's what Coach Andrew said when he looked at my workout data:  "And nice stuff on the ME work today...each of them is around the same wattage, and heart rate, just what we are looking for. And it indicates that the efforts are manageable. Booyah!."  That's right...Booyah!

Two workouts in one day...and all thanks to espresso...there's nothing you can't do when hopped up on caffeine!

Over and out,
Joy

(1) Run Stats:
Total 90 minute run workout
-20 minute warm up
-45 minute drills
-5X hill repeats
-10 minute cool down

(2) Ride Stats:
Total 68 minute bike workout (indoors)
-20 minute warm up
-2 minute recovery
-4 minutes at SE (steady endurance)
-4X 6 minutes at ME (155-175w)
-5 minutes of high cadence spinning
-2 sets of 20 seconds per leg of one-legged pedalling