| DAY | SESSION | EFFORT CAP |
|---|
| Mon 9/14 | Recovery. Yesterday was a double (5 mi run over cap + 575 m swim) on a 5.3 h night; RHR 62 this morning. Upper-body/core only, no leg work · stretch 15 min · log tonight's dinner — the food log has been dark since Friday | no leg work |
| Tue 9/15 | Swim 600 m. 4×25 easy warmup (nose exhale) · rest 2 min · 75 m unbroken — three lengths, no wall stop. Controlled at the finish? Rest fully and attempt 100 m. Then 4×50 unbroken on ~2:00 send-off (Thursday's 7×50 at 70–79 s says fifties are routine) · easy 25s to 600 m. Pushups after | no cap — milestone session |
| Wed 9/16 | Run 4 mi easy + exactly 4×20 s relaxed strides at the end, walk back until HR is under 130 before the next one. Sunday's version was ten efforts, half of them a minute long; four short ones is the whole prescription | avg HR ≤ 145 (strides exempt) |
| Thu 9/17 | Bike 16 mi easy. Outdoors if the weather cooperates — Week 6 was 28.8 mi of trainer. Watch avg HR, not speed. Squats after | avg HR ≤ 140 |
| Fri 9/18 | Swim 600 m — consolidate. 4×25 warmup · repeat Tuesday's longest unbroken distance, twice, full rest between · 50s to fill. If Tuesday's 75 failed or was skipped: run Tuesday's session verbatim, attempt included | no cap — technique & milestone |
| Sat 9/19 | BRICK: bike 10 mi easy → run 3 mi easy, straight off the bike (transition ≤ 5 min). Third time on the plan, executed zero times — deliberately small so it cannot be too big to start. The first half-mile will feel wrong; that is the point | bike ≤ 140 · run ≤ 145 |
| Sun 9/20 | Long run 7 mi easy — Columbus ramp, step 1. Carry water; one gel at ~45 min. No strides, no surges — this is the one run of the week with no fast running in it. The race plan is easy HR through mile 9, and that is rehearsed here, not on Oct 18 | avg HR ≤ 145, ceiling 150 |
Morning Go / No-Go
Check wake RHR on the morning brief before training.
- ≤ 62 — green light, train as planned
- 63–66 — train, but easy only; skip the 75/100 m attempt that day
- ≥ 67 — swap to rest / stretching
Sunday is the exposed day: 7 mi the morning after the brick. Amber Sunday →
run 5, still capped. Tuesday amber → swim the 600 as 50s and move the attempt to Friday.
The One Rule This Week
Attempt the 75 first. Week 6 delivered the second-highest swim volume of the program
(1,175 m; Week 4 was 1,350) with seven unbroken 50s on Thursday, and never attempted a 75: the attempt sat after the
consolidation work, and by then the session was spent. This week the order is reversed — warm up,
then attempt, while fresh. The milestone is a sequencing problem, not a fitness one: the 50s finished
at HR 141–156, and the step from 50 to 75 is one more length. Everything else is easy-capped.
Fueling
- ~2,300–2,500 kcal on training days; the low end Monday
- Protein ≥ 135 g every day. Week 6 hit it on 1 of 5 logged days (Thu, 159 g);
the others sat near 100 g. The gap is one protein-centred meal
- Log Saturday and Sunday. Week 6 was 5/7, both misses on the weekend, at home,
with no travel excuse
- Weight 185.0 lb Sunday, flat for two weeks. Race weight 168 is 17 lb in 39 weeks (~0.45 lb/wk)
— a modest deficit on rest days, none on long-session days
Week Checklist
- [ ] 75 m unbroken attempted Tue
- [ ] Two swims, 1,200 m
- [ ] Wed 4 mi + strides, avg HR ≤ 145
- [ ] Thu 16 mi ride, avg HR ≤ 140
- [ ] Sat brick executed (bike 10 → run 3)
- [ ] Sun 7 mi ≤ 145, no surges
- [ ] Protein ≥ 135 g · logged all 7 days
- [ ] Stretching 10 min × 5+ days
Week 6 actual: 10.0 mi run / 28.8 mi bike / 1,175 m swim against 9 / 34 / 1,200 — the highest bike volume of the
program, with the plan's shape only half-followed. Wednesday's Chicago run held the cap (5 mi, avg HR 139). Sunday's held it too through 3.5 mi (avg HR 142) and then
ran the strides session — ten efforts, not four: five of 24–32 s, then five of 55–64 s at 10:15–11:10/mi with
HR never recovering below 146 between them. Strides are cap-exempt; that back half was an interval session. The Saturday strides run and the Sunday 18 mi ride never happened;
Friday's ride became 18 mi indoor and Sunday became a run-plus-swim double. Thursday's swim contained
seven unbroken 50s (69.7–79.0 s) — the 50 is a repeatable unit now, not a ceiling — but the lap
data shows no length longer than 50 m in either session. The 75 was not attempted; that is the week's biggest miss and
why it leads Tuesday. Run rises to 14 mi because the Columbus Half is 34 days out and the long run must reach 10–11 mi
by early October; 14 is within precedent (13.5 in Week 2, 13.0 in Week 4), spread over three capped runs. Bike drops
to 26 mi to make room — it is the discipline furthest ahead of schedule. Garmin's half-marathon prediction moved to
2:39:43 this morning, slower than either prior half (2:26, 2:33); it has seen six weeks of capped easy running and no
race-pace work, so read it as a description of the training, not a verdict on Oct 18.
Readiness sits at 38%; continuous swim distance is still the number holding it there. T-minus 251 days (race moved to Happy Valley, May 23, 2027: three weeks earlier, ~42-week build).