Week 6 - Hello Running Gear!!

FINALLY! After 8 weeks of a complete layoff from running to heal a pelvic stress fracture I was able to lace up the running shoes, throw on the cold weather gear, leash up the dog and head out to see how things have healed. I'm happy to say after putting in 3 run workouts this week that things seem to have repaired themselves - no groin pain, no pelvic pain during impact, no weakness during toe-off! These first 3 run workouts were very light with alternating run/walk intervals. Through the awesome advice of a couple PTs on the Endurance Nation forums I have a solid plan for ramping up the mileage and intensity while being very diligent about stretching and strengthening key areas. During these runs I've also felt the results of my very deliberate and consistent core work over the last 8 weeks. I have to keep this going.

This week I also participated in the Endurance Nation President's Day Weekend Bike Challenge. The challenge involved 3 days (Saturday-Monday) of hard work on the bike. The harder work you do (volume and intensity) the more points you accumulate. I'll write in more detail about it in a subsequent post but I can tell you that I worked very hard during these trainer sessions with very little "junk" time (anything below 70% of my FTP). I'm hoping to see a nice 'pop' to my bike fitness because of this mini-bike focus in the coming weeks.

So, here's the data for Week 6:

Time spent training: 9:29
Time spent at or above FTP on bike: 2:02
Avg bike Intensity Factor (% of FTP)=.91 (week 1=.861, week 2=.837, week 3=.881, week 4=.92, week 5=.926)
Mileage: 134
Training Stress Score (TSS): 694
Chronic Training Load (CTL): 61 TSS/d
Training Stress Balance (TSB): -23.3
Weight: 173 lbs
Functional Threshold Power (FTP): 271 watts
Vdot: Won't test until March

Performance Management Chart (PMC) through week 6: