I’m not sure what’s wrong with me right now.  I feel like my highest gear has been taken away.  To put it another way, I can’t seem to really dive into the pain box.  I’ve felt this way in today’s workout and also in the previous 4×8′ workout.  A couple weeks ago, I felt like I could push and my HR would eventually rise up to above 180.  In these past two workouts, I feel like I’m hitting a wall with my HR around 170.

Today, I pushed through the first interval on target (<1:48), but I couldn’t hold the pace during the second interval, and needed to downshift about a third of the way through.  I eventually pulled it back together and ended up with a 1:50.7 pace.  For the third interval, I reset the target to 1:49 and just pounded it out and finished at 1:48.8.  But it felt like the longest 2K of my life, and I was spent at the end.

So, I’m not all that happy with the workout.  But I have noticed this kind of thing before in my training.  I go through a week or two where it is really hard to work at high heart rates, and then eventually I push through.  This meso-cycle is also a really tough one for me.  These long interval workouts are a bitch and trying to pump myself up for 3 of them each week is challenge.  But the end is already in sight.  Soon, I will be shifting gears to the sprint and power mesocycle.  I’m looking forward to that in a twisted and perverse way.

I think I will do a 30 minute recovery row this afternoon, and tomorrow morning will be a normal 4×20 L4.