Training Log

• Freestyle: 750m
• Backstroke: 500m
• Breaststroke: 250m
• Butterfly: 150m
• Kick/Kickboard: 100m
• Mixed: 50m

• Personal: Learned a close friend passed away; took it easy in the pool and used the swim to process it, which helped
• Weather: Cloudy — her favorite conditions to swim in
• Pace: 3'05"/100m average
• Session: 9:29–10:25 AM, Salt Lake City

• Time/location: 8:34–10:51am, Round Valley North, Park City
• Route: Round Valley → Happy Gilmore → Pulp Friction → bike park (one run) → Rusty Shovel as a build-up beyond her usual loop. Pulp Friction alone is ~5 mi; today was ~8.8–9 mi by her count, 10.26 mi per Watch GPS
• Watch stats: 364 active cal / 484 total cal, elevation gain 954 ft, avg speed 5.9 mph
• Backstory: first MTB ride of 2026 — concussion on 2025-07-16 (fall in shower, hit head on concrete wall, not bike-related) kept her off mountain trails most of last year; recovery was non-linear, didn't fully resolve until ~Jan/Feb 2026; did road biking during recovery instead but missed MTB specifically
• Season plan: this ride is step one of a progression — build up frequency on this loop, then work toward longer rides (Deer Valley) later in the season. She wants to make rides at this effort a regular part of summer/fall, not a one-off
• HR zone breakdown (Apple Watch): Zone 1 (<123bpm) 3:40, Zone 2 (124–134bpm) 9:47, Zone 3 (135–145bpm) 22:47, Zone 4 (146–156bpm) 40:25, Zone 5 (157+bpm) 27:13. Bulk of the ride (67+ min) was Zone 4–5 — a genuinely hard effort, matching the 7/10 RPE. Post-workout HR dropped from 134 to 122 to 126 bpm within ~2 min of stopping — a good, healthy recovery response
• Apple Watch Zone 2 discrepancy flagged: Watch's Zone 2 (124–134bpm) runs meaningfully higher than the plan's calculated Zone 2 (99–115bpm, from the standard age-based max-HR formula). Possible personalized max-HR estimate from the Watch. Not yet resolved — need to check what max HR value Health/Fitness has on file to reconcile
• Zone 2 crediting question, answered: the 9:47 of incidental Zone 2 time within this hard ride does NOT count toward the weekly 150-min Zone 2 target — that benefit comes from sustained, uninterrupted time in zone, not scattered minutes within a mixed-intensity effort. If she wants both more rides like this *and* to keep hitting 150 Zone 2 min/week, that requires adding to the dedicated Zone 2 sessions (currently 120 min/week from swimming), not crediting the ride
• Hamstring/sciatic follow-up: has a baseline hamstring issue but felt nothing during or after this ride despite the length. Her hypothesis: MTB may not load the hamstring much unless climbing continuously/steeply — today's climbing was on-and-off, not sustained. Not a green light for cycling generally, sustained steep climbing could differ. Went in cautious on purpose, planned to cut the ride short if needed — held up fine. Encouraging, but one ride isn't enough to call the flare-up settled, especially since the hamstring was genuinely painful days earlier (see 2026-07-08 entry)

• Time/location: 9:11–9:56am, Salt Lake City pool
• Watch stats: 30 laps, 50m pool, avg pace 2'59"/100m, 352 total cal (300 active)
• Strokes: kickboard 100m, butterfly 100m, breaststroke 150m, backstroke 500m, freestyle 650m
• Left shoulder: no pain on butterfly, felt good
• Hamstring: felt fine, minimal engagement in swimming
• New sensation: mild tightness in upper back, right of spine — not painful, feels better with rotation/movement, icing afterward

Park City, 661 ft elevation gain