Author: Derek

Week in Review: November 5 – November 11 2018

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

The plan for this week was to make it a recovery week with much less training time and that is how it ended up.  I ended the week with just about 5 hrs of training time and it included 2 swims, 2 runs, and 2 bike rides.

The 2 runs I did were quite a contrast.  Wednesday’s run was in warm and humid FL at about 77F while Saturday’s run was 40 degrees cooler at 35F

For the coming week, I expect my workout volume to also be reduced as I’m flying to Phoenix on Saturday.  I’ll be there to volunteer for Ironman AZ so that I can register for next year’s Ironman AZ

 

Goals for Next Week: The weather this come week is going to be brutal and so I expect all my bike rides will have to be indoors.  I will be aiming for at least 3 swim days of 1500m each, 3 run days for a total of my normal 18 miles, and 2 bike days of about an hour each

 

Week in Review: October 29 – November 4 2018

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

This week was another great week.  It ended with 9 hours of training for the second consecutive week.  The highlight of the week though was the swimming milestone I hit where I was able to swim for 2000m without stopping.  It was just a week ago that I swam for 1500m without stopping so hitting 2000m just one week later was great.  I really wasn’t expecting to hit that until nearer the end of the year.

I ran for 18 miles again, doing 3 days of 6 miles each.  I will continue to stick to that level and will probably only jump to 20-21 miles at the beginning of December.

This week I only managed to bike 2 days.  Last week Tuesday I started my ride but my headlight failed after a few minutes and wouldn’t come on.  I had to abandon that ride and I only ended up doing 2 rides for the week including a 2-hr, 32-mile ride on Sunday

I managed to join a local cycling club, Lone Star Cyclists and they do Tue/Thu rides and a longer Sat ride.  I can’t do the Tue/Thu rides with them as they do it in the evenings and I need to swim then, but the long Saturday rides are perfect.  It will help with monotony of riding alone, allow me to explore new routes, and to be a bit safer as I’ll be in a group.  I plan to try my first ride with them on Saturday November 10.  They would have multiple groups for each ride covering different distances and different paces.  I will end up riding with the faster/longer group but for my first ride, I’ll probably go with a middle-of-the-pack group.

Goals for Next Week: After doing two weeks of 9-hrs, I plan to make this week a recovery week as I’ll be in FL and that always impacts my training.  I’ll also be swimming in a small hotel pool.  So, I will aim for 3 days of 45-mins of swimming, 2 days of running and a 2 days of cycling including a group club ride on Saturday

Fourth Major Swimming Milestone

Posted by Derek on in SwimTraining, Training

Just a mere week after hitting a major milestone of swimming 1500m without stopping, I managed to up that to swimming 2000m without stopping yesterday.  This carries a lot of significance as the swim portion of the Ironman 70.3 is 1900m and knowing I can do 2000m this early in my preparation is a great confidence booster.

In my blog entry a week ago, I mentioned I was hoping to swim 2000m, with breaks, by the end of November and swimming it continuously by the year.  So much for shattering my goals!  I didn’t start off the week trying to do this, but on Monday I did my swim and like last week, I swam 1500m again without stopping.  I felt good afterwards and was sure I could have swam more, but mentally, I had 1500m in my mind and I stopped at that point.  Tuesday I swam with a single break.  When heading out to go swimming on Thursday, I knew I was going to sleep in on Friday and so I could swim a bit longer and not have to worry about getting to bed, but even then, I was only planning to swim 2000m with some breaks.  But as I swam more and more and coaxed myself into going just a couple more hundred meters at a time, and then once I got to 1500m, I figured I had to go all the way.  I did it in a touch over 56 mins.

I’m not breaking any speed records, but if I can swim at the same pace for the Ironman 70.3, I would come in well under the cutoff of 1 hr 10 mins.

So my milestones thus fare are:

  • Sep 25 – Swam 500m
  • Oct 3 – Swam 1000m
  • Oct 26 – Swam 1500m
  • Nov 1 – Swam 2000m

I don’t have any more distance milestones until after my Ironman 70.3.  My milestones will now be based on speed and pace.

 

Week in Review: October 22 – October 28 2018

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

This week is as close to the perfect training week as I’ve come.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was very close. In all, I did 9 hrs of training which is a new high for me.

First, I hit a major swimming milestone by swimming for 1500m without stopping.  That is a swimmer’s mile.  It took me 41 mins to swim that distance so I’m not breaking any speed records, but I’ll take it.  I was looking back at my swimming history and 3.5 months ago on July 9, I took 42 mins to swim 200m due to all the long breaks I had to take every 25m. It’s amazing to see how much progress I’;ve made in such a short time.  For the week, I swam for 3 days, 1500m each day.  This would have been a perfect swimming week if had swam for 4 days.

On the running front, my plan was to up my mileage to 18 miles for an average of 6 miles each day.  I managed to do that.

This past week had some very cold mornings including one of my mid-week rides. It was cold and so I only managed to ride for 30 mins that day as I just could not get warm.  I have since bought some long cycling pants and I’ll have to wear an additional base layer for those colder temperatures.  I did do a 2-hr, 34-mile ride on Sunday.

 

Goals for Next Week: I would like to do another 9-hr week this week.  I’m travelling to FL the week after and so my training time may be impacted so doing a 9-hr week this week and then using the travel week as a recovery would be ideal.  I plan to swim 3 days, 1500m each day and to run 18 miles again.  The remainder of my workout time will be riding.