Training

This was a recovery week….the end of the base phase. I still ended up doing 9 hrs in a rather uneventful week.

I did decide to hire a triathlon coach though for the remainder of my training. I think I could have gotten by without one, but it would be nice to have a coach that can tweak my plan as I go along. So rather than simply following a plan, if things are going great, he can up the intensity, or if I’m too tired, back off a bit. Those adjustments are not something I’m comfortable doing at this point on my own.

I’m using Ryan Falkenrath from Set The Pace Triathlon.

I don’t know as yet if I’ll use him for my full Ironman. It will all depend on how well the next 12 weeks goes…it’s hard to believe my Ironman 70.3 is only 12 weeks away

The highlight of this week was swimming in the ocean in FL on Thursday.  This was my first open water swim.  I was nervous before as I didn’t know what to expect and especially since the ocean isn’t smooth like a lake.  I wasn’t sure how I would handle the waves and swells.  In the end, it actually went really well.  I did the swim with a couple co-workers and so it wasn’t my planned 2000m.  We ended up doing 1000 yds.  We are already planning another ocean swim when I’m back in FL.  I hope we can do 1500m the next time.

The disappointing workout of the week had to be the planned 2hr 15 min ride.  For that duration, I couldn’t fathom doing it indoors so I ventured outdoors in about 48F temperature and windy.  It did not go well.  I managed about 30 mins and called it a day.  I was numb!  I can’t wait for some nicer weather so I can ride long outdoors.

Unlike my previous weeks, I have two orange workouts.  The short ocean swim, which I don’t mind, and the abbreviated outdoor ride.

This coming week is a recovery week.

 

This ended up being a great week.  The most notable aspect is that while I had the same work load as last week (about 10.5 hrs), I didn’t feel as tired. My body is adapting to the work load.  For example, today’s run felt great.

The biggest milestone was doing a 2500m swim on Monday without stopping.

The biggest challenge was doing a couple runs in a some miserable weather earlier in the week.  Running in 34F and the rain was not fun!

 

Plan for Next Week:

This coming week is a travelling week.  This means a lot of indoor biking and swimming in a short (and cold) hotel pool in South Florida.  I am looking at an aquatic center that is close to the hotel so I will try and check them out.

The week started off great, but by Thursday, it ended up being rather tough.  For my swim on Thursday, I had to take a few short breaks which is unusual based on how I’ve been swimming recently.  I was just tired.  I hoped the rest day on Friday would have helped, but I was still tried on Saturday.

I managed to complete all my workouts based on the distances and times, but for my Saturday run, I did it as a normal aerobic run and didn’t do the 11×30 sec intervals.

In retrospect, I think there were a couple factors involved:

• This was my biggest week ending at 10.5 hours of training
• Since the pool I swim at was closed both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I had to rearrange my workouts.  I also moved cycling around to try and take advantage of the good weather.  I think this ended up pushing a lot of my harder workouts to the start of the week

 

Plan For Next Week:

I hope to minimize the workout reshuffling, but there will be a little as I try and get the linger bike ride done outside on the better day of the week.  In total though, this coming will be be a similar load to the week that just ended.  The biggest challenge will be swimming 2350m which will be longest swim by quite a bit.