Training

Today marks the end of my fourth week of training and the end of my first training block.   The 20-week plan I’m following is dividing into five 4-week training block.  The first 2 blocks (8 weeks) are the “Base” phase.  Every 4th week is a recovery week so I had it a bit easier this week than the previous 3, but I still did over 8 hrs of training!

 

I read this book this week and it was rather interesting.  It looks at all the different ways that you can get faster on the swim, bike and run and how much faster.  It was rather depressing to read about all the various things triathletes can do and the very small benefit it would produce.  You can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on various components or equipment and only see speed increases of “minutes” over the course of an 112 mile Ironman bike segment.  For professionals, that is important, but for someone like me who’s goal is to “simply finish”, it may not matter.

Now, having read the book, I still ordered an aero helmet, but that is a small price compared to deep section wheels which I can now see while it would make my bikelook cooler, for the cost, they just aren’t worth it “for me”

 

Plan For Next Week:

This upcoming week is going to involve a lot of workout shuffling.  I’m not working this week so I don’t need to swim in the evenings and I can actually do longer workouts midweek instead of waiting for the weekend.  So, I’ll be monitoring the weather and trying to do my bike rides outdoors when the weather is nice.  Also, since Christmas is Tuesday, the pool I swim at is closed on Monday and Tuesday and so that removes two days that I can’t actually swim.

This was the first week of the plan where I had to be shuffling around my workouts.  I got them all done, but just on different days.  The week started with my having to move my Monday swim so I could have attended my son’s choir concert.  Then I shuffled around my weekend workouts so I can do my long bike ride on Sunday when the weather was nicer and allowed me to ride outside….a rare occurrence these days.

I’m really getting used to riding indoors, but for now, an hour seems to be as much as I could bear.  This is an improvement though as it wasn’t long ago, 30 mins was a struggle.

I ended the week with 10 hours of workout time.  My largest ever.  I did hit 9 hours a couple times previously

 

Plan For Next Week:

This is a recovery week on my plan so things will be easier.

Week 2 is in the bag and everything went according to plan.  I was in FL for the week so all my swimming was done in a short 17m hotel pool and my bikes workouts while in FL were done in an indoor hotel gym bike.

I ended the week with just over 9 hrs of training time.

Unfortunately due to the weather, I didn’t get to ride outside and based on the weather for the upcoming week, next week may also be all indoors.

A major difference this week has been running on new Hoka Bondi 5 shoes.  Prior to this week, I had done a short run in the Hokas, but for this week, all my runs were in the Hokas and I have to say, they feel great.  I don’t know if this is just coincidence or the fact that I’ve been running less mileage in these opening weeks, but my Achilles has not been bothering me.  I think my long relationship with New Balance may have come to an end and this will be a new relationship with Hoka One One

 

Plan for Next Week:

Here is the plan for this coming week.  I may have to move the Monday swim around as I have to attend my son’s choir concert, but other than that, I expect a pretty smooth week