Top of the Key

Another solid week of training, feels like the routine is somewhat nailed down as to hard days, light days and day off.  I plan to keep this schedule loosely, as there will be somedays i’ll need to adjust.  My cycling is really the surprise for me right now, being able to ramp it up quite easily in terms of time on the bike, limited intensity.  And swimming has remained steady, i think i’m in a good place now that i can hold for the next 8 weeks of base training.

My running too has been an easy transition, although I have been leaning towards easy efforts for all my runs.  That’s something Tim was adamant about, getting time on the legs, quick turnover, and staying relaxed.  Speed will come later on.

Taking a season off from IM training, and almost 3-4 months of none to limited cycling, and 2 months off from hard running is really benefiting my body these days.  And bumping up my swim volume for 8 weeks was great mentally, and started to build my endurance engine in the pool.  Again, long endurance, easy effort pool workouts, with a few masters sessions seems to be the right mix for me.  But we’ll all see soon enough.

I know i’m back into the routine when Saturday rolls around.  Masters swim this morning.  Then a quick nap.  Then to the basement to ride the trainer, put in solid z3 time, and watch college basketball.  Like clockwork.  At least for the past few years, the months of Jan-Mar, you’ll find me here.  Feels better than I thought it would, with a good 8 weeks of barely any biking or running.  Time off is good for the body, and mind.  And I highly recommend it.

The warmer weather here should melt this remaining snow in a few days, and possibly will be able to run outside again next week.

As Jess was shredding some top secret documents last night, she came across this note I left for her during my training for IMAZ in 2008. A good reminder of where I was at the time in my training. I remember waking up each Thursday to swim masters, then meet Craig over at the Center for some high intensity cycling, then off to run some quick miles on Tim’s recommendation. Thursday’s were tough, my mornings were shot with this type of workout.  But managed to keep doing it…somehow.

New Year. Fresh start. Time to make a few changes.

Got an Ironman on the schedule for June, and I’m both excited and nervous. I’ve taken over a year off from the IM distance, but last year was probably my best in terms of solid training and racing, short distances of course. Cycling with the Echelon team in the spring and early summer was a great experience. Learned a lot and will take that with me through this training set. Ran my second open marathon, not sure how many of those i’ll do outside of Ironman. Put in some solid time in the water over the past few weeks, enough to bump up my confidence moving forward.

Time to get back on the bike though, as this will be the longest break I’ve taken from sitting in the saddle. I haven’t forgotten what it’s like though to train…

- the 4am wake up call
- 2-a-day workouts, if not sometimes 3
- eating lots of food
- 10 min power naps
- time management, probably the biggest factor in success
- rolling on through bad workouts, because the next day could be perfect

Haven’t decided what my blog theme will be over the next 6 months, but will check in now and then.

Need to pull through these last few days of being in no man’s land. Soon….direction.

Sometimes you need to have forced rest to…well…rest.

After a few weeks now of increasing swim volume, I’m finally at about my comfort zone. I firmly believe you need to go beyond anything you’ve done to see what’s possible and what’s comfortable to maintain. I now know what my swim volume will look like starting in January. I’ll be starting above what I finished at during the peak of my last Ironman training plan, which was IMAZ ‘08. It’s been well over a year, but lots has changed in my training and experience. I’ve limited the factors that really won’t help me achieve success, there is no substitute for the training…period.

With less than 2 weeks left before I officially start up, I feel recharged and eager to start the process. Just riding on the trainer yesterday got me in the mode to do more. But held back. I need to still enjoy these final few weeks.

“Enjoy the process” will be the goal during 2010 training. I won’t be racing much, which puts all my eggs in one basket, and I’m cool with that. So training will be my focus, day in and day out, soaking it up and enjoying every minute. Which ironically was my specialty in high school sports. I was totally a practice player. Come game time, i just fell to pieces. So back to my roots, but of course come game time, I’ll be ready to race this go around.

It’s now December 10, and I’d normally be a few weeks into ironman training – swim/bike/run. But this year I’m holding off until the first of the year. The last program I was on included almost a full year of IM training and 2 Ironman races. Found out that was too much. I am building up the desire to train hard and often. Haven’t gotten the itch yet to dive in either, so it’s a good sign.

Still been swimming lots, and just this week will start mixing in 2 runs and 2 bikes. Need to get back on track with diet…bye bye nutella.