I Have A Plan

I have never really followed a plan to the letter before but to complete an iron distance race in a reasonable time I thought that now is a good time to start. I'm in my 3rd week and having a structure to follow is surprisingly easier than i anticipated, sure Ive juggled the days around a bit but essentially all the work outs have been done. The hard bit has been sticking to the program, instead i have followed it but then added a few extras as not to reduce the workload to less than what i was doing before. Even though its the off season, and I have reduced my hours training, but can not see any point to losing fitness over winter to a degree that would seem counter  productive in the coming weeks of my base endurance training.

 My marathon training plan was hit and miss - in fact i never actually did a run over 19 miles. I did a 16 miler and the 19 miler a fortnight beforehand and that was it really apart from the weekly long runs of 13 miles. This time is going be different, this time I will follow my plan and then there should be no excuses for a dismal result.

seth cifferi machines and donuts - what more could a tattooist want?

A slight hindrance to my aspiring goal is food, its always been a downfall and at this time if year a hard temptation to resist all the niceties but the triathletes world forumites have come to the rescue with a Fat Chuffers thread for 2012 weight loss. Being a slightly competitive type  I have stuck my name down with the intention of getting to around 11stone 2 or 3 by the time the local sprint triathlons take place.

so happy chrimbo and a healthy new year to all

Brickin' it

Today, on my adaptation of the Fink training plan, gave me the much hated brick session. I havent ridden then ran since the Vitruvian tri in september but fortune must have been on my side today as I did a small ride of 9 miles into a 3.5 mile run which seemed to go really well, I base this on all splits were done under the 8minute miling with the 3rd mile done in 7.41 - not super fast but more importantly they were all done without going out of zone 2 ( 85%max hr ), all that marathon training i didnt do must of helped.   :)

All that was followed with a 100 length swim, 2500m, and later tonight i did a weights session and a wind down 9 mile turbo sweat fest, bring on the Xmas pudding. Talking of Xmas i thought i would give the bike a seasonal touch.

Day One Done

Well that was easy, the first day of training for the Iron distance race in July went well, I'm 100% certain that not all training days are going to be this cushy. Todays menu consisted of a run of 30 minutes in Zone2, but after all the work i have been doing lately i couldnt leave it at that so i added a 2k swim this morning, and a 6mile turbo warm up and a weights session this evening. Still undecided if i should hit the turbo again - i did have chips for tea - albeit oven ones.

Tomorrows training plan calls for a small brick session - 30minute ride into a 15 minute run, i dont think this will tax me too much either, i am just looking at it as an extension of the off season, although i really am looking forward to the longer sessions in the spring. I have felt that i havent trained half as much as i should have done lately but i know that i may well regret over training if i do too much more.

A Marathon Swim

This month has seen a slight increase in swim mileage to just over the 27 mile mark which i am very pleased with, and along with my first marathon and some healthy but friendly training log competition on the forum Im not too concerned about finishing the Outlaw Triathlon - or not finishing! Now I'm chasing a decent time.  :)

  I think now the focus for the short term is to get my cycling base work in, get bilateral breathing sorted and get my swim speed and efficiency up. Maybe I'm doomed to be a slow swimmer but as i increase swim speed, efficiency drops, my recent times have been 4k continuous in 1 hour 41 minutes (160 lengths of 25m pool)  and a little more recently 2.5k in 1:00:54 so should be looking at 1 hour 30 minutes for the swim leg. The bike and run are very unknown quantities at the minute. I'm hoping for a 6.30 bike and 6 hour run for a 14 hour finish - if everything goes right I may see 13 hours, and that will mean the time I have put in was wisely spent.

so this month 

ran a miserable 67.97 miles, biked a sweaty 257.18 miles ( mostly on the turbo )  and splashed around for 27.32 miles