First half 2011 update

So far in 2011, I have been working on laying a foundation of work to build upon and raced a handful of times.

As I have a tendency of doing, the year began with a little too much training volume. MASSIVE volume was the theme of January, including lifetime bests in running volume. By the time February began I decided to recharge my battery before I fried myself for the year. Since March the key variable that I am emphasizing is CONSISTENCY!

I have raced a handful of times so far:

• 10k swim in Pensacola-- I swam faster and probably straighter than last year. I won my age group and had a lot of fun! I like doing this event, because compared to it it makes any triathlon swim feel like a breeze!
• Memorial Day Practice Sprint Triathlon @ Joe Connick's-- Another fun day. I felt good to push on the swim and bike but I ran cautiously since this was only 5 days before the Grandman Triathlon in Fairhope. This event confirmed that I need to start doing more quality running in general...
• Grandman Triathlon-- This was a frustrating swim due to the shallow water. Fun and fast bike. Then a run split which was on par with the training that I have done, but still disappointing. Overall, I finished 23rd out of 600+ and 5th in my age group out of 70+.
• 5k run in Pascagoula-- I ran 20:59 on my watch and 21:00 official time. Very consistent splits. I am pleased with this at this point, but I've got to improve my top end run speed if I am ever going to achieve my long term goals. I need to start doing more open running races in the future.

As I transition into the 2nd half of my season, I am going to really focus on improving the quality of my run training. This is the key!

2010 review, 9,000 miles of fun.

In 2010 I was able to get in a serious amount of aerobic training, which will hopefully set the stage for a fast 2011! The General flow of the year was as follows:

• January through May-- LARGE amounts of swimming and cycling with very little running. I had to recover from an injury and rehab to be ready for training.
• June through August-- Balanced Ironman training for Ironman Louisville. My race in Louisville went fairly well considering the difficult conditions of the day. In retrospect, I believe that it would have been better with more intensity in my bike training and a deeper running base. I am hoping that being healthy in 2011, will allow me to build a MUCH BIGGER base on the run!
• September through November-- A transitional period. This was my lowest training volume of the season. I recharged my battery and brainstormed to set my goals for the next few years of my training and racing. More on that later...
• December-- The work that I did in December is really the beginnings of my 2011 training plan. It saw me increasing my run frequency and ramping up my run mileage. At this point, I am feeling very durable!
  

Here are my 2010 training totals:

Swim-- 231 hours 3 minutes 752,544 yds
Bike-- 400 hours 26 minutes 7,516.4 mi
Run-- 166 hours 49 minutes 1,101.2 mi
Crosstraining-- 38 hours 40 minutes
===========================
Totals-- 836 hours 58 minutes 9,045.2 miles

As I move forward, I have 2 main objectives:

1. Become a faster and more durable runner. I am still going to swim and bike, but my training will definitely have a run bias. Improving on the run is the area where I have the greatest potential for improvement.
2. Take a short break from Long Course races. In 2011, I plan to focus on Sprint and Olympic distance races. In 2012, I will do some Half Ironman racing. And when I return to racing Ironman distance races in 2013, I plan to be doing it with much better top end speed.

That is the general plan. I *might* resume Long Course racing sooner, depending on how my short course racing goes. If it goes exceedingly well, I have a very specific indicator in place that I will use to tell me that I am ready to pursue my long course goals sooner rather than later.

This is going to be a fun year!

Ironman Louisville race report

The conditions were tough, much tougher than last year. My placing was higher than that time would have gotten last year. It was hot, but not nearly as hot as Mobile has been!

For the swim I wanted to go about 60-65 minutes, and I went 1:01:something. So I can't complain about that.

I took the bike cautiously, because my training indicated that I have had difficulty running off of tough rides. Plus, my top end on the bike is not what it was last fall. I kept a 20 mph average for most of the ride and figured that the "fast" final 20 miles to give me around a 5:30. However, the final 20 miles were slow today due to a strong headwind. Finished 5:39 something. At one point during the ride, someone asked me how I felt. I responded, "not good, but not bad". As a sign that I wasn't going too hard, on the bike I was able to take in and keep down 2,600 calories and 50 salt pills.

Honestly, I've been scared of this marathon ALL YEAR! Mainly due to the setback of my running injury. For the year, I have probably had more bad runs than good runs. I figured that I would do between 4 and 4:30. For the 1st 10 miles of the run, I felt the same as the bike "not good, but not bad". After that, my legs started feeling more and more fatigued. I barely held on for the slow end of my expected range with a 4:28. Other than aid stations, I didn't walk. I just tried to be as tough as I could and at least shuffle along.


Total time was an 11:17. All things considered, I am satisfied with my effort. Considering how my running has gone this year, I probably went as fast as I deserved to go?!?!

There was a LOT OF CARNAGE out there today!

August Training Totals

Here are the training totals:

August started out with a BIG week (35 hour training week) and finished with a BIG day(Ironman Louisville)!

I was able to finally get to the point that my run mileage was approaching a decent range. For the month, I averaged 38.9 miles per week and this included backing off a little in the 2nd half of the month. Hopefully, this is a sign that my body is past the injury that plagued me earlier this year and that I am ready to transition into a run emphasis for the fall and winter.

Here are the training totals (includes IM Louisville totals):

Swim-- 15h 31m 56,718 yards
Bike-- 45h 18m 867.1 miles
Run-- 26h 20m 172.3 miles
Total: 87h 08m (2.8 hours of training per day// 19.7 hours training per week)

7 days of 5 or more hours of training.
5 days with 0 hours of training.

July Training

July was a solid month of training. Running totals are still lower than I would like, but I have had to proceed cautiously all year coming back from injury. I had some really good days and also some days that I was really tired, but I guess that is normal. Overall, the big picture looks good...

Here are the training totals:

Swim-- 18h 55m 69,311 yards
Bike-- 60h 09m 1,163.2 miles
Run-- 19h 08m 126.1 miles
Total: 98h 58m (3.2 hours of training per day// 22.3 hours training per week)

7 days of 5 or more hours of training.
2 days with 0 hours of training.

June Training

Overall, June was a disappointing month. It was tough to get in a rhythm in all of the heat. Combined with the fact that I do not have running base yet, it was tough to recover from workouts and I never got into a rhythm...

Here are the training totals:

Swim-- 21h 26m 69,748.1 yards (Several swims were in a meter pool, the conversion to yards is why that it is listed to the fraction of a yard...)
Bike-- 26h 27m 494.6 miles
Run-- 12h 07m 77.9 miles
Total: 60h 00m (2 hours of training per day// 14 hours training per week)

4 days of 5 or more hours of training.
8 days with 0 hours of training.

I have been a little disappointed that my training has been down. It has me wondering what will be in store for me at my big race. I am scared that I will end up with a sufferfest.

However, I am hopeful that I can be in the kind of running shape that I finished Ironman Florida with. My run training was abyssmal all year until the last 5 weeks or so before Ironman Florida. At this point, I have 8.5 weeks. From my logs, I know the key running benchmarks that I need to hit in the last month. For July, I need to set the stage and build up some running durability, so that I will be phyically able to hit those key runs.

I have a picture of my Garmin showing my Ironman Florida race data, I have placed it as the background of both my phone and laptop to provide motivation. In fact here is the picture that I am using for inspiration:

May Training Totals

May saw a BIG INCREASE in my running volume. I had only run 80 miles for the YEAR prior to the beginning of May, then 140 for May! Fortunately, my injury from earlier this year has not been an issue recently. Here is how the training looked overall:

Swim-- 28h 41m 91,650.6 yards (Several swims were in a meter pool, the conversion to yards is why that it is listed to the fraction of a yard...)
Bike-- 38h 23m 757.9 miles
Run-- 21h 11m 140.6 miles// Massive increase in training volume!
Crosstraining-- 1h 55m
Total: 90h 11m (2.9 hours of training per day// 20.4 hours training per week)

6 days of 5 or more hours of training.
2 days with 0 hours of training.

Overall, I am very pleased. The month was very steady volume in all 3 months and my weakest event, the run, improved tremendously.

Finally, over the last week, I have been looking back to some old training logs. I am looking back to my buildup prior to Ironman Arizona in Spring of 08 and my Florida 09 are the two main periods I am looking back to, since they are my two best Ironman races. Some of the past entries are a little intimidating, but looking at my past trends is a good way to make sure that my training is "on track".