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!