Training is going...

Yep, it is. It's going.

This past period of training seemed to go on and on and on.... I just finished up the third, and last, week of Base 3--except for the R&R week that starts today. I'm training based on Friel's method, but I include aspects of other training methods, along with what seemed to work for me in the past--we all have our own spins and tweaks to our training. The final week of Base 3 had the highest volume of all weeks of the season so it was nice to get thru it.

I'm not a great swimmer so when I'm in the pool, there aren't many drills yet--mainly just building up the distance while trying to keep in good form. I do some warm-up stuff, then descending pyramid-style lap intervals. The longest so far was 1200 yards straight. I think I'll build up to 1 to 1.5 miles to make sure I have the Olympic distance, possibly Half Iron, in me. So, last week got me up to 1200 yards for the longest interval. Then the weekend training was a 2 hr zone 3 brick of a 1/2 hr run, 1 hr bike, 1/2 run, on Saturday, with a 1.5 hr zone 2 ride on Sunday. That may sound like a normal weekend for some of you, but I am on limited training time. The dog, Elton, did the first mile of running with me, but he's no where near rabbit chasing form so I had to limit him to just that mile. For Sundays indoor drip fest ride, Sofia took her nap--she must have been pretty worn out too as she slept for about 3 hours! She needed the nap more than I needed the ride, but we both got it done. Mom got to relax for that time too. Nice all the way around.

When I say it was the highest volume week, I'm talking 10.75 hours. There's no Iron-training for me. My recovery weeks, like this week, are around 5.5 hours. Some guys, and you know who you are, put in 10 hours on the weekend and may call a 10 hour week, recovery. So, when it comes to training, its all relative to what your goals are. Last season, Sprint, to races a little longer went great for me on this amount of training. Actually, I am putting in about an hour or so more per week this year hoping that I can do Olympic distance without feeling like I am just struggling to finish, but I gotta say, that brick of 2 hours was killin' me. It was only the second real brick of the season, so hopefully things come around.

There are only 3 weeks till the Winter Be Gone Duathlon so I think things should be in place by then. I'm doing the short course because the long course has 9.3 miles of running in it and at this point in my training, I think that would do more harm than good. For the runners out there who don't like biking inside too much in the winter, the long course is perfect as the bike section is only 18.5 miles.

We'll see you out there....