Training Plan Refocused

As I looked ahead at the final eight weeks of my Off Season training program, I became concerned about how ready I would be for the more intense preparation for a 70.3 race this summer. While I have one Half Marathon, Three Tri’s and a couple of shorter foot races planned between now and then, make no mistake – the 70.3 is the focus of my year. I don’t know about it being my best performance, but it is, in my mind, my ‘A’ race.

For some background, let me digress a moment and talk a little bit about how I develop my training plans. Like many of you, I peruse the internet for free plans. I’ve had a lot of luck on Trinewbies and Beginner Triathlete as well as cruising some of the chat boards to pick up ideas from my peers. I also got a lot of good information from the book Heart Rate Training which I’ve mentioned before on this blog.

Most of the 70.3 plans I found were 20 weeks long and that suits me. It’s also serendipitous that my 20 weeks leading up to my race begin the week after I’m in Hawaii which means I can focus a little more on enjoying my vacation. In any case, even with such fortunate coincidences, I obviously need to tweak things a little bit. No generic plan is going to anticipate my desire to run the Horsetooth Half Marathon in April or the BolderBoulder in May. Likewise, I’ll be involved in other races and open-water swimming events between now and the big race. It gets more detailed as I want to customize which days are my resting days, etc.

I also prefer to not to run on back-to-back days if at all possible. In fact, I generally don’t like to repeat a workout or strength training session on consecutive days. While a lot of plans recognize this, a surprising number do not. But when you’re in your 40’s, you have to face the reality that running generally means the need to have some recovery from all of that pounding!

What results is a plan that is built on one of the free plans (or more specifically a combination of plans) but which has also been highly customized to suit my own needs. Even then, that is subject to some evolution as I start making progress against it. (By the way, I don’t bother with purchased plans. I’m not convinced they are worth the money.)

Which brings me to where I am now. With the exception of a short interlude to train up for the Rock Canyon Half Marathon in early December, I’ve been treating my off-season time as a chance to take it easier while still staying in reasonably good shape. And from October through the end of the year, I think that made sense. However, as I look at the next couple of months, I have to start thinking about how I will be positioned for the resumption of the season.

Therefore, I have made a few changes:

1) I’ve increased the distance on my various workouts so that I will be at or near the distances of the 70.3 event by the end of March. These are strictly endurance distances so the focus is merely on being able to do them without any concern about how long that takes.

2) I’ve added a significant amount of interval training to the bike and run on the 70.3 plan. Continuing to increase the distance of my long rides and runs is, of course, important, but so is stressing myself so that I’ll be stronger for the demands of several hours on the road either riding or running. The interval refers to the time I need between bursts to recover my heart rate back down to Z1. For example, I’ll run a mile at pace that I know would be far too difficult to maintain over 13.1 miles, but then spend five minutes recovering before repeating. The same applies to the bike and I’ll gradually increase both the speed and the number of repeats. I may also apply something similar to the swim, though I’m feeling pretty good about my swimming ability.

3) I’ve removed the bricks. That’s right – no bricks. I’ve done some reading on this subject and I’ve noted that in several plans that they aren’t there. Bricks were a great way for me to psychologically prepare for triathlons before I had done any and I think they still have some value if you’re focused on Sprint and Olympic distances. However, I don’t think they’re as helpful for the 70.3 event. Still present are two-a-day workouts and some of those may end up being a lot like bricks with just a little bit longer between events.

More than anything else, I’ve found that it helps to think of a training plan as a living document. That means changes may come in the future which will make it a different plan than it is today. That’s fine. However, if my experiences last year taught me anything, this ought to be a fairly good picture of how I’ll be spending the better part of 2012!

One note on the countdown timers: I would have preferred something a little more colorful, but these actually countdown to the minute of the actual event. As I officially register for events, I’ll add the timer so expect to see more pretty soon.

Brick# 8

Considering the heat I encountered during last week's brick, I decided I needed to get an early start on Saturday morning. That was before I didn't fall asleep until after midnight. I had to decide between being tired and hot and I chose to be hot. As a result, I was not on my way until about 8:30.

In preparation for the Creek Streak, I did this brick out at Cherry Creek State Park along the same course that the tri will use. I was very pleased to find that while not hill-free, the climbs are significantly easier than what I have been working on near home. There were also a couple of nice flat stretches where I could spin away making good time, but not spiking the HR. I came back into the transition area feeling much fresher than I did a week ago.



Transition went a little slower, but that had more to do with logistics. Specifically, I had to load the bike back into my car before proceeding. I probably could have gone a little faster, but I'll just worry about that on race day. In truth, my delay may make more sense because it's a longer run from the water to the transition area. I think it may take at least a minute from the time I exit the water until I get to the bike.

As I mentioned last week, I started strong, but heat killed me in the end and I ended up running 4.5 of the 5 miles I intended. This time I decided to fight back against the heat by bringing water with me. Same as my long run on Wednesday, the CamelBak came along on this one. It made a difference. Although I was not super thirsty to start out, I started taking water after about 3/4 of a mile and then took it at roughly that interval going forward.

By mile 3.5 or so, I was feeling the same fatigue from a week ago. My pace slowed, my heart rate increased and I began to flirt with the idea of walking (though I knew I had to finish the full distance). While I think my pace got so slow as to be not much better than a walk, I kept going and got back to the six mile point. I was pretty fried by this point (and it was about 85 degrees so no surprise) but I did manage to run the whole thing.



I'm planning on the Aquaman actually happening this Tuesday and on Friday, I have a six mile run in the mountains planned (if I don't pass out from the lack of oxygen). More on that later....

Brick 8 Results:

1) Bike : 22.27 miles, 1:14:27, 17.9 mph average
2) Transition: 3:29
3) Run: 6 miles, 57:55, 9:39 ppm average

Brick # 7

It's been another busy week but less so than the one before. My plan to do the Stroke & Stride on Thursday was aborted by very heavy rain all up and down the Front Range that night. I knew there was trouble when I saw the buoys had not been set up less than 20 minutes before the start. Sure enough, the swim was called. Shortly there after, the rain started coming down heavily so my brother and I decided to bag the whole event.

I managed to get a 1500 meter swim done at the community pool on Friday so that left yesterday for the big work out of the week.

Having done another 40 mile ride up in the Bennett area on Wednesday, I wasn't too concerned about doing the 22 plus mile ride that made up the first part of my brick. It was a local ride so that meant some very big hills again and speeds that ranged from the single digits to just under 40 mph. There was also a stiff breeze blowing out of the south so that made for some difficult stretches.

I was back home in just over an hour and twenty minutes. Not exactly flying but not terrible either considering there were some very long, steep uphills.

I got home and felt like I transitioned reasonably well. I was out in two minutes and if I can do that in a race, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

As usually, I took the early part of the run at a short stride and I felt pretty good. My HR was down in the high 130's and I didn't feel any heat exhaustion. No doubt the breeze was actually helping in that regard.

Making the turn back toward home I began to feel the effects of the heat and the humidity. Folks living near the coasts or in Midwestern states may not think this is much, but because of all the rain we've had here, humidity levels were in the upper 30's which is much higher than most of us around these parts are used to. I was also running back into the sun and my black tri shorts started to get warm along with the rest of me.

By mile four I was sucking wind and feeling pretty lousy. Though I had set five miles as my goal, I allowed myself to stop at 4.5 which is 90% and I think close enough. Had I known how warm I would be, I would probably have run with my CamelBak so I could stay better hydrated. I also think I would have brought two bottles on the bike rather than one.

So another week in the books. While I don't think I'm going to tear things up at the Creek Streak in three weeks, I'm also feeling reasonably good about my ability to do it and to do it in under three hours. Weather is going to be the factor in training again this week. There are storms in the forecast again for Tuesday so we'll see whether or not I get to swim at the third Aquaman. I was fortunate enough to do so last week but the folks swimming the longer distances ended up being called in from the water some time after I had started the run. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Here's the summary of Brick #7:

1) Bike : 22.55 miles, 1:25:09, 15.9 mph average
2) Transition: 2:01
3) Run: 4.5 miles, 42:38, 9:28 ppm average

FYI: barring any unforeseen events, I'm planning on doing next week's brick on the Creek Streak course. Ought to be helpful to see it all first hand.