Training is Going Great
Training has continued to go great since the Stanford Treeathlon last month. Everything has pretty much gone according to plan, and I really like it when I know I’ve put in all the work I wanted to do. Hopefully the results take care of themselves when my racing season starts next month. The only adjustments I’m thinking of making over the next month are to go to sleep a little earlier (11:25pm right now!) and to eat a little healthier. Being a little bit leaner should at least let me run faster.
My racing schedule next month is still a little bit up in the air. I had been training towards the Pan American Championships in Oklahoma City since starting my season late last year. Unfortunately, the ITU has set a field limit of 75 athletes and right now there are only 10 US athletes on the start list. The good news is that more spots should open up in the coming days. The bad news is that more than 40 US athletes requested starts, and although there is the possibility for USA Triathlon to make some discretionary selections, most of the starts will go down the ITU points list…and my point total is zero. I’ve beaten several people on the list in the past and feel faster than ever, but there isn’t anything I can do about it at this point. I was hoping to use the Oklahoma City race followed by the Capital of Texas Triathlon in Austin on Memorial Day (9 days later) as a launching pad to get a bunch of ITU points. I may have to settle with just getting points in Austin now. If I don’t end up on the start list in OKC, then I may just race in the age group race Sunday morning. It’s not ideal, but since I’ve planned my training around doing a race that weekend, it may be the best thing. Plus, it’s possible that if I’m in OKC and there is a late scratch, then I may be able to get a start. I’ll find out soon if that’s possible.
I bought a bunch of new equipment for this year to help in training and racing - a BlueSeventy Helix wetsuit, Trek Madone 6.5 Pro with Dura Ace 7900, Powertap Pro+, InsideRide e-motion rollers, Nike Lunar Trainer and Racer shoes, and some new race goggles for the swim. I’ll have to write more about each of these sometime in the future, but they’ve been working amazing so far. The combination of the new bike with PowerTap and rollers vs. my old bike with the CompuTrainer has made comparisons a little difficult so far. I have a long ~4 hour bike ride planned for this Saturday, and hopefully I’ll get a better sense of just how much of a difference some of this equipment is making.
Swimming has continued to be my primary focus. I was averaging around 30,000m per week for two weeks of harder training, and then ~15,000m during a recovery week. As I’ve added more intensity to the bike and run, though, I was feeling a little bit of accumulated fatigue, so I’m backing off by a couple thousand meters per week. Hopefully that leaves me better rested and ready for the key workouts.
The past two weeks have produced some pretty good workouts. In a speed focused workout I did 4×25y at 100y pace with 25 easy recovery, 4×50y at 200y pace on 1:00, 5×100y at 500y pace on 1:30. The 25’s were in ~12s, 50’s were in ~27s, and 100’s were in ~58s. I was feeling a little fatigued during my race pace workout, but still managed 2×150m in 1:49-150, 4×300m in 3:42-44, and then 1×100m in 1:10. Those times should drop considerably when I’m shaved and rested. On Monday I did a 2000y tempo swim, looking up to sight once per 50y. I held a pretty steady 5:35/500y pace and went 22:22 overall (I think 18:25 through 1650y). Tonight I did an endurance swim and just went 6000y straight. I didn’t jump in the pool thinking I was going to go that far straight, but I felt pretty good and just kept going. The first 1500y was in ~18:40, then I went through 5000 in 1:00:30, then I did the next 500 in 5:51. At this point, I was at 1:06:21 and was thinking it would be nice to finish 6000 under 6:00/500y pace (1:12/100y). So, I went harder the last 500 (5:27) and finished in 1:11:48.
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