Monday, July 1, 2013

Triathlon: June and last week

For all of you looking for the latest onAC's Denali adventures, my apologies.  Come back soon--there will be more latter today.  This post is just a quick update on my IMLT build.

For the month of June, I was targeting around 90 hours of total Tri training.  Here is where the month came in:

Swim: 35,420 yards
Bike: 1,016 miles
Run: 106 miles
Time: 88:06

Here is what the last week in June looked like:

Swim: 11,000 yards
Bike: 227 miles
Run: 18 miles
Time: 19:29

Pretty close to target although my run mileage continues to be less than desireable.  I'm basically trying to run as much as my knee alows me to--it seems that this year it's becoming a bit more of a limiting factor than in prior years.

I had a good month on the bike and am very happy with where my bike fitness is and is trending--I'm very confident I'll be ready to nail the bike at Tahoe.  My swimming is also starting to round into shape.  I'm still less fit than I normally am for July 1st but my earlier season muscle soreness/fatigue seems to have disapated and I'm starting to get into the 10,000+/week range and doing OW swims of 3,000 yards so I expect my swim fitness to improve a bit in the weeks ahead.

I feel good about the overall progress I made in June--I'm quite a bit fitter on July 1st than I was on June 1st.  I raced three times in June including a very demanding IM70.3 at Tremblant (race report soon) and was still able to mostly hit my IM build training objectives.

At the half-way point of the year, here is where my training numbers are:

Swim: 151,150 yards
Bike: 4142 miles
Run: 621 miles
Time: 472 hours

Comparatively, in 2011 my swim was at 198,000 and in 2012: 169,000.

My bike was at 4846 in 2011 and 4726 in 2012.

My run was at 709 in 2011 and 789 in 2012.

Time-wise, 2011: 494 hours and 2012: 472 hours

So, year-to-date I'm down 11-24% on the swim (vs. 2011/12).  I'm down 12-15% on the bike.  I'm down 12-21% on the run.  The aggregate training hours look compartively better but that's because, in part, they include 60 hours of climbing (Aconcagua) in 2013.  Excluding the climbing, my tri training time is down 13-17% year-to-date.

That said, my June this year was bigger in all four categories than it was in either 2011 or 2012 and I'm healthier (I had real run problems in May 2011 and June 2012 that I have not had this year) and I'm guessing more motivated this year at this point.  So perhaps my plan to really focus on being as fit as I can be in September of 2013 might be working.....Time will tell!

Surprisingly, my delay is training this year vs. prior practice has not really had a negative impact on my race competitiveness (so far).  At this point in 2011 I was at 2 firsts and 3 seconds (out of 7 races) and in 2012 I had 2 first and 2 seconds (out of 5).  This year I'm at 4 firsts and 2 seconds (out of 7).  This racing record belies my underlying fitness which is not as strong at this point as in 2011 and 2012 and indicates I got a bit lucky with the competitors I've faced this year vs. prior years.

July is targeted for 100 hours with similar bike miles (although with 4 century+ rides) and more swim and run miles.  I'll race just 1-2 sprints this month so it's all about training....By the end of July, I should be very ready for the big August push to peak for my Ironman in September....








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