As i posted earlier, from time to time I'm swimming a straight 2500 yards TT--I've found that pace I hold for 2500 yards in a pool translates fairly well to my open water half-ironman swims (with a wetsuit). In practice I swim the pool TTs at a higher effort but the wetsuit and drafting seem to put my H-IM swim at just about the same pace as when I do these TTs.
On January 19th of this year I did this post about my first pool TT of 2011:
"Did my first TT in the pool this year. I've decided to focus on 2500 yards this year vs. 3000 yards last year--given my general shift towards shorter/faster stuff this year.
I did a relatively easy 43:58 for 2500 yards which works out to 1:46/100.
On this day last year I did the 2500 equivalent of a 40:35 which is about 1:37/100. I didn't get a lot faster after that and I basically did a 1:35/100 pace at Oceanside in late March (low 33s).
I'm not surprised by this as I started swiming in earnest a month earlier last year. In December of 2009 I did 40,000 yards and I did just 12,000 yards this past December. I'm really only into just my second serious swim week. So I'd say I'm about a month behind. My guess is that I'm sub 41 by the 20th of Feb--we'll see.....If I do I'll be good to go...."
Anyways, I jumped in the pool for TT#2 and turned a 40:26!!!! This works out to an average of 1:37/100 or just under 34 minutes for a half-IM swim. I did a low 33 at Oceanside last year. I hit 1250 yards in 19:59 so I slowed a bit over the last half of the TT--a reflection of the limited swimming volume I've done so far. This is none-the-less, very encouraging...to be within shouting distance of where I was last year and where I need to be competitively, after just 3 real weeks of swim training is very gratifying. My swim leg still seems to be improving and I see no reason now why I can't be thinking about a 39:30 TT by the end of February which would translate into a low 33 minute half-IM swim leg....
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for the month of January I did the following (2010 volume is within parentheses for comparison):
swim: 35,250 yards (44,000)
bike: 733 miles (882)
run: 164 miles (126)
time: 84 hours (94)
So you can see the effect of my change in training emphasis from 2010 to 2011. I'm doing slightly less volume on the swim (I missed a few days with all of the travel early in the month this year) but I seem to be making the progress that I'm targeting. My bike mileage is down but my intensity is up quite a bit with my FTP workouts. I have yet to see all of the progress in my FTP that I had hoped for as I'm stuck around 275-280 watts but I found during this month that I needed to sacrifice some of what I wanted to do on the bike to make sure I ran as much as my training plan called for. My run volume was right in line with what I'd hoped for. I started speed work a week earlier than planned. I've run for 37 consecutive days which has to be a bit of a post knee problem record for me. I'm very optimistic about my start to run training for 2011--I'll just need to stay consistent to keep making the progress I hope to achieve in 2011.
February wil bring a lot of the same (training wise) as January. However, there will be some shifts. My swim frequency will be in the 3-5 X/week range with a very heavy emphasis on 1500-2000 yards of interval work per session. 10,000 yards per week will remain the volume objective. Bike-wise, I don't expect to change my overall volume but with the addition of no-running days, I should be more consistent on my FTP workouts and I plan to get several 60+ mile rides in as well to begin to build some of my stamina. I want to keep my aggregate run volume up above 150 miles/month but plan to take 1-2 days off per week (starting tomorrow). In exchange, I'll be adding longer, long runs (10-13 miles) and at least 1 speed session per week. I also have a half-marathon scheduled for 2/13.
Exciting times--2011 is well underway and on plan!
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