The May Test

As you may recall, my racing season in 2011 is basically set-up in two components:

Short Course: May 1-July 31
Long Course: August 1- Nov 20

Further I've aligned my training emphasis to support this approach. I've been focsing more on short course "speed" and plan to continue to do so out through July. Then over the last 16 weeks leading up to my "A" race, Ironman Arizona, I switch over and do "Ironman specific" training. The hope is that between now and August 1st I can development my top end speed and then over those final 16 weeks add the endurance training necessary to support my Ironman.

May will be a very useful in-season check-point for me to gauge if this is working (or if I should modify it to be more like my usual, lot's of volume approach). I plan to race 4 of the 5 weekends in May, starting this Sunday, May 1st at the Bassman Sprint (.35/11/3.1). Over the course of those four races I hope I can have at least one real strong race, a couple of solid ones, and if past experience is correlated with future performance, I can also expect a clunker in there as well.

I'm training through all of these races--they are "C" races but I hope to see clear signs of a strong top end developing. I'd like to see my swim pace down around 25-26 minutes/mile (or top 20%), my bike power up in the 250-270 watt range (top 5%), and my 5k speed around 23 minutes (top 30%). If I can do this I'll stay the course. If not, I may tinker with the plan a bit come June.

Looks like a very interesting "mano-a-mano" race shaping up for this weekend....more on that as we get closer to the race...