2011 Training Volume Analysis

As promised, find below a fairly detailed review of my 2011 training volume and how it compares against the prior four years. This off course is top-line aggregate data and glosses over many of the important details so take it for what it is: annual summary data:

Swimming

Here is chart which shows my average monthly swimming volume (the average is a trailing three month average to smooth the graphs out a bit) for 2007-2011:



If you study the chart for a minute or so (you can click it to make it bigger) a couple of things jump out
-2007 was clearly my biggest swim year--that's the year I worked with Pete Reid and I made my big break-through in swimming. Pete had me heavily invest in swimming--I spent 16% of my training time on swimming vs. 10-11% for 2008-2011
-2011, although with lower volume than 2007, was a consistent year for me--I was for the most part just abocve 30,000 yards consistently each month
-2009 was my "off-year" when I skipped doing an IM
-2008/2010 had far greater variation from month to month. I purposely tried in 2011 to be more consistent across the year.

Here are the total yards by year and my average swim pace (min/100 yards):

2007: 472,207 (1:54)
2008: 303,076 (1:54)
2009: 253,964 (1:52)
2010: 356,556 (1:47)
2011: 358,725 (1:46)

Note how my average swim pace has been increasing and that 2011, despite a lack of emphasis on swimming this year, still was my 2nd most swim volume.

Biking



The above chart illustrates what I feel was my strongest training year on the bike this year. You can see how I steadily built volume through 2011 and the three months before IMAZ I was averaging over 1000 miles a month. 2009 was a gain the low year. Note how relatively low my biking volume was in 2007--it represented just 53% of my training time while I've been in the 60-64% area ever since.

Here are the totals (miles) and my average speed (mph):

2007: 8,586 (17.22)
2008: 9,185 (16.57)
2009: 7,753 (16.38)
2010: 10,017 (16.53)
2011: 10,363 (16.54)

So 2011 was my biggest bike volume year. I'd like to get my average back up above 17mph in 2012 and plan to try to put a greater emphasis on bike intensity.

Running



In 2011, I was able to get closer to my 2007 training volume than I had from 2008-2010. You can see the impact of my knee problem mid-year this year. Also, you can see how I was able to rebuild and was running quite a bit as I rolled into IMAZ. I have a nice base to build from and hope to increase my running volume by 10% or more in 2012.

Year totals (miles) and pace (min/mile):

2007: 1,511 (8:37)
2008: 1,228 (8:57)
2009: 979 (8:42)
2010: 1,348 (8:56)
2011: 1,495 (8:53)

2011 was my second biggest volume year but you can see how much slower I'm running on average than back in 2007. I would surely like to address this if I can stay healthy, knee-wise, in 2012.

Training Time


This chart shows that I was able to successfully implement my training plan in 2011. Note how I built my training volume through the year and had it peak right before my IM in November. Compare that to 2007 where I wasn't able to stay healthy/motivated enough and had steadily declining volume throughout the year. I plan to follow the same approach in 2012.

2007: 935 hours
2008: 864
2009: 791
2010: 984
2011: 992

I'll post a more conceptual review of 2011 shortly and use that to frame my 2012 strategy and plan....