Its been a bit of time since I last posted and I thought I would provide a more detailed assessment of how the year is unfolding so far. First up is a summary of the 1st quarter aggregate training volumes for 2018 and compared to last year and to 2012. I included 2012 as a baseline, as that was my last "normal" triathlon oriented 1st Q. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, I was in the southern hemisphere at one point in the 1st Quarter climbing mountains. 2016 was my first comeback year after the back and elbow problems that sidelined me beginning in February of 2015. In any event here is a summary of the training for 2012, 2017 and this year:
Here is chart of the same data showing how my training time distribution (SBR and other) has changed across those three years:
And here is chart that shows how my training distance in each of the SBR disciplines compares to the 2012 baseline:
A number of observations can be made here:
1. I train a lot--I know I'm unusual in my appetite for endurance training and my continuing ability to absorb that training. I actually trained more in the 1st Q this year than in either 2012 or 2017 averaging nearly 90 hours/month of training--this is about 3 hours per day on average.
2. The time distribution I had in 2012 is what I consider ideal for triathlon training: 12% swim, 57% bike, 27% run, and 5% other (weights, stretching, PT) The SBR distribution pretty closely mimics a typical race time distribution.
3. In the 1st Q last year, I was focused on getting ready, with Anders, to go to Nepal for our Everest expedition. As a consequence, you see a lot more focus on the "run". In my case I group running, climbing, trekking, hiking all together in the run category. A lot of the run time and mileage you see in 2017 was actually spent climbing, trekking and hiking. That is one of the reasons you see such a dramatic slow down in my average run pace from 8:42/mile to 14:09/mile.
4. My run totals are suppressed in 2018 due to my knee limitations. I've mixed a fair amount of hiking in here as well, which is why my average pace is just 12:34. although, my typical running pace when I train is now unfortunately around 11 min/mile--I've slowed pretty dramatically since 2012! I'm now beginning to ramp up my running (I even did a 4 mile race in Central Park last weekend) and the nice weather unfolds...
5. Last year I did very little swim training in the first quarter and when I returned from Nepal, I had very bad bursitis in my shoulder and as such, last year was very limited from a swim training perspective. this year I started slowly as I didn't want to hurt my shoulder again after all the PT work I put into it in the later part of 2017. I doubled my swim volume to a still modest 20k yards in February and my shoulder felt great (and still does) and I intended to do 30k in March but fell short due to a lot of scheduling conflicts. As a consequence I've only done about half of my normal swim training at this point and while I'm not overly concerned about it, as I'm swimming well, I do need to ramp up my swim volume this quarter. I'd like to end this quarter with somewhere in the 80+k yardage range.
6. I've been much more aggressive with my bike training this year compared to prior years. I have basically about 50% more volume and due to the "miracle" of Zwift, its at a considerably higher intensity as well. I'm hopeful this will translate into strong biking performance this year when I start racing!
Onward and upward!
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