The beat goes on--3 big weeks in a row and a record January

This past week was much like the two prior:

Swim: 12,000 yards

Bike: 405.9 miles

Run: 4.4 miles

Time: 29:05

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January is now complete and I set record months in the Swim and Bike.  Here are the totals:

Swim:  47,850 yards

Bike: 1,714 miles

Run: 19 miles

Time: 124:00 

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Here is how this compares to my top 5 months all time in each discipline:

As you can see, I just barely set a new monthly volume record for the Swim.  On the bike, I by-far had my biggest month ever.  Time-wise, it was my third biggest month.  I feel especially good about these totals as I lost 3 days driving Jen out to Kansas and returning, so these totals are effectively for 28 days.

This next chart shows how this January compares to my prior Januarys:

I show the past three years for comparison--my commitment to swimming at the outset this year is substantially more than the past 3 years and is kind of a throw back to ten years ago when I used to do big swim blocks in the winter. 

While this year was huge on the bike, it's similar to the last two years as I've been in "bike monster" mode on Zwift to kick things off in the new year.  I deemphasized my run again this year and probably won't start ramping it up until the spring.

It's interesting to compare this January to my 11-year averages....my relative commitment to the three disciplines has radically changed over the last couple of years!

I set aggressive goals for the swim and bike this January and basically met them and then some.  Onward and upward!

Twins!!! Two big, very similar weeks back-to-back. Plus Zwift Badge Hunting

 Two updates in this post.  Firstly, I was able to stay on a roll and continue to put down, what for me is, big swim/bike efforts.  Here is what I did this past week:

Swim: 11,200 yards

Bike:  404.5 miles  (first time ever back-to-back 400+ mile weeks)

Run: 7.7 miles

Weights/Yoga: 1 hour

Total Time: 29:45

Totals through the first 23 days:

Swim: 33,350 yards

Bike: 1254 miles

Run: 15 miles

Weights/Yoga: 4 hours

Total time: 90:23

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Second, a fair amount of my riding right now is on Zwift.  One of my objectives within the Zwift metaverse is to ride all of the designated (badge eligible) routes.  When I first decided this in November/December, I had done about 50 of the then 82 routes.  Since then, Zwift has added 22 new routes with the Makuri Island world.  At this point I have completed 84 of the 104 routes (81%).  However, the final 20 are the real tough ones so in terms of distance I'm 54% complete and in terms of climbing I'm at just 44%.  While, this really isn't a m major driver of my training plan, I would like to knock off the rest of them this year, and ideally by the end of April.

Here is a summary of my current progress:

2022: Off to a big start!

So, here we are, the 3rd Sunday of 2022!  I thought I'd give you a quick update on the first 16 days of training in 2022.  

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm aiming for some big bike numbers ("Bike Monster") early in the season and I'd also like to put up 120,000 yards of swimming through the end of March (40,000/month).  My plan was also to do a bunch of weight/yoga sessions at a form of self-PT.  My plan was to deemphasize run/walk/climb/hike in the early part of the year.

I'm pretty much right on plan so far.  I just finished a really big week:

Time: 30:45

Swim: 11,000 yards

Bike: 444.4 miles

Run: 3.0 miles

Weights/Yoga: 63 minutes

Through the 1st 16 days of January, here is where we are at:

Time: 60:38 (3:45/day)

Swim: 22,150 (1,385 yards/day)

Bike: 848 miles (53/day)

Run: 7.3 miles (0.46 miles/day)

Weights/Yoga: 3 hours (11.3 minutes/day)

The January totals include three days where I drove to Kansas and back, so the above totals are really for effectively 13-14 days.  Any way you look at it, this is a lot of volume for me--especially in early January when my A race is in October.

Here is snapshot of Slowtwitch's Annual Aerobic "points" contest called the Big Kahuna--I won't stay here but I'm leading the way so far.  Last year I finished 10th (out of 248)....