The highlight of week 13 was trip down to Shenandoah National Park and a couple days of hiking. This led to a bunch of relatively slow "walking" as we navigated the terrain and all the vertical (plus backpack weight). As a consequence, week 13 had the highest total training time of any of my weeks this year so far:
Swim: 4,500 yards
Bike: 203 miles
Walk/Run: 26 miles
Weights/PT/Stretch: 5:00
Total Training Time: 31:14
Here is a look back at the first quarter of 2024:
Swim
My principal objective with my swimming is to ramp my volume enough that by the time open water swimming starts (around Memorial Day) I want to be comfortable with 10,000+ yards/week. MY biggest week to date was 9,000 yards (week 10) and have been steadily increasing the monthly and average daily volume as well as increasing the frequency of my swimming workouts. I'm well on track to being ready for open water swimming in May:
Bike
My approach to the bike during the first three months has been to put a bunch of steady Z1/Z2 miles in without a lot of concern about either intensity or the length of my long rides. Most of my rides are around 30 miles or so and are indoors on my trainer. My volume has generally been flat over the first three months as I've put my bike training into basic, easy base/foundation setting mode. In April, I plan to migrate some of my rides outside, add some intensity, and begin to push a longer ride (50+ miles) every 7-10 days or so.
Walk/Run
I'm very pleased with the progress here, especially given my total knee replacement on 11/30/22. I've been slowly ramping the frequency of my walk/runs, my average length of these efforts, my total walk/run volume, and in March, beginning to run more and to migrate upwards to high Z2/low Z3 intervals.
I've put a lot of effort into this component of my fitness since last October. As I've begun to add SBR volume/training time I've found that my time in this category has begun to modestly decline. My expectations are for this to continue in April/May and then to fall off pretty dramatically as summer arrives in June....
Total Training Time
I started the year hitting significant average training time each day, right from the get-go. I expected that I might have to back off a bit but for the most part, my body seems to be comfortably absorb what is a historically high amount of weekly training. My monthly, weekly, and daily training time averages have been slowly increasing and in march exceeded 4 hours/day for the first time. I have yet to miss a day of training this year (not recommended). I would expect my training volume to level off and perhaps decline as I add more intensity across the SBR disciplines and begin to ratchet back my PT/strength training.
Overall, I feel strong and I'm continuing to be quite motivated to keep on, keeping on....onwards and upwards!
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