Interval Inversion

Punched my "time card" and officially reported for triathlon "duty" today!

Quick recap: June-Sept of last year I spent getting ready for my 2013 "A" race--IM Lake Tahoe.  This IM specific training block was principally focused on volume--lots of it.  I let my speed work go by the wayside and dialed back on my racing so I could focus specifically on the IM.  I then took three months (Oct-Dec) getting my body ready to climb Aconcagua--this further "detuned" my high speed engine as I was focused on going slowly (with a lot of weight) for a ling time--trying to be diesel like.  In January, of course I was climbing.

February was dedicated to "transitioning" from all of this longer, slower mountaineering stuff to genuine triathlon training.  I just finished a slight interlude where my bride and I went on a 10-day trip to the West Indies to celebrate our forth-coming 30th wedding anniversary.  So, today I officially became a triathlete again!  Yea!

On of the features of my early season training on the bike is too place a heavy emphasis right at the start on high-intensity intervals.  This is different than the way I trained for the first 10 years of my triathlon career.  I used to follow a standard periodization approach where the early season was focused on long-slow stuff as I tried to build my base.  As the season progressed I would over-time add in more higher-inensity workouts to "sharpen" my self for my goal races.

Four seasons ago I relalized that after 10 years of training and racing I always had a pretty good base in place due to the cummulative effect of long-term consistent training.  I made the decision to "invert" my interval pattern over the course of the season.  I decided to do my highest intensity/shortest duration interval work right in the beginning of the season and over time gradually increase the length of my intervals and simultaneously reduce their duration.  This pattern would feed directly into my late-season IM focused training where I was principally focused on lots of volume.  This approach seems to have worked well and because I was not trying to do high-intnesity intervals and high volume at the same time (end of the season) I have been a bit fresher for my "A" races and seemingly less prone to injury.

Some people call this approach reverse-periodization.  I should also point out that I do not follow this approach for running as the wear and tear of high-intensity running has greatly curtailed my speed-work over the last few years....

In any event, even though it was nice out today I spent 2:40 on my computrainer (mostly doing high z1/low z2 work) and in the middle of the workout I did the key part of the ride: 12 X (1 min@300 watts/2 min easy).  300 watts is high z4 for me (above threshold but below VO2max) which is obviously intense but with only 1 minute work sessions, relatively easy.  I drift the volume and intensity up a bit when I'm confident I can absorb the training stress.  I'll pretty much stay on this shorter, higher intensity stuff for the next 3-4 weeks and then begin to lengthen work interval duration.  I'll hit these sessions 2-3 times/week....

Here we go!

Back in DE--time to get busy!

Fantastic 10-day vacation down in the Turks & Caicos and then sailing around the West Indies.  Obviously the sailing trip cut into my training, especially biking.  I'm now back for an extended time and the weather is finally starting to get a little nicer--time to get to work.  I'm especially far behind on my bike so need to address that straight away.

Last week's totals:

Swim: 10,550 yards
bike: 21 miles
run: 22.3 mil;es
hiking: 4 hours
Time: 11:46

Last week

Quick report on last week:

Swim: 9,250 yards
Bike: 193 miles
Run: 20.7 miles
Time: 19 hours

Judy and I are celebrating our upcoming 30th anniversary and we are currently doing so sailing around Antigua in our friends 90 foot sailing boat.  Fantastic time but no chances to cycle of-course.  I am however, doing a fair bit of running and swimming.  I'm also building motivation to hammer when I return to terra-firma.  All good!

February totals

February was a good training month for me--given the modest goals and expectations I had for it.  February, in a big picture sense, was all about recovering from my Aconcagua expedition and then transitioning into a regular schedule of triathlon training---all without getting injured and while maintaining motivation for the coming triathlon year and my build to Kona.

As noted here earlier, my legs and body were very fatigued in early February from the climb.  By the middle of the month that climbing fatigue seemed to have mostly left my body and I was just facing the normal early season training challenges.  Having essentially not been in the pool for three months and having done zero running or swimming in January I have the challenge of scaling up my SBR volume after an extended period of not doing those specific activities.  The other major challenge of course has been the horrendous weather here on the East Coast, which has especially impacted my bike training.

My race schedule calls for three straight weekends of racing commencing on 3/30.  These races will be a sprint, an intermediate and then IMNOLA70.3 in mid April.  Obviously, this is a tough challenge to go from essentially no SBR training to doing a H-IM 10 weeks later.  Fortunately, I do have 13 years of "base" in my body and I really intend NOLA to just be a long, high quality training day as oppossed to a goal race.

IN any event as I sit here on the first day of March, I am back into the swing of things and I'm motivated to build my triathlon fitness.  With the exception of tennis elbow in my right arm (which I developed from climbing--using my treking poles), I'm in pretty solid shape physically.  My knee is doing well and my body weight is less than it normally is at this time of the year.  My numbers in February were modest but acceptable:

Swim: 23,000 yards
Bike: 664 miles
Run: 61 miles
Time: 62 hours

For March, as I gear up for my early season races I would expect these numbers to grow to:

Swim: 35,000 yards
Bike: 900 miles
Run: 110 miles
Time: 80+ hours

Onward and upward!

this week--continued progress....

Had the kind of week one would expect for my 3rd training week of the year.  Modest increases in swim and run and with a day of travel my bike was a bit low.  My body is sore and adjusting to regular SBR training but I seem to be making the transition from mountaineering to triathlon training reasonably well.  Another week of this and i can begin to think about adding some volume....

Totals for the week:

Swim: 6,500 yards
Bike: 163 miles
Run: 21.6 miles
time: 16:25

the once and future triathlete

OK--enough of this mountaineering stuff--at least for now.  Time to see if I can become a triathlete again.  I thought I might share with you where things are at and an early look at the 2014 season....

The biggest thing I'm dealing with right now is the Aconcagua "hang-over".  There is no two ways about it...when you invest a ton of montaineering training time (which is equivalent to not investing in triathlon training) over the last three months of 2013 and then head off to "just" climb for 24 days--ending on Feb 2nd, you'll find yourself considerably behind the eight ball in the middle of February!  Consider the following:

I thought it might be instructive to look at my January 2014 training and compare it to January 2013 (which is arguably a similar situation as I also went to Argentina to climb--albeit two weeks earlier), January 2012 (which was an "ordinary" triathlon training year although one where I was implementing the less is more approach) and January 2007 (when I was working hard with my new coach Peter "the great" Reid).

First the swim totals:

2007: 52.9k yards
2012: 30.6
2013: 8.0
2014: 0.0

Yes that's right campers--no swimming in January of 2014.  This is a lot less than the 53,000 yards of 2007 and even the more relaxed pool investment of 31,000 yards in 2012.  I don't need to tell you that on Feb 1, 2007, I was much more prepared to swim fast than I was on Feb 1, 2014....

The bike totals:

2007: 796 miles
2012: 748
2013: 315
2014: 147

Here you can see the impact of the later mountain climb in 2014.  When I returned from my failed climb in 2013 I was very motivated and immediately jumped back in on the bike....

The run:

2007: 122 miles
2012: 166
2013: 30
2014: 0

Yes, that's zero run miles in Jan 2014....you know my run is a problem.  Probably not running in January didn't make it better....

And then there is the total time I invested in training--SBR and mountain climbing:

2007: 98 hours
2012: 81
2013: 85
2014: 97

And there's the rub.  While I have dramatically underinvested in SBR training in Jan 2014, my body still had to absorb a very big load--virtually the same as in 2007, which was my peak training year.  Now for sure mountaineering is very different than SBR--for example, it does nothing to help you swim better--it still extracts a pretty significant toll on your body.

When I returned on Feb 2 I have to admit I was exhausted from my expedition to Aconcagua.  Still, I felt I needed to start SBRing to begin the get back into it.  So I did try to jump back in that first week back.  I found that I had "dead-legs".  Surprisingly so to me and in fact this pretty much persisted through that first week on February.  Here were my totals for the week beginning Feb 3rd:

Swim: 3,000 yds
Bike: 166 miles
Run: 10.6 miles
Time: 14:14

Last week things improved a bit.  I could feel a bit of "spark" returning to my body and I was even able to throw some higher quality efforts in all three disciplines.  My volume increased modestly:

Swim: 6,000 yds
Bike: 184 miles
Run: 17.0 miles
Time: 16:59

Even with this progress, I am quite a ways away from my "standard" early season week of say 13,000 yds swim/225 miles bike/30 miles run.  Still, I need to carefully adhere to the "First Law of Triathlon"--the Conservation of Motivation.  I had a day last week when I went to run outside and nearly slipped and fell 2-3 times in the first minute on the frozen, uneven trail so I said "screw it" and just went to Wawa for a nice hoagie....

On that point, the 2014 weather in Delaware has been horrendous (although admittedly I was "enjoying" different weather down in Argentina for half of it so far).  We are in the midst of the second most snowfall in New Castle County since they started keeping track back in the early 1800s.  there is no way to ride outside and the running sucks as well.  this does not help on the motivation front....

The good news is that tonight finds us at our beach house in NJ and with 50+ degree temps.  No snow on the ground which is certainly a relevation!  I went for a fantastic 66-minute run on the beach and I felt pretty decent (all things are relative--in absolute terms I was as slow as a turtle).  I brought my bike with me and tomorrow with any luck will see me both riding and running outside--this does a ton for my mental state....note to self--time to move somewhere warmer....

Anyways, looking ahead: on 3/24 (believe it or not) I have my first triathlon and just three weeks later (after doing another triathlon the next weekend) I'm scheduled to do IMNOLA70.3, which certainly should be an eye-opener.  I'm not going to worry about it as my focus for the balance of this year will be on getting ready for Kona in October.  That said, in these next few weeks it will be interesting to see how my body and mind holds up....

All par for the course....it's good to be back!

Aconcagua Video

For those of you who like video here is a little multi-media on my Aconcagua climb (be sure to toggle the gear on the bottom to HD!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLkOT_KmZhY