And by weeks I mean the first four weeks ending in a Sunday (so part of my first week includes some of 2020). I decided to compare this year to 2012 and 2014--both Kona prep years (I also did Kona in 2010 but don't have the data readily available)--and see how my Kona build this year is going and how it compares to 2012/14. One big difference between 2012/2021 and 2014 is that in 2014 the first month was dominated by summit of Aconcagua.
Before looking at these first four weeks, I thought I'd show a table of my full Kona years 2012 and 2014 as well as what I did last year, and finally my high-level training volume goals for 2021:
If you recall from my analysis of the prior 10 years, my swim training volume has been in a long-term decline. Indeed the 164k I swam last year was actually an uptick from recent years. This year, I plan to re-up my swim and am shooting for 300k, mostly by the end of September.
Bike-wise, I ride a lot more than I did back in 12/14 and this "bike-monster" approach is something I think makes sense to me and so once again, I'll be shooting for 12,000+ miles with in all probability something 10,000 miles by the time of Kona.
Running I almost hesitate to even set a goal given the state of my knee. This year will have a higher % of running than recent years and as such, will have lower run volume. I set 1,000 miles as a goal but in reality, it will be as much as my body can handle and 1,000 is probably on the high side.
Training time is effectively an output of my plans for each of the three disciplines and I expect it to be similar to last year (and considerably more than 12/14) but I would expect it to end up between 1,000 and 1,200 hours...
In any event, here is a look at the story so far in 2021, and as it compares to 2012/14:
Swim
For each of the three disciplines plus my total workout hours I have two graphs--one is a Trailing 4-Week average weekly volume (same as I used last year) and a cumulative volume chart. Here they are for swim so far:
So the first takeaway is that January wasn't historically and won't be this a year, a big month. In 2012, I started swimming the third week and quickly swam close to 19k yards in the first two weeks. In 2014, no swimming due to the climbing.
This year I started late as well-getting into the pool for the first time on 1/21. The local Y, where I swam was just too crowded (and due to CoVid) too risky in my view. With PA pools closed, there were a bunch of teams down swimming in DE and that combined with the New Year's Resolution crowd led me to take a pass. But as I mentioned, I hopped in on 1/21 and have swum Th/F/M/Tu/We/Th--so 6 of the last 8 days.
Even with the lay-off, I feel pretty solid (albeit a bit slow). At the end of 2020, I had a big swim surge as I swam a lot out in Palm Desert. Looking ahead, I do plan on a pretty heavy February--perhaps as much as 40k....all in all, well on my way with the swim!
Bike
I'm off to a great start in 2021 on the bike--I've been hitting it pretty hard and will likely do nearly 1,300 miles this month--probably a bit heavy for January, but I do feel pretty good so why not?
Run
My run is and will be a different story in 2021. I have some lower leg issues (I'll get into that in my next post) and so are resting my legs a bit and that combined with no mountain expeditions this year has led to the slow start in 2021 (in contrast, the heavy volume in 2014 was due to my climbing in South America--note the lack of bike and swim volume in 2014 above). I expect, 2021 will leg 2012/14 all year.
Training Time
When I reviewed, last year, a 10-year history of my training, I noted how I'm actually training more now (at 63) than I did in my 50s (albeit, not nearly as hard intensity wise). 2021 is off to a start that is consistent with this pattern. I should end up close to 100 hours or so for this month--which is considerably more than in January of 2012 and 2014.
Onward and upward!
