2024 Weekly Volume Distributions

Below is a summary of the distribution of my weekly SBR volumes and total Training time for 2024:

Swim

We saw earlier that I swam 245,610 yards in 2024.  My average weekly volume turned out to be 4,723 yards.  Here is how my weekly swim volume was distributed:

My most frequent weekly swim volume was between 5,000 and 9,999 yards--this happened in 23 weeks in 2024 or 44% of the time.  I only had 4 weeks where my volume climbed above 10,000 yards--this is something that I'd like to change in 2025--perhaps 8-10 weeks is a good target to shoot for.  

Also, note the ZERO weeks--1 out of 4.  This is somewhat of a design feature of my training as I take a few months off in the fall/early winter each year.

Bike

I biked 10,471 miles in 2024--an average of 201 miles/week.  Here is the distribution of weekly bike miles:

My most common week was 200-249 miles and nearly 60% of the weeks I'm 200+ miles.  I had no ZERO weeks but had 1 week below 100.  That was in November when we were sailing around the Galapagos and during that week I snuck in 80 miles on the ship.  

I plan on getting a couple 300+ mile weeks this summer....

Run/Walk

I did 1,214 Run/Walk miles this past year.  This was a weekly average of 23.3 miles. Here is how the distribution looked:

My most common week was 20-24.9 miles and about 80% of the weeks I was above 20 miles/week.  I had no ZERO weeks and in fact had no weeks below 10 miles.  With Hadrian's Wall on the agenda for 2025, I suspect I have some bigger volume weeks this year.

Training Time

2024 Training time came in at 1,222.9 hours, or about 23.5 hours/week.  The distribution:

My most frequent week was 20-24.9 hours.  Over 80% of the weeks were above 20 hours.  I had no weeks lower than 10 hours of total training time.

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That's a lot of work for an old guy!  If anything, I AM consistent!

2024 Frequency Analysis: Days Working Out

 The above is a table detailing the number of days I did each of the disciplines as well as the number of days I did a workout of any kind.  Takeaways:

1. I don't take many full rest days--just 3 in all of 2024.  August 10th/18th and November 5th.  8/10 was a travel day from Minnesota where I went to help my brother.  8/18 was a travel day returning from Salt Lake where we had gone for a wedding.  Nov 5th was while we were in the Galapagos where we did plenty of physical stuff--just not what would qualify as the above.

2.  I Bike and Walk/Run close to 90% of the days.

3. I swim and do PT/Weights about 40% of the days.

4. Not counting double workouts in a discipline--which I do from time to time, I had 951 workouts in 2024--an average of 2.6/day.

Time to get Busy Blog-wise! First 2024 Review post

Sorry about the radio silence for a while--been super busy with end of the year stuff and now beginning of the year.  Over the next few days I plan to post several times reviewing 2024 and then I'll pivot to 2025 and my goals/plan for this year.

First off, here are several training volume summaries for 2024:

First up is my overall 2024 Training volume as well as per month, week and day averages:

This is obviously a lot of training time for a 67 year-old but I'm very pleased with this volume of work.  I wasn't sure at the beginning of the year how much my new knee could handle and its now pretty obvious, at least from an aggregate volume perspective that my knee is not limiting me very much, if at all!

Here are how the individual disciplines unfolded by month--first the Swim:

Several comments: 

First, this isn't as much Swim volume as I think is optimal.  I would like to see 2025 push up to 300k in total.  That would be about a 22% increase over 2024.

Second--you can see that I'm essentially a 9-month swimmer and I largely take October-December off.  I'm planning to do much the same this year so to get 300k, I'll need to get above 30k/month for most of the first 9 months.  Since I only did this for 3 months last year I have a lot of work to do.  In particular, I need to guard against the big fall-off I had in May/June, which is when I transition from the pool to OWS, which in those months tend to be in the high 50s and low 60s temp-wise--so either I suck it up more or make my pool sessions in those two months much longer.

I had planned to come out of the gate hot this month, but I've been suffering from a pretty debilitating right shoulder problem since mid October.  While, I wouldn't have swam much Oct-Dec, which is normally my off-season for swimming, by December, I basically couldn't swim at all.  I went through 5 weeks of pretty intense PT as well as saw a joint specialist when we visited Canyon Ranch last week and I seem to be getting slowly better.  This is obviously putting a crimp in my January 25 swim objectives and I'll likely swim less this January than last year but if my shoulder continues to progress, then I can ramp pretty quickly in February. 

I'm also considering 4-5 lessons if my shoulder progresses fast enough.  For the time being, I'm slowly getting back into the pool as my shoulder allows--an update on January volume shortly.

While 10,471 bike miles may seem like a bunch, it's relatively low by my pre-knee replacement standards--historically, I'm routinely above 1,000 miles/month, which is a standard I made in only three months last year--none after April.

This cut-back was not directly related to my knee but rather a result of taking long-course Triathlon racing off my agenda.  I'm also not planning to do any long-course triathlons this year but do want to get back to more outside riding--especially for May-September.  I'm going to add a weekly 50+ miler to my agenda come May and would like to see those 5 summer months all above 1,000 miles this year.

I was pretty consistent as far as run/walk goes in 2024.  I averaged 101 miles/month and was between 80 and 120 every month.  Most of this--over 90%--was walking/trekking as opposed to running.

For 2025, I see these numbers going up--both my aggregate volume and the % that is running.  I have a lot of confidence in my new knee and while I'm not going to go overboard, I do see a more focused effort to get faster running this year....I'm currently thinking through my goals for 2025 but am feeling that a sub-27 5k might be a good goal for me....more on this later.

One early goal, we are locking in on will be walking the length of Hadrian's Wall in England which would be 89 miles over the course of a week...more on that later as well.

My PT/weight training is principally concentrated during the non-Summer months.  You can see the ramp in December to deal with my shoulder, which has continued into January 2025, which will likely be higher than any of the 2024 monthly totals....

1200+ hours in total!  I average over 100 hours/month, 23:30/week, and 3:20/day.  I know this puts me at one end of the Bell curve, but obviously, physical fitness matters a lot to me.  

I expect to front-load again this year with January 2025 tracking above 120 hours and maybe surpassing the March 2024 high point above (125 hours).  I do expect to train more this summer, especially June-August so I would expect 2025 to see more training time when all is said and done.

One last look (for this post) is to review the time investment by discipline:

If one considers that a typical Triathlon racing split for me is about: 11% Swim/46% Bike/43% run, it clear I significantly over-index on the bike, which was nearly 60% of my SBR time in 2024.  This highlights the need for me to swim/run more (without biking less--I felt 2024 was a bit soft bike wise).  This is especially true for the Swim, where I compete in OWS races--more in 2024 than triathlons....

Onwards and Upwards!

Training volume Update--through September

 Here is the summary of my training volume through the first 9 months of 2024:

First up is my monthly Swim volume in yards.  through September I had 237,000 yards, which is about 26k/month.  Relatively light volume given recent years about apparently enough to yield 3 pretty strong open water swim races this year!

My current plan is basically shut down between n ow and the end of the year and start back up in January. I have some thinking to do, but I may designate 2025 as a more swim-focused year....

In terms of the Bike, through the end of September I have put in 7,963 miles or about 885/month.  This is one of the lowest annual totals over the last 10 years or so.  Particularly once I got outside my volume was basically only about 800 miles/month.  None-the-less, I will at least get over 10,000 miles for the year when all is said and done....

My Run/Walk volume has been walk dominated and consistently around 100 miles/month--917 miles through the end of the first 9 months.  While we have a lot of travel, I do expect the last 3 months of the year to be more walk/run focused--perhaps as much as 20-30% more /month.

The major, early story of 2024 was my commitment to PT to rebuild my body post Knee replacement.  I actually started a 7-month program to do so back this time last year.  As you can see below, once most of my training flipped outside (mid-May), I dialed that back and just did a couple of sessions during the summer.  Towards the end of September, I started back-up again and expect Oct-Dec to be similar to Jan-Mar...

This was an unusual year as in past summers, when I train for an Ironman, my summer hours would be the heaviest part of my training but as you can see, I actually backed off a fair bit in my total training time.  Through the end of September I was at 929 hours so I'm still averaging a bit over 100 hours/month.  My objective is to climb back up above that level for the last 3 months of the year....

2024 Swim Results

I did my third and final open water swim race of the year: Time Kerr Charities' 1.2 Mile Point-to-Point Swim.  I finished in a time of 32:06 and I clocked the distance at 2,075 yards for an average pace of 1:33/100 yards.  At the start of the race the tide was actually a bit against us but it flipped and was slack to slightly helping over the back half of the race.

I started about 4-5 minutes into the race in the self-seeded time trial start.  I entered behind a bunch of my friends--I was about 16-17 seconds behind Dan and a lesser amount after Midge, Bonnie and Tanner.  I actually bumped into Dan on the final straight as he swam up on my feet--I must of passed him at some point during the race but I never saw him (or Midge or Bonnie).  I passed Tanner early on in the race.

Anyways, I ended up 41st out of 134 OA and 3rd out of 18 in the 60-69 YO Age Group and 1st out of 8 in the 65-69 YO Age Group.  I managed to finish 4 seconds ahead of Dan as we continue to have very close finishes.  

This race was part of the "Triple Crown Swim Series" and there were 5 guys, relatively close to my age and my times that I tracked against all year.  Here are our collective results and my % delta to each for the these three races and for the Triple Crown as a whole:

So you can see, with a little bit of inspection, that Harbison is faster than I by 6.3% on average and the other 4 are for the most just a bit slower.  Fabrizio (Dan) is consistently the closest to me although I'm also very close with Arasim as well.  I don't know him but learned that he's actually from Wilmington, DE also!

It also looks, at least in comparison to this group of 5, that I was more competitive in the 1.2-Mile swims than I was in the 2.4-Mile swim (the Cedar Island 5k is actually 2.4 miles).  That is not a total shock as I definitely cut back on my longer (2+ mile) swims this year with no Ironman on the horizon.

Another way to compare is to look at the two Age Group cuts and Overall and see how my relative %-tile finish compared across the three races:

This data is consistent with my comparison to the "gang of 5" as I consistently did better in the two shorter races than in the bigger 5k race.  I do know that the 5k race is the "premier" race of the South Jersey Shore swimming race scene so that probably depresses my relative results in that race a bit.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with these results.  I did reasonably well against my Age Group (interestingly the 65-69 Age Group was slightly more competitive than the 60-69 Age Group!)  I thought I definitely raced close to my full potential in each of these races as frankly, I tended to be a lot slower in my training swims.

Looking ahead to 2025, I do plan to race these three again (and hopefully add 1-2 more OWS races).  One of the things I'm thinking about (but am not ready to commit to yet) is taking a shot at catching Harbison next year.  He averaged about 5.2 seconds/100 yards (6.3%) faster than me across these three races.  5 seconds/100 yards doesn't sound like a lot but realistically it really is.  It's possible I could make the jump but it would require a very intense first 6 months of swim training starting in January.  I'm not sure if I want to focus that much on swimming but we will see!

Onwards and Upwards!

Cedar Island 5K Swim

Did this swim race today for the 5th time.  My expectations were modest (just hope to not be more than 3-4 minutes slower than prior years) and I felt tired (bigger training week this week).  However, at around 12:50 I was in the water, which felt perfect (my Garmin had it at average of 70.6 degrees).  There was a fair amount of wind out of the South and blowing right into the longest stretch of what is essentially a big rectangle. This would prove to be a factor.

Turns out there were 251 starters (that finished--I don't know if anyone dropped out).  I started by the dock to the right of the course as we looked out to a white barrel that marked the 1st of 4 left turns.  Familiar swimmers in this race included my three training partners Midge, Dan and Bonnie.  Also in my Age Group was Dave Hirsch, who I've swam against a fair amount and he has beaten me by significant margins each time (in 2022 he was almost 4-minutes faster than me).  But he's had shoulder surgery and is likely not fully recovered as I swam faster than him in the 1.2-Mile Bay Swim earlier this year.

Rowdy Gaines, the three time gold medalist, sent us off.  And a controlled chaos soon ensued.  While I love this race, I do not like the 1st 100-150 yards.  First it's a mass start and I would say at least 2/3rds were there to go fast (whatever that means for each swimmer).  I basically kept my head up and navigated around swimmers and tried to avoid getting pushed into the docks on my right (blind) side.  That said, I experienced no significant drama and soon made the 90-degree left-hander  to the South and into the wind and a fair amount of chop right into us.

About 200 yards into the race I look over and I see Midge!  I can tell she sees me 2 and we start swimming next to each other.  It's a rough swim but we are likely getting a small tidal push (tide into the wind makes it choppier) and the first 500 passes in 7:51.  As we approach the 2nd turn buoy, I pick it up a bit and Midge follows not too far back.  The 2nd 500 is in 7:21(1:28/100).  We're moving!

As we head East, Midge pulls along side me and when we hit 1500 with a 8:19 500, she starts stretching it out.  Also, we were now into a modest tide against us.  I didn't think I should try to match her speed so I ducked in on her feet and was able to cruise along there for a good 500+ yards.  Our 4th 500 was our slowest at 9:02 (tide clearly having an impact).  Around this time, Hirsch came cruising past on someone else's feet and I made the relatively quick (and frankly bold) decision to bridge up and over to Dave's feet.  Thankfully this worked and I dropped in on Dave's feet.  Dave's a very strong swimmer, even with his on-going shoulder recovery, but his kick (while drastically better than mine) is much less pronounced than Midge's kick so it was a bit trickier to follow Dave.  The next two 500s at 8:28 and 7:27 per 100 I was either on Dave's feet or towards the end I was next to him after needing to avoid some other swimmer traffic.  At 2,100 yards (roughly half-way) I was at 34:21--a 68+ minute pace (vs. my 63:31 CR here).

As we headed to the final 4th turn buoy I decided to roll the dice and see if I could put some distance between Dave and I and I upped my swim cadence and I think we also were now getting a tidal push.  In any event, the 7th 500 passed in 7:11.  I did begin to slowly inch ahead of Dave.  At the 4th turn I was about 5-yards or so in front of him.

When I rounded the turn buoy, about 700-yards from the finish (and this is oh so familiar as I have swam this stretch probably 50 times in practice) I see three guys swimming abreast about 7-10 yards in front of me and I decide to try to bridge up to them and maybe break away from Dave.  I go to about 98% for about 15 seconds and I'm able to drop into their wide draft.  I eased back on my effort a little bit with this assist.  I looked back a couple of times for Dave but couldn't see him.  We were flying now and getting a nice push and we hit 4,000 yards with a 6:20 500 (1:16/100).  About 150 yards out I feel a bump to my right (blind) side and look over and see Dave!!!!  5-alarm fire! However, upon further review it wasn't him but a younger guy with the same wetsuit. 

I didn't know it wasn't Dave so I literally went 100% full-tilt. I could feel "Dave" falling behind and I hammered it all the way to the finish, even passing 3 other swimmers.  The last, what turned out to be, 122 yards went by at a 1:20/100 pace and this includes climbing up on a ladder and going about 10 feet to the timing mat.  I put in a pretty significant effort but I seemed to recover pretty quickly--much quicker than back in July with the 1.2-mile swim.  Anyways, here is how 2024 compares to my prior 4 races:

So, I'm very happy with this race.  It was my second fastest time but when adjusted for different course lengths (if you believe my Garmin is that accurate) this year was my fastest pace per 100, just slightly faster than 2022.  My percentiles were lower in 2024 than in 2022 and as I compare to specific people from 2022 to 2024 it does appear that 2024 was a faster course than 2022.  

None-the-less, I'll gladly take it!  I ended up being just a bit faster than Dave and Midge and I was also a few seconds ahead of Fabrizio for the 2nd race this year.  This is amazing to me because I train with Midge and Dan a lot and they are both better swimmers than I.  I think I just got lucky and also clearly had a good day for these two swim races this year.

Here are some other stats from the race:

July Monthly Training Totals

 Continuing in the theme of catching up--here is what July looked like versus the first 6 months of the year--first the Swim:

So, you can see in July I was able to get back on track after having to do a lot of travel in May/June to help my bother and mother after my Brother's car accident.  Went nearly 43,000/yds in July which is basically where I wanted to be at in July.  Unfortunately, missed a bunch of time in August, so this will drop down quite a bit again but at least I was able to climb to this level in July!

For the Bike another relatively low month and frankly, not nearly enough quality miles as well.  For me in mid-summer, I'm quite a ways off in fitness terms from where I have been in past summers--especially when I've been building for a fall Ironman.

As for my run/walk, I continue to plug along in the 25+ miles/week with no more than 8 miles run/week so far this year.  Not that much, but my new knee feels great and I'm thinking about pushing here in the fall and seeing if I can knock my 5k time down a bit more.....

I continue to de-emphasize PT/Weights but am planning to return in the October timeframe:

Finally, my overall training Tim, I've been in the low 90 hours/month since adopting my summer routine.  A lot of this drop off has been due to my PT deemphasis but also the drop in bike mileage has also played a role.   My swim/run time have remained steady to up over the last few months....

I'm certainly not in the best triathlon shape but I feel pretty good, I'm relatively lean and enjoying some modest success with my racing and generally enjoying my training and racing so all-in-all, I'm pretty content with where I'm at so far in 2024!