Kona Training Week One (13/6/2010 – 20/6/2010)

Did I say I wouldn’t post weekly analysis of my training this time round? I lied.

Kind of. I’d guess that for most people who read this blog what I do in training is of interest. I don’t want to get bogged down in numbers or end up writing long posts about every detail. Just something relatively short and to the point, top level stats, the good and the bad and some thoughts.

Why? Well apart from helping ensure I regularly put content up on this blog it helps keep me accountable. If I go off the rails (in triathlete terms) then my weekly report is going to look poor. The last thing I want is to post about a week of lounging in the sun eating cake!

Sometimes I read blogs from competitors, people I know or names I recognise from races. I see the training they’re doing and it makes me nervous. I need to ensure I can beat that! It’s a good nervous that makes me work harder and get faster. Maybe I’ll provide that motivation here, but I’d rather that than competitors thinking I’ll be a walk over.

The numbers

  Time (hours) Distance (km) Distance (miles)
Swim 5.5 16 10
Bike 18.5 500 310
Run 6 71.5 44.5
Gym 2    
Totals 32 587.5 364.5

The good

The big thing this week was I settled into a routine. More than anything else regularly getting up at 5:30 and getting on with training was an important step towards achieving my goals. Ten days of earlier starts have gone and I’m still fine with it. The most important part is getting to bed early enough which is toughest on Friday’s when I have Master’s till 21:00.

I was pleased to get back into running so quickly and to find it both enjoyable and easy to do so. There was a lot less physical and mental stress there than I imagined. I have a terrible habit of building running into a herculean task in my mind. Then I get out there, run and am surprised it’s not so bad.

Swimming is pleasingly steady I don’t feel I’ve lost much ground though there’s work to do. I have some ideas for sets in open water too which should make swimming at the lake more interesting and challenging. Cycling has been mostly easy or steady as I want to focus on building run training at the moment.

The bad

Despite keeping my routine I failed to train well over the weekend. A mix of factors including fatigue from what had been a busy week, a later night on Friday, some knee problems and a slight dip in motivation. Saturday was a light day thanks to my ITB/Knee giving me problems which an easy run confirmed I’d be best to rest. A bit of work with a foam roller seems to have done the trick though.

I didn’t managed to catch up on rest for Sunday and after a morning on the dock at the lake just couldn’t get myself going. In the end I accepted it and decided with so many hours already done in the first week back, better to rest up ready for the coming week. An unplanned zero day, but I’m promising myself not to let that happen again for a while. It did make me consider the volume/structure of my plan as I need to ensure I can complete it and am motivated to do so.

Thoughts

Only a couple of gripes for my first week properly training again and I’m happy with that. I was a little over-ambitious in my plans for the first week, but got through a lot of work despite this. I’m generally pleased with where my fitness is right now I’d say I’m already in a good position to work from. More importantly I’m feeling more motivated and enjoying the process of training again.

For the coming week I’m not aiming to change much other than to ensure I hit my weekend goals this time. If I can do that I’ll also manage to increase my training volume/distance for the week. The important thing is to progress my running towards the 100 mile goal for July. With a proper long run at the weekend and a couple of extra sessions I’ll easily take the next step there.

A bit more is probably the key philosophy for this week.

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From nutrition to pacing - a collection of CoachCox blog posts focused specifically on Ironman training and racing.

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