Thursday, May 31, 2012

What Happened to May?

Whoa, so May is gone? WTH?  I guess after the Charleston Race I chilled out some and then kinda took some easy weeks before I officially started Augusta Training on May 14th.  That constitutes 20 weeks out from the September 30th Ironman 70.3 race.  May was a much better training month than April.  Only missed 1 day of training and that was on the 27th (Camping up in Boone).

Swim
30,000 yards, 13 swims, 11:47
I had some good swims and some bad (slow) swims.  It seems that whenever I do an interval longer than 100 yards, my pace really dies.  Maybe its a mental thing at this point, but I did have some good 100 repeat workouts.

Bike
517.1 miles, 11 rides, 23:43, 21.8 mph overall average
Starting to really get into some bike shape.  Last couple of rides for the month was a 30 miler Tempo at 23.4 mph, and then a 50 miler at 22.2 mph in some hard rain.  Earlier in the month I did a 61.5 miler at a 21.7 avg.  Feeling confident about my biking.

Run
104 miles, 14 runs, 12:16
Just kind of a hodge podge of long runs (10M) and some intervals (2min) and some 3M tempo runs.  Hills are still killing me.  I need to do some more intervals to get ready for the Baxter Tri.


Exercises
4:10, 9 lifts
Gonna start to 3x a week now that soccer and baseball and cub scouts are over for the summer.

Total
638.1 miles, 51:57, 38 SBR workouts

So now the training grind begins.  I will take a short break to do the Baxter Y Tri on June 23rd.  Just a sprint with 300yd pool swim, 16M hilly bike, and then the obligatory 5K run (though this course is closer to 3.4 miles).

Just getting ready to do some serious training.  Keeping with my "hammer the bike everytime you get on the thing" strategy.  Just need to up it to 4x a week.  Need to do some weeks with 4 runs, but gonna keep the swims at 3x week.  This is when the fun begins!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Awesome April

April was a big month with the completion of my first Half Iron triathlon.  As I speculated before, I never really did think I would feel like I was ready.  My approach to bike training seems to be panning out.  Simply enough it is basically "Ride Hard".  I feel like since (especially right now) I'm only riding 3 days a week, the other 4 days offer plenty of "rest".  I don't need recovery rides.  I try to average over 21 mph on every ride.  So now, as the great Greg Lemond once said "It doesn't get easier, you just get faster".

Swim:
20,770 yards, 10 swims, 7:45
Got a few good swims in.  Really pleased with my last hard workout before the race.  I did 3x200's that I got faster on each one.  Took a week off after the race and I surely paid for it when I got back in the pool.  That workout was brutal.  Still a certain lack of motivation.  A far cry from my 50K February.

Bike:
465.9 miles, 10 rides, 21:19, overall average 21.8 mph
Starting to get some serious rides in. Still no ride less than 30M (except for a little 3M ride before the race to test the aero helmet and practice mount/dismount).  Had a good 30M ride at 22.5, and a good 52M at 22.0.  The 56M race was my longest ride to date this year.

Run:
79 miles, 11 runs, 9:31
Still keeping the runs to 3 days a week.  Got some good interval runs in (most was only 6x2min).  The best run was prolly a 10M at 6:38 pace.  Low mileage seems to be working out for me.  The 13M race was my longest run to date this year.

Lift Weights/Exercises
3:50
Basically try to lift weights twice a week and do my hip exercises 3-4 times a week.

Total:
556.6 miles, 31 SBR workouts, 42:27

Would definitely had a lot more mileage/time if not for the race.  Had a good taper before the race, which seems to have worked out pretty well.  Was really able to hammer the bike (24.0 mph avg) but still feel like I had a lot in the tank for the run.  The week after the race, I really slacked off: no swimming and skipped a run.  All told I'm pretty happy with the mileage and time put in for the month considering I had 7 days where I didn't SBR at all.  Looking forward to some serious training in the next few months as I get ready for Augusta.

I'll do the local tri here in Fort Mill in June, but the main focus remains Ironman Augusta 70.3 for which I am now officially signed up for!  So now I'm actually locked in, spent the money, there's no turning back now!  Let the games begin.