First Two Weeks of February

Here's a re-cap of my workouts for the first two weeks of February:

Jan. 27-Feb. 2:

Sun: Off
Mon: Run 8.02 miles
Tues: Off (work commitments)
Wed: Run 5.03 miles
Thurs: Bike 25.3 miles
Fri: Run 5.04 miles
Sat: Brick (Bike 22.5 miles, Run 2.0 miles)

Totals: Swim, none; Bike, 47.8 miles; Run, 20.09 miles

Feb. 3 - 9:

Sun: Off
Mon: Run 5.1 miles, Swim 1500 yards
Tues: Run 5.1 miles
Wed: Run 5.12 miles
Thurs: Bike 21.2 miles, Run 5.25 miles
Fri: Bike 25.37 miles, Run 5.11 miles
Sat: Bike 50.34 miles

Totals: Swim 1500 yards; Bike 96.91 miles; Run 25.68 miles

Not much to say about the workouts. The bike mileage has been hard. I'm jumping back in quickly with lots of miles, which has tired me out, but I need to get time in the saddle to be ready for the Lone Star Half Iron distance race on March 30. Hopefully, I'll get more swimming in over the next several weeks, too!

January Training Re-cap

Well . . . I don't know why it's been so hard for me to remember to do my weekly blogs this training season. Maybe it's because most of my training is pretty boring and routine and I don't want to bore friends and family with it. Or maybe it's just that I'm being lazy! Whatever the reason, I've revised my goals a bit to try and do training reports on a bi-weekly or at least monthly basis. So . . . without further ado, here's the recap of January 2008:

January Totals

Here's the total workout regimen for January 2008:

Swim: None
Bike: 7 hrs. 36 min. - 154.8 miles
Run: 14 hrs. 24 min. 56 sec. - 95.8 miles

As you can see, this has been a run-focused month (as February will be). The goal is to get my legs used to the constant pounding so that I'm not dying after 2 miles on every tri with a run longer than 5k. I'm focusing on being prepared for Olympic distance races, which will mean that I will run out of steam a lot on my half iron distance races, and that I'll probably have a lot more in the tank than I need at the end of my sprint races. Still . . . this is where I want to be this year. It's a base-building year to prepare more for another run at an Ironman with Steve in either 2009 or 2010.

On average, in January I ran 4-5 days per week and cycled once per week. That will definitely change in February, as I plan to start out with 4-5 days of running, 1-2 days of swimming, and 3-4 days of cycling per week. By the start of March I will be dropping to 3-4 days of running, increasing to 3 days of swimming, and leveling off at 3-4 days of cycling. At least one day a week in March (probably Saturdays) will be "brick" days (with a bike session followed by a short run). I'm hoping to average the following amounts per week by the start of March:

Swim: 5,000 yards per week
Bike: 100 miles per week
Run: 25 miles per week

Most of this will be at a heart rate pace for Zones 1-3 with intervals of Zone 4-5 for some speed work and for cardiovascular improvement.

Should be fun!