Training Thoughts May '09

I’m getting ready for another edition of Triple T and I feel pretty good about my training so far.

My goals were to get as much time on the bike as I could while slightly increasing my fitness on the run. My swim has really just been in maintenance mode to maintain as much swim fitness as I could.

The bike has gone well. I feel that I’m as strong now as I was last August. A lot of that can be attributed to all of the off-season work that I did on the bike. Instead of laying off the bike and working on swimming and running I was riding intervals on the trainer about 3 times a week. That really prepped me for the spring where at first I tried to get 5 hours on the road and built up to 7 and 8 hours a week. At my TTT camp I did 10 hours of riding which included a lot of hills which I feel really boosted my fitness.

I also purchased a new bike last winter. I got a Cervelo P2 (Ultegra Version) mostly cuz I felt it was the most bike I could get for the dollar. I’m not a die-hard fan of Cervelo but the bike fit me right, had the components on it that I’m familiar with, there was minimal things I needed to buy for it and the price was better than most other new bikes that were of comparable quality. All I needed to buy to complete the bike was an Arione saddle and a pair of Look Keo pedals. In addition to that I bought a rear water bottle system and a front Hed Jet 60 wheel. The bike is ~3 lbs lighter than my Felt S32. Is it any faster? I don’t really feel that it is but it’s new and a little more solid. The Felt has near 25,000 miles on it now and I’m a little concerned about the frame and fork.

The run training has been OK. I could be better but probably as the expense of bike fitness. I’ve been fairly consistent by getting mostly 35 to 40 miles per week for the last 8 weeks and 25 to 35 miles per week for many weeks before that. I feel faster this spring than I have been mostly cuz of the type of training I did over the winter which was faster than I normally run but not necessarily speed work. It was a lot of running that was about 30-40 seconds a mile faster than I would normally run. The only thing that I’m concerned about is that I don’t feel as durable as I have in the past, although I can put down faster miles I have yet to test it out in a long race. My HIM sim a few weeks ago went well when I got my nutrition plan back in order but this weekend at Triple T will be the next test.

Swimming has taken a back seat like I had planned. I really felt like the bike is where I should focus this year and I’ve given up swim time to get it. Still I’ve been swimming 8,000 to 10,000 yards per week and can still swim long distances under 1:30 per 100 so I’m very confident that I can come out of the water in fairly decent shape. State meet in late March had mixed results. I was slightly faster in some things while slightly slower in others. I was a bit disappointed for a while but since I didn’t have a swim focus time I suppose it was all that I could expect. I still haven’t gotten in a lake to get some open water experience this year but this is my seventh season and I’m still fairly confident I’ll be in good shape. Triple T is all time-trial starts so I can ease into it.