As early as 2006 I've wanted to have a good swim, bike near 2:30 and run under 1:50, I have allways fell short. At Steelhead in 2006 I was on my way but blew it on the bike while racing my buddie Bernie. In 2007 I went back to IM and didn't work on HIM at all. In 2008 Steelhead was changed to a duathlon, It went well but I really didn't care about the run since the race really didn't count as a HIM to me.
So there I was, half way through the season that has had mixed results and doubting my planning when I had the race of my life in Racine just shattering my previous best effort. Here is what I did different and why I think it worked this time.
Last fall I decided to go a different route for this year and joined Endurance Nation to work with their plans. I focused mainly on the bike for the whole winter and went light on swimming and running. The plan was 3 to 4 hours of hard bike intervals 3 to 4 times a week while running 20 to 25 miles per week of mixed intensities. It didn't have any swimming in it but I still swam 4 times a week for my swim club. I was swimming about 11K a week instead of 15 to 18K that I had done in the past. All of this was taking me about 10 to 12 hours per week, a few hours less than I had done in the past but with more intensity.
At swim meets I was slower in my long events while near the same speed in my shorter ones. At state meet I had mixed results but was very close to what I did the previous year. I was used to large improvements and they didn't come this year.
The run volume was lower than what I have done in the past but had more tempo paced runs in it. The longer runs were a mix of easy running and 15 to 20 min efforts at HIM run pace. I added some volume in the spring cuz I felt the plan didn't have enough in it to prepare me for Triple T. I still feel that was the right thing to do. My average weekly run volume was 35 to 45 miles per week.
My bike training had a lot of harder paced efforts. The long ride had several hard 20 minute efforts as well as some longer race paced ones. On tuesday the brick became a hammer-fest with 3 to 4 of us exchanging leads. It was a lot of 3 to 4 minutes as hard as I could go then 5 to 6 minutes of hanging on in the draft. I got comfortable riding around 250 to 260 watts during that time which is about 25 to 27 mph for me. My average weekly volume on the bike was about 150 to 170 miles or 7 to 9 hours.
Swimming took a back seat this year and I only averaged about 8,000 meters a week. Some weeks where higher and some where lower. I was swimming in a 50 meter pool which really helped get my breathing patterns ready for open water.
No comments:
Post a Comment