This year so far

Since just before Christmas I had taken some time off from training. I felt that I needed a break before going into the next season so a few weeks off running was in order. I still kept swimming and had a very good month of it in December.

Starting in January I got back on the bike. I started off with 30 to 60 min of easy riding to get my legs back into spinning. Along with that I started to run ~30 min 5 days a week. For the next few weeks I did my EN workouts from last year and they were just boring. I could not stand to do longer intervals near FTP and frequently missed workouts. After 3 weeks of that I decided to interview some coaches, I really had my mind set on Mike Plumb again but I needed to know what was out there.

Now I used Mike back to 2006 and in my opinion he made me much faster on the bike. I learned a lot from his workouts which took me from a 1:08 in a 40K to 1:02's. As well as that, his run program taught me how to run faster at threshold as there was much more time spent there than I had previously done. That racing season had mixed results mainly because of my poor race execution at the big race and the fact that I raced entirely too much that season. I chose to go a different way the following season for two reasons...I did not like the swim workouts and at the time Mike did not use power meters on the bike.

In 2007 I went with Matt Fitzgerald's plans to take me to IMMoo...that race had mixed results too because of my inconsistent training. I honestly do not like to do Ironman races and was very demotivated for the 6 weeks before that race. Still I went 11:30 there with a disappointing run.

In 2008 I went with Matt's plans again with better results but aiming at the Half Ironman distance, a distance I really like. I had a good Triple T early in the season and what would have been a good race at Steelhead had it not been for the swim being cancelled. I really didn't care while racing that and pretty much blew off the run.

In late 2008 I decided to go with Endurance Nation for the following year. I started on the bike early October and rode hard on the trainer all winter. I had a disagreement with one of the coaches after purchasing my plan in January of '09 which was supposed to be specific to Triple T and wasn't so I decided to quit EN and modify the plans myself to take me through the season. I used those plans through Triple T and was very strong going into the race. The only problem was that I screwed up my taper, I set myself up to be tapered on Sunday and not Friday, those two extra days of rest would have made a big difference. So mixed results from Triple T left me unsure of the plan but a little wiser about tapering.

The rest of the 2009 season was spent focusing on the Spirit of Racing HIM and the HFP Wheelie Fun Series. I trained exactly as planned for Racine, executed the race perfectly according to my abilities and had the best HIM of my life. All of my goals were met and/or exceeded. The hard work on the bike and race execution paid off. The good performance at Racine was followed by another good performance at Breakwater which had a particularly difficult bike portion followed by a good run for me. The season ended with my 7th oly distance race of the season at Portage Lake near Akron OH. I did well, 2nd on the swim, led the bike but could only hold on to 3rd for the day during the run putting me 2nd in the series standings...Still a good result.

Now...after rambling on about the last few seasons...In 2010 I found myself not doing my prescribed workouts. I had nobody to answer to so I decided to go back to a coach or coaching plan. After interviewing with 3 coaches I decided on going back to Mike Plumb again for these reasons:

He made me faster in the past and I know why.
He now uses power as a metric in cycling.
His swim workouts are more in line with my goals.
He is willing to set me up of different races.
He has experience with my abilities.
I needed someone to answer too.
His fees are very fair

So now I've been back with him for 4 weeks. I've done every workout he's given me and I'm feeling that I'm getting faster already. The workouts can be tough but still doable.

One thing I'm specifically working on this year is losing weight. I was 148 to 152 lbs most of last season, I'm 145 now down from 154 last November and still dropping. My goal is to get under 140 lbs and then assess my situation then. That will put me ~10 lbs lighter than most of last season, hopefully that will translate into faster times on the bike and run

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