Week ending Jan 5 2014

For the last two weeks I've been doing a pretty good job of training and I'm happy where I'm at right now.

Swim:

I've been in the pool 3 to 4 times a week consistently with only one hiccup in the last month.  I hurt my elbow somehow two Mondays ago, I think it's from working on EVF (early vertical forearm).  That day had some really hard pull sets and I ripped them off pretty hard for me and that's when it revealed itself.  I did do some dryland work with my friend Brian G but I was very light on that workout and don't think that it contributed at all to the problem.  This is very unusual for me since I rarely get hurt and with swimming it's normally my shoulders that will have an issue.

Despite that, I have gotten stronger in the pool, I really wanted to work on some dryland stuff but this is going to put it off for at least another week, maybe two.  I can see myself being back to normal in a few weeks.

I'm starting to change some thoughts on swimming...instead of just searching for lower drag I've got to work on pulling harder too, I don't think there is any other way around it.  I've stopped using my paddles as much as I had been doing but am going to put them back into my training starting next week.

Biking is still in maintenance mode, if I get two moderate rides in a week I'll be happy with that for the month of January.  I started using my Computrainer, I'm not impressed.  I actually like riding with the Kurt Kinetic better.  Having to change efforts without warning is unappealing, I like to be in control of my efforts and the CT rides I've been doing seem unpredictable.  On the contrary, Karen seems to like doing her rides on hers, that good :)

Running has been going well, I just finished week 8 of my run plan and will continue with the 24 week schedule as planned.  I'm actually 3 weeks ahead of the plan ending on Triple T weekend, this is because I'm going to take a week down from running to make a bike focus week in late February, another week in late March and a third week in early May.

Goals for January is to keep building run volume while following my run plan, keep swimming 3 to 4 days a week and ride the bike two times a week for another three weeks and then start building that volume with easy riding to prep myself for harder training in February.