Friday Update

It's the weekend and, although they are calling for rain, the mild temperatures make it worth looking forward to. I also have the weekend away from hockey as the boys are on the road. This means lots of quality family time but also a few more hours to squeeze in some extra training. Hopefully, the roads will be in decent enough shape that I can pump out a nice, outdoor ride on Saturday. I really need to get the riding hours up soon and this may be the perfect time to start.

I took advantage of the great spring conditions all this week at lunch and my hour long rides are feeling strong so it is a matter of putting in some longer efforts, slowly leading into the larger distance races of mid to late summer. Looking at the competitors in the triathlon, I am going to need to build on last years bike times. This may be tough as I was up with the top age groupers last year, with the elites a few km/h ahead of us.

Since my swimming is bound to be slower than my rivals, it is very important to get faster on the bike and run even faster than last year. Thankfully, I ended up cycling and running beside many of these guys as I raced the duathlon. After the first leg of the du we all became mixed in with the triathlon event so I know what they have to offer. Unfortunately, for me, they are fast on the bike and on the run. If I want to stay competitve in the sport this year, I will have to really buckle down and train as hard as I am capable.

So now that I am finished my self motivational talk, I can get to the update...

At our weekly club swim last night, I was very happy with my training during our interval work. I picked a workout in the middle of the speed chart and was actually touching the wall early enough to enjoy longer breaks between intervals than expected. During this portion of the training we did 3 x 100m on 2:00, 100m easy, 4 x 50 on 1:00, 50m easy, 3 x 100m on 2:15, 100 easy, 4 x 50m on 0:55, 50 easy. I know this is slow to most but my splits were much quicker than I have been doing so, if this is a faster trend in my progress, I will be able to jump up a level and shorten the breaks.

Not bad for a guy that hit the water for the very first time in August. At least that is what I think. HAHA

Running has been very productive for quite a few weeks now and I am sticking with my plan for the 30k Around the Bay race a few weeks away. I believe I am where I need to be so it will be a matter of executing the game plan come March 28th. I know a couple of the guys in the club will be running quickly so we may all be sitting together in a group so I hope we can work as a team and push ourselves to the line in our goal time under 2 hours.

Cycling, as mentioned above, has not received the focus that I would like but I believe there is time. I have a great program I may use starting around 8 to 9 weeks out from Victoria's Duathlon. Very intense cycling on fewer days which may suit the extra time needed to swim. I have it on pretty good authority that this program can be manipulated into the triathlon plan but is only good for a few cycles (11 weeks per cycle) per year.

Well, that's it in a nut shell. Hope I see some of you out enjoying the mild weather this weekend!