"Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man? Are you a bag of sand?"
Are you a man? Are you a bag of sand?"
Swim Until You Can't See Land - Frightened Rabbit
High volume training block is over just in time for race week!
In six days, the plan is to race the Quakerman Olympic Plus Triathlon. It is a race in which I claimed my first ever overall victory in a triathlon. Winning the race again would be nice but the ultimate goal is to improve my time from last year which was 2:49:50. The distances of this race are not your typical distance with a swim of 1K, a bike of 39+ miles and run of 10K. The bike and the run are challenging as the bike included 2100+ feet of climbing and the run is rolling to hilly.
Today, I topped off my 12 week high volume training block with a relaxing 50 mile bike ride along the Susquehanna River (yes I said relaxing!). Using a heart rate monitor I recently purchased, mainly for the upcoming Ironman training, I was able to gauge my fitness level and I was extremely happy that I was able to maintain a very easy 21.4 mph at an average of 136 beats per minute, approximately 75% of heart rate max. Now the plan is to taper for this race to take advantage of the fitness gains over the past 12 weeks. It will be different to race on fresh legs after racing 3 sprint triathlons during these high volume weeks!
12 Week High Volume Training Block Totals
Bike - 52 rides/ 1936 miles/ 93.81 hours/ 20.63 mph/ 51,977ft of climbing
Run - 41 runs/ 288.5 miles/ 35.94 hours/ 7:28 per mile
Swim - 34 swims/ 30 miles/ 15.19 hours
Total - 127 workouts/ 2254.5 miles/ 144.94 hours
Per Week - 10.58 workouts/ 187.88 miles/ 12.07 hours
The plan for September, other than at least one race or possible a second, is to lower the volume and let the body recover for 3-4 weeks before beginning Ironman training. To some it may seem early, but I have already started laying out plans for my training. One new thing for my training is a suspension training session at least twice week. I completed two training sessions this week and instantly believed that it was the most intense workouts in the weight room I have performed in years. I truly believe, that at my age, I will need the added strength to perform at the level that will get me qualified for Kona. I am also going to use a heart rate monitor and go back to training methods I used when I qualified for the Kona in the past. In the past, I had great success following Phil Maffetone's (Mark Allen's coach) heart rate methods and figure if it worked in the past it can still work now. And using the monitor will just make my training all that smarter (hopefully)!
Possible Ironman Races
May 16 - Ironman Texas- most ideal as it gives me 4 months to get ready for Kona
June 28 - Ironman Coeur d'Alene
August 2 - Ironman Boulder- 2nd favorite choice
Of course where would I be without the help of Wattie Ink and my teammates who me motivated with their
performances and encouragement! Also, thanks to a great list of sponsors Wattie Ink was able to secure for the team -
Power Bar,
Speedfil, ISM Saddles, Herbalife, Blue Seventy, Rudy Project, ! Your support goes a long way in helping
me achieve my results!
Rock the W!
No comments:
Post a Comment