Friday, November 23, 2012

DNS or False Start

So let's see, my last race was at the end of October (Rev3 Florida) and since then I've been on break. No running, no biking, no swimming, no nothing really. Plenty of sleeping in past 5 and time with family.

This is what my break has looked like workout wise



So the plan was to get started this past Monday. It's about six months till my first likely race, and goals being what they are the plan is to start the season in great shape.

Sunday
I woke up around 3:00 to the sound of my youngest doing her impression of a screamapillar (surprisingly the only screamapillar video I could find.) I ended up staying up after that. I had planned on going swimming, but had a killer sore throat.

Monday
Went to work, did the work thing, came home. I wasn't feeling all that great so I went to sleep at about 6.

Tuesday
Woke up feeling a little better but then my wife said she was sick. So I called in sick, and I "took care of the kids" for a while (meaning I got them breakfast and passed out on the couch.) I spent the rest of the day in bed. Apparently my wife recovered sometime while I was still on the couch.

Wednesday
Having slept the last 20 or so hours we decided that showing up at work and risking the spread of my plague wouldn't be polite, so I stayed home again (went back to sleep after the email to work.) Then sort of milled around the house with the family.

Thursday
Thanksgiving. We did that.

Friday
Set up the christmas tree, took some of the behind the counter cold medicine and just hung around around the house. And that's where we are.

Training
So last year I took off from the end of August to about the middle of November. And then I just did some light running till January when I really started to kick it into gear. That plan was shooting for a June 9th peak. So basically I took off three months.

This year I was all set to go on three weeks of off time. Sure, sure, if you look back through the various race reports I say that I was basically on auto-pilot and not doing that good on following through on workouts toward the end of the season (again this year.) So I've convinced myself that perhaps I jumped the gun. First of all, six months from November 19th is May 19th. And while my first race hasn't been settled on, I might do the Chain of Lakes traithlon again which is a sprint. Six months to built to a sprint... well that might be a little silly for little old me.

So the new tentative start date is the first week in January for official "with a plan" workouts and probably sooner for unofficial "just do stuff" outings.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Tri Season Notes

This year I did eight races. Here's how they lined up.

Race
Swim
Pace
Bike
Pace
Run
Pace
Chain Of Lakes (Sprint)
7:311:1636:2520.320:557:30
Liberty (70.3)
29:401:322:50:0519.22:13:2510:10
Lake Waconia (Sprint)
12:061:3059:382037:089:14
Minneapolis (Sprint)
5:531:2842:4021.923:547:41
Chisago (70.3)
30:521:342:5319.42:08:5310:01
Lakefront Days (Sprint)
6:251:3539:1721.325:147:34
Maple Grove (Sprint)
6:481:4139:4321.523:177:55
Rev3 Florida (70.3)


3:23:2916.52:03:059:24

Last Year for Comparison
RaceSwimPaceBikePaceRunPace
Spring Training (Sprint)6:581:3531:4418.528:219:27
Egg Hunt (Sprint)9:052:0434:1417.529.489:35
Trinona (Olympic)23:111:251:27:3217.857.469:17
Lake Front Days (Sprint)6:411:3140:5819.828:068:30
Maple Grove (Olympic)25:591:351:22:3319.253:038:32

What I see
Swim

  • Chain of lakes is blazingly fast. It was a pool swim, I now know that I can sustain a much faster pace in a pool than in open water. 1:16 was still fast for me at that point of the year. At that point of the year my swim conditioning was at it's peak (sadly.)
  • The rest of the swims were pretty consistent, and most of the time I was feeling good getting out the water.

Bike

  • Rev3 is low due to the tire change. Oh well
  • Other than that speed is up overall for the year.
  • Those averages are still low compared to many other people.

Run

  • I had some very fast (for me) runs this year.
  • The first two halves are pretty slow (comparatively) but the last one was better. It could be that I'm getting close to having this distance a little better dialed in so that perhaps I can go for my goal next year.
  • Hard to tell what happened at Waconia, I think I let that race get in my head. I might do it again this coming year just so I can see if I can do better.
Overall
  • I hit a good level of conditioning in swimming pretty early in the season, but then I started letting it slip.
  • I dropped a ton of speed in my running over the start of the year.
  • I also added some significant speed over last year on the bike. 

Next Year
So the goals for next season line up like this
  • Start the season in as good or better shape than where I finished.
  • Add another 1 or 2 mph on the bike. If I can get average speed up over 22 mph consistently that will help a lot
  • Bring the run pace down. I'd like to be under 8 minutes consistently, around 7 for shorter races.
  • Have a better plan for the swim training, times didn't suffer that much, but confidence did
This season is over for me. I am taking a shorter break than last year, but I will ease into it a little. I probably won't get totally structured till the start of the year.