Numbers!

VO2Max is now 63.8, up 5% from 60.7 (projected) last year. Weight was 73.9 vs. 76.4 (3.2% loss), so that's a good chunk of the gain. FTP was 219 in Jan, currently 232.

It's almost Friday, right?

Thursday has become sleep-in day! No, wait, it's become stupid cat waking me up every 45 minutes -- "well, will you pet me now? meow meow meow how about now?" and small child coughing in his sleep every couple hours.

Then 3000m in the pool, mostly drill. And my workstation decided that the new Ubuntu upgrade was not to its liking, and would just halt during the restart. grr. I'm trying to install over-top currently -- "Would you like to upgrade Ubuntu 11.10 to Ubuntu 11.10?". Er, yes? no? all of the above?

Oh yes, and someday when I'm independently wealthy and don't really want to plan a trip of my own, just show up and hop on a high-end road bike and go where someone tells me: there's this.

Building a running base

It's only about 3.5km from my house to my work, so when the car goes bye-bye and I cancel my Y-membership, I'm going to consider running back and forth to work, at least on the non-blizzard days, and the days where I'm not going to be running .

Mon -- AM: Swim(FH), Run commute (8k total)

Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Run(UW)

Wed -- AM: Bike, Run commute (8k total)

Thurs -- AM: Bike PM: Run(UW)

Fri -- AM: Swim(FH), Run commute (8k total)

Sat -- AM: Bike

Sun -- AM: Run

Settling in to swim focus block

If things work out, then I get 5 swims/week.

Mon/Thurs are rest days -- just swim
Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Swim
Wed/Fri -- AM: Swim PM: Tempo Run (BP:M)
Sat -- AM: Bike
Sun -- AM: Long Run (BP:L)

Going to keep this going until the end of December, then switch to a 15-week bike focus. This will also coincide with me getting rid of the crappy car, and most likely putting my Y membership on hold.

That block will probably look like:
2 swims - maybe 3 if the UW thing pans out
3 runs
4 bike sessions

Mon -- AM: Swim(FH)

Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Run(from work)

Wed -- AM: Bike

Thurs -- AM: Bike PM: Run(from work)

Fri -- AM: Swim(FH)

Sat -- AM: Bike

Sun -- AM: Run

check out http://www.athletics.uwaterloo.ca/sports/2010/7/21/CR_0721100658.aspx?tab=openrecreation for 2012 swims

also

http://www.athletics.uwaterloo.ca/sports/2010/7/21/CR_0721105823.aspx?tab=memberships $260 for the year


OR

Keep the Y membership:
Mon -- AM: Swim(FH)
Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Run(Y)
Wed -- AM: Bike PM: Swim(Y)
Thurs -- AM: Bike PM: Run(Y)
Fri -- AM: Swim(FH)
Sat -- AM: Bike
Sun -- AM: Run

Week two summary

Got a good amount of work in.

Swim: 4 swims for 10.8k, up from 3 swims last week. Trending in the right direction at least.

Bike: Two bikes, the 2x20 in HHNF is putting the hurt on.

Run: No small stuff alas, I need to figure out how to get out the door with dog for a quick 20 without 10 minutes of clothes changing on either end.

Overall TSS of 640. More of these will make me happy.

Finally seem to be shaking the cold that's been pestering me for the 10 days, I felt reasonable on the run, my pace in Z2 (by HR) was more or less where it should have been (5:20 min/km at about 135) during Sunday's long run.

Sufferfest: Hell Hath No Fury

Got the new training vid -- Hell Hath No Fury -- mainly because of the 2x20min set, which is a great set when done at/around your FTP (great in this case meaning "excrutiating") for boosting that particular metric.

Made it into the first 20min set with minimal damage, then started hurting after the first few attacks. I'm used to women kicking my ass on the bike, but this was unusual. It was downhill from there (in the video, there is only a small downhill section, alas). I'm glad the Cervelo has comfy arm rests, because my head ended up there after the end of each 20 minute segment.

One thing that has bugged me in each of the Sufferfest vids that I have is that there's some small typo or weird grammatical error in the mid-interval messages. Random font changes in Angels, David Millar gets labelled as Miller in Local Hero, etc. HHNF has "capitan". But that's about the worst thing I can say about them, honestly.

So yeah, between this 2x20 and A Very Dark Place's 5x4 (just an aside, there is nothing more soul-crushing than kicking to the end of the 4th interval, and thinking "well, that's done", and then realizing you have to Do. It. Again.) that's pretty much my FT and 5MP workouts sorted for the next while.

*whimper*

Get Ready, Get Set, Go moderately easy ...

FTP testing yielded 232, which for indoors is expected (I was hitting 240 outdoors at the end of last season), and my 1000m swim was 18:45, so 1:52/100m. My pool yardage fell short -- with only three swims, and two of those largely drills, I didn't even break 8k.

I spent most of the week feeling like crap because of no-sleep (sick kid), sick me, and work-related carousing (cf sick). Also batchin' it (DW is away for the weekend in Toronto at a show), so minimal time for anything other than child wrangling. Would be nice to get the long run in tomorrow at some point...

My ever-evolving 2012 race-plan now looks like:


Around the Bay 30k run- March 25 - Hamilton
Paris-Ancaster 60k XC bike - April 15 - Ancaster
Victoria's Duathlon - May 20 - Waterloo or Ohio Triple T - May 18-20 - Ohio
Tour De Grand 160k bike - June 10 - Cambridge
Guelph Lake I Olympic triathlon - June 17 - Guelph
Tour De Waterloo 130k bike - June 24 - Waterloo
Peterborough half-iron triathlon - July 8 - Peterborough
Centurion Collingwood C100 bike - Sept 16 - Collingwood
Tour de Hans 100k bike - Oct 1 - Waterloo

Note the bike-heavy and local overtones.

I've signed up with Braun's to "race for them" (ie, show up at events in their kit, blog/tweet/etc about racing, and volunteer at a couple events). This is the first year in a while they have a team presence, so it'll be interesting to see what shakes out.

First week down ...

Not bad. Only missed a short run, and a swim on Friday (little one was up sick Thursday, and sleep > training right now).

I signed up for a membership at the local Y, which is a 5 minute drive from work -- pool and treadmill -- very handy.

So, starting an eight-week swim focus: Monday-Wednesday-Friday, Masters, Tues-Thurs at the Y, trying out the SwimSmooth booklet I bought ages ago. Hopefully, I can get in ~15km / week that way.

At the same time, I'll be maintaining the BarryP 3-2-1 plan at minimal volume (20-40-60 minutes) for the next little while.

After the swim block, it's onto the bike block -- the road bike is all upgraded into the modern era (well, 8-speed STI) and I tested it out on the rollers last night, works great.

Need to talk to someone at Braun's ... their race team might be a better fit for the next season if I'm just focussing on short-course.