Week 21 Summary

Sick this week, boy is also sick, my focus was just on recovering, and getting healthy for ATB. I think it was largely successful -- I would have made my target if I hadn't stopped to pee at 8km. I'm really proud of the pacing in that race: negative split by 4:30. Probably means I took it too easy in the first half.

I also put my carbo loading plan in action the day before: Big breakfast, 4 x 72g maltodextrin sports drink through the day, large pasta dinner. Nutrition through the race was 150g malto + 50mL water + 3 drops vanilla to form a gel. Finished the gel by 2h into the race, washed down with course gatorade/water. Oh, and a half-strip of bacon.

Team Brauns.com introduction post

In the spring of 2004, I started swimming with a local master's group in an effort to get a good cardio base going into my karate black belt grading later that year. Well, adult-onset swimming often leads to triathlon, and I was no exception.

I dabbled for the next few years at sprint and Olympic distances, two or three per year, a marathon here and there, with largely MOP (middle of the pack) results.

Fast-forward to 2010: the year of Getting Serious. I bought a real TT bike, signed up with a local triathlon squad and applied structured principles to my training -- periodization, lactate threshold, FTP -- all previously unknown, but now very familiar.

2011was going to be the year of Results : I had a series of 70.3s (half-iron distance) lined up through the season, with the goal (admittedly a "best case scenario" one) of qualifying for the World Championships in Henderson, Las Vegas. This is where I will mention how I gained a visceral understanding of the phrase "the best laid plans of mice and men." I spent four weeks working full-time, trying to take care of my ill son, and trying to get 12-14 hours / week of training in on less than 6 hours of sleep per night ... it didn't work. So I regrouped, decided to cut way back on the training hours, and target local sprint and Olympic races (I actually ended up placing better than I ever had before at those distances) and keep my sanity in the process.

At the end of the year, I entered in the Tour de Hans, and despite the miserable weather, and walking the last 4k after a mechanical, had a great time.

What I had learned in the last two years was that training in a group makes you work harder, and get better faster, so when I heard Braun's was starting up a racing team, I got involved; I'm going to be in more straight-up bike races this year, so that seemed to be a no-brainer to train with other motivated athletes, and to learn from Winston and Jason about bike racing.

In the last 8 years, I have learned that the self-coached amateur athlete is like one of those plate-spinning jugglers -- child, significant other, job, training : you're not just keeping all the plates spinning, you need to keep them spinning at the proper speeds; neglect any one too long and you're going to be picking up the pieces. Training with a motivated group lets you get the most out of those limited training hours.

2012 sort of feels like starting over: I'm a novice at racing bikes, and that's what most of the season is. It's exciting to not know what you're getting yourself into.

Week 20 Summary

The week started off well, nailed the run in the morning, good swim at lunch. The week built to the Big Day on Sunday, which felt pretty good. 1 hr + 45 min intervals at 80% on the bike went well. Took the run easy, trying to keep the HR < Z4, as I still have some sick left in the lungs. boo-urns.

Oh yes, next week is Around the Bay. I've been trying to figure out a strategy for racing this ... basically the first 20k are more or less flat and pretty fast. However, if you get to 20k and don't have fresh legs, you're screwed: it goes up and down a lot after that for 8k.

So my goal is to finish < 2:20, which means 4:40min/km average... First 10k, just under 4:40, settle into 4:40, then hold on, try to negative split? It seems sort of foolhardy because it would be really easy to blow up on those hills trying to hold 4:40. However, if I try to go out and bank time, am I even going to be able to run in the range I need to by 20k?

Week 19 Summary

Still recovering from whatever chest cold thing was going on last week. I'm still missing the top 10-15% of the performance I could get in the past ... if this is the same thing as last year, it'll be another couple weeks before it's situation normal again.

Long run this week was epic rainy and windy, cut it short at 15k, but did some speed work at the front end of the workout, so we'll call it closer to 20 (and running into a 60kmph headwind is very much like hills, so there you go :).

Did Local Hero + Extra Shot, the snow is melting, maybe one of the last Sufferfest rides ...

Big Day coming up this weekend.