Swimming: I'm a member of the Caltech Masters swim club, and I aim to swim with them twice during the week. Additionally, once the PTC open water swims resume, I try and do that every other Sunday. That seems t be enough training to get my 1.2 mile swim down to where I want it. I'd love to go sub-30 for the swim, but I think sub-35 is more realistic for my first HIM attempt. The level of fitness I get from the swimming described above is more than adequate to accomplish that.
Cycling: I do most if not all of my group riding with PTC, which is mainly the Saturday ride. This ranges anywhere from easy 30-35 milers, to epic 70+ milers with 1000 feet of climbing per 10 miles of riding. When I train on my own, during the week, I am constrained heavily by time. I aim to get two or three 1.5 to 2 hour sessions on the wekkday mornings. I alternate between VO2 Max, Threshold/Sweetspot, and Tempo rides, as described in the awesome book: Training and Racing With a Power Meter. If I get any extra rides in, they are usually active recovery. If not for the fact that St. George will be my first HIM attempt, and that the course is known as one of the toughest 70.3 bike courses in North America, I'd set a more aggressive goal (I think I could go for 2h 30min or faster on a flatter course with reasonable wind conditions). But to be realistic, I'm aiming for more like sub 3hr or maybe as fast as 2h 45 min. I think the training described above (along with my SWEET new tri bike, I'll post pics later) I can handle that.
Running: Running has been the hardest thing for me to improve on. This is mostly due to the fact that I am a lot heavier than I was in my younger days. For St. George, my goal is to get through the hilly half marathon without having to walk. I don't really care how fast I go. I'd prefer it to be faster than when I do my weekly long runs, but beyond that, I'll be happy to get through it and finish strong. My training consists of a program from Jeff Galloway's book: Galloway's Book on Running. I'm using the 1:45 1/2 Marathon program, which is 3 days of running per week, and a lot of cross training (which I accomplish by virtue of my swim and cycling training). One day is an easy 40-50 minutes with strides at the end, one day is another short day with some hills (and later in the program this becomes speed work day), and the third day is a long run, which progresses up to 15 miles. This is fairly minimalist since most people I know run 5 days a week, and even more. But for my time constraints, and for the pounding my body seems to take in running, this seems realistic for me to get strong enough to run a 1/2 marathon after a hard 56 mile bike ride, while avoiding injury.
Here's a rough schedule based on the above:
| BIKE (Threshold or Sweetspot) Example: 15 min warmup 5 min @105% FTP 2 x 10 min Sweetspot 15 min cooldown |
RUN 40-50 min @Zone 1/2 4-5 x 20 seconds @5k pace |
BIKE (VO2 Max) Example: 15 min warmup 6 x 6 min time trial w/ 6 min RI 15 min cooldown |
RUN 40-50 min @Zone 2/3 Hilly course, hill repeats, or speedwork |
REST | BIKE PTC Club Ride or Long Endurance/Climbing |
SWIM PTC Open Water Swim |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stretch | SWIM Caltech Masters 2500-4000 yards Distance or drills/technique |
Stretch | SWIM Caltech Masters 2500-3500 yards Speed and technique |
REST | Stretch | RUN Long run Increase 1 mile/week Max of 15 miles Alternate: BIKE Active recovery 60-90 min |
No comments:
Post a Comment