Up Coming Race

I haven’t had a chance to blog much lately, but it has more to do with time than will. For the past three weeks I have been ramping up the training to get ready for the Buffman & Squeaky this weekend in Lubbock. Training has been going well and my body feels great. Ultimately, my training routine is to get me ready for the 70.3 in Lubbock at the end of June, but I’m at a point where the mileage that I’m doing is perfect preparation for the intermediate distance of Buffman & Squeaky.

One thing about endurance racing that I still have trouble accepting is the fact that you really can’t speed up the building of a base in your fitness level. A strong fitness base truly comes from several years of training. For someone like me that is just starting year two it can be very frustrating. There is nothing like someone telling you that if you keep it up in a few years you’ll be really fast! A couple years? Really? As I have slowly started to accept this fact it has made training more enjoyable and focused. I no longer train for the immediate results of this year’s races, but instead focus on how this base will allow me to start next year that much stronger. I must say though that I have made HUGE gains in speed this year over last year. Of course, a ton of credit goes to my new bike, but I have shaved more or less 12 minutes off my typical sprint times of a year ago. Twelve minutes is roughly a 20-30% improvement. I fully expect the gains to be smaller in the future, but it is very rewarding to improve by minutes and not seconds!

This weekend should be an interesting race and if I can make it out of the water under 25 minutes I should be able to finish with a strong bike and run. Speaking of the swim, I tried on my wetsuit last night and just think Halle Berry as cat women! I don’t get it, I am at least 5 pounds lighter than last year but the suit fits like it was painted on! I kept trying to get out of it as if I was racing and could not manage to do it without my tri shorts being pulled down every time! Hopefully the shorts don’t come down this weekend or I’ll be blogging from jail for indecent exposure!

Hitting the Wall!!!!

I hit a MAJOR wall yesterday in my training! I’ve been pretty steady all season in my workouts and have increased the duration and intensity as the season has progressed, but yesterday I struggled through a biking hill workout and I mean struggled!!! . I was looking for a cliff to ride off of I was so tired!  One thing that is very difficult to juggle in endurance sports is pushing yourself hard enough without over training. I mean isn’t the nature of endurance sports to push your body pass the limits your mind sets? The trick is to pass the limits set in your mind, but not the limits your body has. You have a finite amount of muscle, energy, hydration, and lung capacity so knowing those limits is important. The problem that I have encountered is ramping up training from sprits to 70.3’s without overtraining. The literature out there on training has several ways to approach the gradual increasing of your workouts and as a rule most subscribe to the 10% philosophy. The 10% philosophy states that you should not increase a workout by more than 10% in length or duration at any one time. While this seems reasonable especially if you have 8-12 months to train for a singular goal, it really doesn’t fit into what I’m trying to accomplish. So if I’m biking 150 miles a week, going by the 10% rule, I should only increase by 15 miles the next time I bump up my workouts? Once again, I can see the logic and it certainly will be easier on my body, but there is no way I would be ready for my 70.3 at the end of June.

So what am I left with? I have to increase my workouts by roughly 20% every ten days and run the risk of injury or burnout or increase slower and possibly not be fit enough to compete. What this whole experience has taught me is to plan my longer races for deeper into the season so that I can have the gradual build-up, but sometimes race schedules don’t accommodate training schedules. For example, this weekend is the USAT National Duathlon Championships. How can racers be at their peak this early in the season? I would guess that the answer is that they are not.

Well, good luck to Bobby, Gretchen and Cody this weekend and to everyone else competing.

Dry isn't Always Better

Well I’ve started cranking up the workouts to get myself ready for the Buffman & Squeaky Olympic Distance Triathlon May 15^th. I want to drop a couple pounds just to stay light on my feet, but I don’t think I need to really diet in order to accomplish the weight loss. The rigors of my daily workouts seem to be doing a good job of helping me drop those few pounds. I also need to bust out with the wetsuit and make sure it still fits and do a few training days in it. One thing about doing mostly sprints is that you don’t do very many open water swims and because of that you don’t need to use your wetsuit much. The few open water swims that I have done have gone well, it’s just important that I don’t get too excited at the beginning and go out to hard. I will say that my transitions have been very slow, but I attribute that to a lack of experience and should do better this time. While we are on the topic of wetsuits and open water swims I should probably throw out some advice for those of you that are new to the sport. Wetsuits can be very expensive and in all honesty hard to differentiate between. You don’t need to spend big bucks on one. Most wetsuits that cost between $100-$200 work just fine and you will probably only wear it 3-4 times a season if you are competing in sprints. Also, just because everyone is wearing a wet suit doesn’t mean you need too. If you are competing in a sprint and the swim distance is 500 meters or less, test out the water before you put your wetsuit on. Unless it is just unbearable you might want to swim without it. You are only going to be swimming for 8-12 minutes and you could probably save a good 30 seconds in transition without it. I’m a big sissy and freeze in 76 degree water so I always have mine on, but I have noticed some of the faster racers don’t bother if the water is in the 73-77 degree range.

Well good luck to everyone racing this weekend and I’ll report back on my training efforts soon.