No time to Blog

I have been receiving coaching from pro triathlete, Torsten Abel, since the first of February and his training program is fairly intense. I am already starting to see results in my swimming and running and i feel strng on the bike trainer. Last week, i did a long run on the sunday; took monday off and did yoga; tuesday- swam 3000 metres and did a cycle workout for an hour and a half, wednesday last week was a hour run, thursday was a 3200 metre swim and and 1:30 of spinning; Friday was 3200 metres swim and an hour run; saturday was a spin class and another hour and a half on the trainer. Sunday just past i did a long steady hour and fourty five minute run; monday did yoga; tuesday swam 3200m and cycled for 1:15 on the trainor and today did two runs of about 45-50 minutes each. It will be good to get outside cycling soon.

New Bike

Last week I purchased a new time trial bike (Trek Speed Concept 9.5) from Mike's Bikes in Moncton. Very flashy looking bike. Very aerodynamic. Not as light as my Kuota and it doesn't come with full dura ace like my Kuota. Still, it is a nice bike and I will be eager to see if it feels fast.

My training with my coach, Torsten Abel has been going well. I am noticing improvement with my swimming endurance and speed. I have been swimming about 9000 km a week whcih is quite a bit more than i was doing earlier in the winter. I have been spinning on the trainor indoors about 3 hours a week. I have been doing a couple of runs during the week and one longer run on Sunday. This past week, the plan called for two runs on Wednesday- one at noon and a recovery run after work. Running fast is the one thing that does not come naturally to me. I have to work at it and I will never be a really fast runner.

Swimming comes easier to me. I didn't start swimming until i decided to take up triathlon about 8 years ago. I like the water and have always been comfortable in the water and I think that helps.

I almost went cycling outside this past thursday. I think it was warm enough but I didn' really want to get my bike dirty. I am hoping to get outside in the next week or so. I am going to cuba for a vacation in mid April and seriously considering taking my bike, I always see lots of people cycling when i am there. Tomorrow, I am supposed to run for and hour and a half and increase the heart rate by about 5 beats per minute every 30 mins.

enjoying new coached program

i am no into my second month of doing a daily routine set by a coach. I am enjoying it so far, because it is new and also, I don't have to think about what I am going to do. The swims are all 3000m plus so my endurance is certainly getting better. now that the coach has met me and done some testing, the runs and biking are at specific heart rates, based on my heart rate ranges.

Last week, I think I did three swims of all close to 3000 metres; The coach likes paddles for strength so i have been doing more of that. My times are getting faster. I am now swimming 1:35 100s with ease. In other words, that is my normal time for 100 metres without pushing it. that is definitely a bit faster than I used to be. I did a fair bit of running last week; two runs of about 50 mins each in low heart rate zone and then a longer run on Sunday in my 3 heart rate zones. (20 mins in each zone getting faster) and then another recovery run of 30 mins easy in the afternoon. I did a spinning session of about 1:15 on the trainor and taught a spin class which is counted as training. Also did two weights session targeted at triathlon training- one for lower body and one for upper body. The lower body was single leg presses, single calf raises, squats and lunges. The upper body was tricep extensions, seated row, pull ups, tri dips, push ups.

Tucson

My trip here got off to a rough start. My bike was 2 days late getting here and that was very frustrating. The second day was especially frustrating as my bike was in Tucson but the delivery company just failed to deliver it. Calling the United Airlines baggage line just increased my frustration as I could never get an sort of concrete answer as to when it would be delivered. Anyway, it came late monday night and I had 4 days left so I went cycling everyday since. The first day (Tuesday) I did part of Mt Lemmon which is a famous route here. The whole ride is quite long with a lot of climbing and I didn't think doing the whole ride would be a great idea on day one.

The second day, I went to my coaches house for lactate threshold testing. We did the bike testing first which involved testing my blood after cycling at different intensities. The results were that my cycling is quite strong and my lactate threshold is somewhat high; I should have quit there. I did the running test right after biking (and after biking 5 hours the day before) My heart rate was quite high at relatively slow speed and my running lactate threshold is low. I think if I had just doneI the running test and been fresher, it would have been better. Nevertheless, running is what I need to work on. I did improve my running times last summer, doing around 44 minute ten ks in triathlons and running some individual ten k races in around 43 mins which is not bad for me. On Thursday and Friday I cycled about 4 hours each day and by today (friday) I was feeling pretty good. I am glad I did this trip and it was pretty much what I wanted to do. (get in a week or so of cycling in the winter) a couple of extra days would have been better but it has been pretty good.

Heading to Arizona

The weather the past couple of weeks has been challenging for training. I have completed my third week of my coached training program. It was been going well and I am enjoying the bike trainor workouts in particular. I am heading to Tucson this weekend for a week of cycling and looking forward to it. I have heard that the weather there has been good. I am meeting up with my coach for some testing which should be interesting. This week I have done 2 and one half hours of spinning on the trainor; one run on the treadmill and one run outside; two swims and two hot yoga. I am swimming in the morning and doing yoga after work. I bailed on spinning today and packed. work has been a bit slower which i am enjoying.

week 2 of my new plan

A couple of weeks ago I hired a triathlon coach, Torsten Abel, to provide me with daily workouts geared to ward the upcoming year. I am in week 2 and it is going well so far. Torsten is a pro triathlete and finished 26th at Kona lat year and coaches his wife, Leanda Cave, who is also a pro. They live in Tucson, Arizona. This has given me some renewed enthusiasm and a focus to my workouts. I am still doing the UPEI Swim club swims plus biking and running as directed by Torsten. Lsat week, I did about 3 runs; two spinning sessions, 3 swims, 3 or 4 yoga. so far this week, I have done two and half hours of spinning, 2 runs and i am doing another one today (2 runs in one day); 2 swims and i am swimming again tomorrow and i am sure there will be lots to do on the weekend.

I leave next Saturday, feb 19th to go to Tucson, Arizona for a "training/vacation". I hope to get in some good base miles for cycling and meet Torsten and Leanda. He is also going to so some lactate threshold testing on me which will be interesting.

My reach exceeds my grasp

I never seem to get in as many workouts as I aim for. Today, for example i was going to do a 90 minute yoga class and run. I didn't get the run in. I just ran out of time. This week, I ran twice outside (about 45 mins each time) and once indoors on the UPEI track. I keep saying on here that I am not running enough but I am not doing too bad given that it is winter. I did three good swim workouts last week, one spin class, one at home trainor session of about 45 mins and 4 hot yoga classes. Thats about 12 workouts during the week. I have hired a triathlon coach for the coming year and am supposed to start training this week with him. He will give me weekly workouts and we will interact online. He lives in Tucson and we will meet when I go there in February. It will be interesting to see how that goes. It is only about 3 weeks until I go to Arizona to go cycling and I am looking forward to that.