Off the Program

Off the program. That’s probably the best way to describe where I am right now. I fell off the program back in May when my hip was giving me trouble. Then I recovered in time to race Columbia and 2 weeks later, Mooseman. Now we are about a week from our first 70.3 of the year and I haven’t been on a training plan for 5 weeks. I haven’t even been writing down the workouts that I have done. I’m guessing I’m managing 2 swims, 2 bikes, 2 runs a week right now. So this first 70.3 of the year is going to be challenging. I’m looking forward to it though.

After Mooseman my abs were sore. That was an pretty obvious signal that I needed to get back to do my core exercises. So last week I put in the P90X abs workout. I suffered through that. Next day I was sore. Day after that I was even MORE sore. Then I was fine and I did the workout again. I wasn’t very sore the next day. Which was a relief. I’ve got to keep that in the schedule from now on. (Will back off week leading to IMMT 70.3. Lower abs hating me on my runs)

Because my swims have not been awesome, I started the pushup plan again. This will probably happen every 3^rd day. Maybe that will change once I build up some strength again.

My first trip to the pool following Mooseman, I didn’t take a workout with me. I did a reasonable warm up and just thought about how I wanted to prepare for the rest of my race season. I was trying to think how best to get ready to swim these distances and not fatigue. My solution is my old friend the Pull Buoy. I really don’t swim with that as much as I used to because I keep trying to become a better swimmer. Well, I’m putting my technique on the shelf for a bit. It’s time to think wetsuit swim times and for me that means pull buoy.

I think I’ve been swimming 1:50/100m at Columbia and Mooseman, which I’m not happy about.

You get speed by practicing speed. So my first pull set was going to be 5x100 on 2:00 (figuring 10-15 rest). First 100m in 1:37. Hmmm more rest than I was planning for. I’ll probably fall off. Second 1:37. Third 1:38. Fourth 1:38. Fifth 1:39. That went much better than I expected.

Next I figured I’d tax the muscles a bit more and pull 5x100 with hand paddles. 1:33, 1:33, 1:33, 1:34, 1:34. Again, I’m pleased with this. I am not sprinting, I’m being aggressive but these are not all out flailing efforts. As much as I’d like to continue to push and do more. I know I’ve got to slow it down and not do too much. So I lose the buoy and hand paddles and now I’m a tug putting across the pool. For now I’ll just consider my normal swimming as resistance training. I’m glad to see these paces tho. I’ve just got to put it all together again.

I’ve had no motivation to wake up early for workouts before work. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I won’t get shingles this year!

I’d like to think that once we are back from Mont Tremblant, I’ll get back onto the plan. I’ll have 8 weeks before Timberman 70.3.  and 19 weeks to the NYC Marathon. That should provide plenty of motivation.

I have a pretty good idea of what my Timberman schedule will be. I need to look up a marathon plan tho’. I’m really at a loss as to what I should do differently this year in my attempt to make the start line for the marathon. I’m going to look at a bunch of plans to check my options. I’m looking forward to making another attempt at becoming a distance runner.