Yeah you might want to rephrase that to a whimper…
Concocted in the warped twisted mind of err well me! This is what I have planned for the last weekend of the year!
Why you ask…why the eff not I reply!
Of course I reserve the right to change my response…
It’s been a little over 4 weeks since Ironman Arizona. I have done a bit of this and a bit of that, to be honest I did a bit too soon so I backed off; the mental break took a bit more time to adjust to but now it’s time to get back in the saddle…literally and metaphorically!
I have spent the last week or so planning the next adventure which is St George 70.3 in Utah in May. This time I am trying something different. I usually don’t go for long training cycles, the mental aspect of it I find overwhelming. I get bored around the 16-17 week mark, beyond that I switch off and then the last month become a glorified balls-up of a taper which doesn’t do me any good at all. Yeah but you say! Yeah but I have done this several times so trust me I really know this happens! That being said the training for St George will be 20 weeks.
Huh…yeah huh!
I have spent some time looking through several books and the 20 weeks will be the Meso Cycle; that is the entire life-cycle of the plan. The actual plan will be comprise of several cycles and the actually Triathlon plan will only last 16 weeks with you typical build, recover and specificity training. Because I am sticking to shorter distances I am expecting there to be more emphasis on speed work too…which I actually really like! The first 4 weeks will be spent in the gym, not the pool but actually lifting weights combined with some Yoga/Stretching. I am horribly inflexible...and seeing as how I am not going to wake up suddenly one morning and be able to touch my toes…trust me I have tried, doing some Yoga will help. So that’s all I have to say on that.
As for the weights, in addition to strengthening my core (which I will not bother to tell you that we should all be doing) I do feel that I have some serious gains to be made by adding some outright muscle mass. I really think this will help with my swimming. I have the typically body form of a runner; all legs and arms that look a little bit more than bits of string with knots in. This will be something that I will continue through the entire 20 weeks with a review and a change of exercises every 6 weeks the Micro Cycles with the last two weeks tapering off towards race day. In addition to this each week for the first 4 will have roughly 5 hours of Swim Bike Run on a rough 1/2/2 split spread across the week to basically get the heart rate up and the waistband down.
This is what happens when you go from 15+ hours a week of training to nada…
This is the first 6 weeks of workouts…’cos I know you were dying to see it and marvel at my mad excel skills…although there has to be a quicker way then printing out, cutting up and gluing on the sideways words!!
That’s it for now! One week to the end of the year and six more posts needed to hit 120…it’s on!
One of the benefits of keeping all your training plan in Excel is this…
Total Training; S/B/R/Time
Weekly mileage
Sport Specific Analysis
Percentage of time across each discipline
The bottom line…and yes totally worth it!
