Wordless Wednesday…speechless!

Four Norwegian Norseman veterans decided to test the Norseman Extreme Triathlon course in the winter, and two of them finished the whole course in just under 24 hours. They swam in dry suits from the Norwegian Army and used spikes in the mountain bike tires during their fun day out. Well, you get the picture, but do check out the video below and read their account in English on nxtri.com.  April 2012 August 2011 

2010

From Slowtwitch

  

Head down numbers up!

Not much going on this week as you can probably tell from my lack of posting. It pretty much was a rinse and repeat of the prior week, almost, kinda, sorta! In good old bullet point fashion:

• I did drop a swim and hit the pool only three times but managed 8000 yards; 2000, 2500 and 3500 my longest swim yet
• Running was a bit light with only 20 miles but I had a nice progressive tempo run of 8 miles in an hour
• As usual biking takes up the bulk of the week with just over 119 miles including a hilly (4700’ of climbing) 59 mile ride on Sunday

On the grand scheme of things I have blown through the 1700^th training mile for the year, today is actually the 100^th day of the year so that’s not a bad daily average!

• Failed on the core front…again, I really need to work on that!
• New brakes arrived to add to my box of speed…up next aero bars and brake levers, then later in the next few months wheels
• I am also trying to dial the training in with some specificity, especially on the swimming front and with that in mind someone is providing a spreadsheet of workouts focusing on Speed Endurance and “All Rounder's”, with one eye to the future this will also come into play as the IMAZ course is flat flat and flat with something like 400’ of gain in each 30 something mile loop…can you say “stay aero”!
• I hope to pick up a wetsuit this week and I have identified a local lake where I can open water swim although the ocean is finally calming down

Other than that it’s business as usual!

March’s miles…

Well if you saw that last post you saw what my Q1 and March Mileage and Times were but here are some high and low lights:

• First Triathlon ever; Desert Tri was completed, a disastrous swim was redeemed somewhat on the bike and run, lots learned and I finished with a smile!
• Swimming just keeps getting longer…now at 1500 yards without “floaty bits” even did a speed session last week, form and time, form and time…
• I managed my longest swim ever; 3250 yards, holy crap that’s just under 1000 yards to the Ironman swim distance
• Sold my wetsuit…some much needed funds for the new one
• Got a grab bag of fast bits for my TT bike, I still need to dial in the aero bars and wheels but I am getting there, sorry crappy iPhone picture

• Rode my longest ride ever too; 102 miles in a day…ain’t no doubt that’s a long way!
• Upped my running and even managed a quick 8 miles in sub 60 minutes
• Slid in a couple of trail runs, the last one was in a downpour!
• The 102 mile ride took a good couple of days to recover from…guess my fitness ain’t quite there yet!
• Failed on the core front, which has pushed me back on the weights front, see below
• Took ownership of my first pair of reading glasses!
• Missed my blogging goal of 13 posts a month or 39 a quarter and prolly did not leave half as many comments as I should have on yours!

Overall I am pleased with the month. I figured out that I overcooked the first week with nearly 200 miles in a week and over 16 hours of training. I backed off and found a better balance with less quantity of cycling but making sure that the quality was there. For now there seems to be a sweet spot at around the 13-14 hours per week, right now I am feeling less beaten up and able to bounce back reasonably well. With the increase in running, some of which was forced onto me due to crappy weather, my overall mileage was down compared to January and February but in terms of time I am actually a couple of hours up.

The focus for April is to try and maintain the balance I have and add in the missed core work along with some strength work, I picked up a Triathete specific weights book and I hope that I can create some simple sets that will help me get Harder Better Faster Stronger! Beyond that I need to get a replacement wetsuit and hope to get some open water time this month. So April is here, let’s roll!

7 weeks till race day!