I’m starting to post monthly training updates for posterity so I can check back over time and reflect on my training blocks. These posts will be pretty dry but I’m leaning towards keeping these very objective so emotion doesn’t cloud my narrative. That being said, here’s a look at December and January.
December 2016
I resumed training and started my 2017 season on Monday, 5 December 2016. This date gives me 117 days until Oceanside 70.3, so I figured that would be adequate. December started off with a heavy swim campaign as that’s been a continual weakness of mine. I started swimming with an Equinox Master’s Group on Wednesday/Friday/Sunday mornings and it’s helped. Dana is a great instructor and the swim videos help tremendously. I also swam with Bryan Mineo’s Monday Mechanic Group and continued to refine my technique. Bryan is awesome and my stroke has improved quite nicely. I took a 12 day trip back home to San Antonio and got fat and nasty, so training took somewhat of a dive, but the mental break was nice.
By the numbers:
Swim – 33,745 yards // 10:10:37 // 12 swims
Bike – 80.3 miles // 9:13:06 // 11 bikes
Run – 24.4 miles // 3:36:48 // 7 runs
January 2017
I came back from San Antonio and was pretty disgusting – I hadn’t trained in about a week and I had put on about 5 pounds in 12 days…not my greatest athletic accomplishment. I hit training with a fury and January went well. We pushed a decent bit but nothing too crazy. Both the SMOG Squads and the Equinox Master’s Group started back up so I’ve been hitting both regularly and my swim technique is finally starting to improve. The TSS per week was decent and I’ve enjoyed getting back into the mix. We haven’t piled on any crazy volume and everything is just right.
By the numbers:
Swim – 35,498 yards // 10:41 // 13 swims
Bike – 190.3 miles // 11:28 // 11 bikes
Run – 97.2 miles // 13:43 // 19 runs
Here’s a better summary of the real meat:
Pain Cave
I finally got around to setting up the pain cave. I ordered a Wahoo Desk (thanks Ed!), set up my KICKR, and ordered a beastly floor fan. I’ve been using Zwift habitually since early January and everything is smooth. The quality (TSS, intervals, etc) of the bike rides are superb using Zwift and importing custom built workouts or creating your own sessions. Indoor training on a smart trainer is the way to go, and I wish I had made this investment 2 years ago instead of waiting. I would post photos but my pad needs a little more work…
New Bike Fit
I went back to Jim Manton at ERO Sports on Saturday, January 7th to update my fit. We had talked in September about dropping the front end lower, but we wanted to wait until after IMAZ. We dropped 5cm off the front right away and the entire front end went as low as this bike can handle. I rode around for about 20-25 minutes and I could handle the position. I’ll need to put in some outdoor work in February and March to make sure I can sustain the position and run well off the bike, but it just feels better overall.
Transcendental Meditation Course
Meditation has been on my agenda for several years but I always blew it off. However, based on last year’s training, I’ve found that my limiter is more mental than physical, so I decided to take care of this once and for all. I was reading a new book called “Tools of Titans” by Tim Ferriss (thanks Vinge!) and there were a few mentions of TM. I went to the website and had remembered researching this years ago when I was a young Lt. I contacted the local instructor and met her then decided to start the course. I spent 4 days meeting the instructor and some other students to learn the technique, and now I meditate twice a day for roughly 25 minutes, so this comes out to close to an hour a day. It’s an investment, but I feel better when I meditate, so I’m sticking with this for the long haul.
New Job
I started a new position today at work. This was unexpected and a complete surprise for me and my boss, so we’ve had to rapidly adjust. I’ll give a more thorough update after I’ve spent a decent amount of time at this position, but suffice to say, this will be an interesting next few months…