I’m a little shocked I’m already done 7 weeks of my base training! I’m now just a little less than 18 weeks (124 days) away from my Ironman in August… and certainly not feeling as though I could run ride 180kms, nor run a marathon — let alone do both in the same day after having swum almost 4kms. In fact, I finally had to go to look at my training plan again last week – thinking maybe I’d written some stuff down wrong! Seemed to me I should be ramping my volumes more quickly that I was … and well – turns out I’ve nothing to worry about… they’ll ramp soon enough!!!
In my second last week of “base” training – how did I feel? Well, Physically I still feel fit and strong. I can put in the workouts with relative ease (as compared to when I first starting to work out again!). That’s not to say they’re easy — far from it in most cases. Just that mentally I’m prepared for the discomfort and pain… knowing its temporary and I’ll be stronger for having pushed through it.
My swims are still feeling to be my area of greatest improvement. I feel “swift” in the water — moving with an effortlessness that I did not previously feel. Instead of fighting the water, I’m “at one” with it… Let me assure you… there are still plenty of people who are WAY faster than me.,… but for me, this is a good place to be.
On the bike, I made a commitment to work on my raw strength. This week I started to really focus on that by adding high effort intervals into my base rides. One 5 minute segment every 15 minutes of riding at at 250watts (compared to the baseline riding at 200watts). By the 3rd or 4th of these intervals in a ride, my heart rate jacks and my legs burn. Getting through the full 5 minutes at the increased power output is pretty crazy.
And well, running is running. This week was a bad week… weather turned south (brrrr) and my schedule got in the way of a couple workouts… so I didn’t spend as much time running as I would have liked. We’ll make sure that changes this coming week!
So, overall my fitness feels good… well, until the tail end of the weekend when I had a bit of a regression with my back — nothing serious I hope. Nothing that can’t be solved with a little massage (tonight) and focus on staying in good form in all of what I do. It’s already starting to feel better!
How about my nutrition? Well, I have my appetite under control again, for the most part. That week or two following my race in Vegas was crazy! I could not find enough food! Things have settled down again and I am back to a sane diet! Which is good, cause I seem to have plateaued at around 163 lbs or so… Would be nice to drop a few more lbs as the training progresses. Nothing too much, just get a little bit leaner so I don’t have to carry as much around the course.
And what about the rest of my life? How’s my balance? Well… work is good. Busy but not crazy with a bunch of short term and immediate deliverables. Its a marathon, not a sprint. We’ll focus on continuous improvement and chewing off small chunks of the immense amount of work that needs to be done. And over time, things will continuously get better!
And on a personal level, the good news is I am happy. I may not have a perfectly balanced life — but what aspiring ironman does? And this week I did manage to sneak in some “downtime” – which helps to keep me sane the rest of the time.
And finally — a few highlights from the blogging side of what I do… This past week I passed the 10,000 page views milestone on the site with more than 1300 unique visitors from more than 57 countries around the world. I had a few “banner weeks” with readers coming from links that got posted on the Leadman Race facebook page. I’m awfully happy that I’ve got some readers out there… enjoying this stuff. It’s fun to write.
I will continue the tradition of reporting on key stats for the week.
Base Phase Week 7 -Training (week ending 15/04/2012) –
- Hours training: 7 Hrs
- Swim distance: 6,800m
- Bike Distance: 109 kms
- Run Distance: 12 kms
- Weight (Sunday AM): 164 lbs
AgeGroupDiaries Site Statistic (totals to 15/04/2012) –
- Visits / Unique Visitors: 4,264 / 1,334 (+80 unique visitors)
- Time on Site (total / average per visit): 161 hours 01 min (+4.25 hrs) / 2min 16 sec
- PageViews: 10,140 (+510)
- Countries represented: 57 (+2) (Canada, USA, United Kingdom, France, India, Philippines, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Venezuela, Iran, Mexico, Thailand, Argentina, Colombia, Czech Republic, Spain, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Cambodia, Morocco, Netherlands, Qatar, Singapore, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Belarus, Switzerland, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Norway, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine)
Good news
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