The Drawing Board
My final spring semester at Auburn as an undergrad is underway and I'm really excited about the coming months. As my senior design class is getting kicked off, the things I've learned over the years will finally show some real world results, assuming all goes to plan. I'm also super excited about training up for nationals in April. It will be the first time I've competed at a collegiate level like this since ranger challenge sophomore year. Being on the tri team has really driven me to pay much more attention to my training and taking it a little more seriously, or at least, making it more methodical. I've even gone as far as making no fewer than 3 excel spread sheets dedicated to projecting and tracking my training over the weeks. It's the first time I've really gone about training like this.
As far as training for the swim, I'm pretty much gonna go with the flow (I apologize for the awful pun) of the tri team. Their swim workouts are frequent and I'll defer to their wisdom in that department.
As far as running and cycling, there's so much out there about how one should train for such events, but considering how I'm still a runner at heart, I think I'm going to stick with what I read from Christ Lear's Running with the Buffaloes (p. 26-27). There, cross country coach Wetmore of the University of Colorado, lays out the plan he implemented with his top athletes. The intervals and tempo's and stuff I perscribe myself for running will be reflected in my cycling, while incorporating some brick workouts in there somewhere too. Basically, my training cycles will be as follows (honestly I'm writing this more for myself than anyone out there who would possibly be interested):
Now until Mountain Mist, 28 January:
Recently coming off an incredibly annoying and terribly timed foot issue, or injury some may even say, I really feel like I need to spend a little time reestablishing my base...again. Mist is in 2.5 weeks and really, I should have know better than to sign up, but the tradition must've continued I suppose. I really don't expect to break 5 hours like I did last year, but that's fine, all things considered. I need to tell myself that this isn't something I need to race. I'm not in my ultramarathoning shape I was this time last year. Once Mist is done, barring some sort of injury on the trail, my base building phase will be over.
29 January - 18 February:
This phase will start out with a week of recovery and is then focused on reminding my legs what race pace feels like. Put simply, it'll consist of short intervals at race pace, around 6:00/mile for the 10k (focused on the Olympic distance for nationals), or 22mph-23mph on the bike, with plenty of recovery.
19 February - 14 March:
This phase is geared towards building up longer mileage at paces a little slower than race pace. Long tempo runs and mile reps will be emphasized here.
15 March - 28 March:
Time for anaerobic work. Hopefully by now my aerobic capacity will be significantly increased so that I can capitalize on those gains. Spring break will take place during this phase, so this time will be extremely focused on the Task.
29 March - 7 April:
Now will be the time for hard, faster than race pace intervals. I'll be hittin the track quite a bit. This will basically be 10 days of running myself into the ground day after day. I imagine sleep will be especially deep during this week and a half. Ideally, I'd have a week or two more to do this but considering how the race is the 21nd of April, now is the best time to peak in intensity. If done properly, this phase should recruit my fast twitch fibers giving my legs that edge to release fury when the time comes.
Between the end of the final phase and the race will be spent tapering and putting in maintenance miles. All this sounds great on paper, but I know things will change. I'll keep my blog page posted on how well things are going as time goes on. In other words, you'll probably see nothing worth reading here for the next couple months.
Time to fly.
As far as training for the swim, I'm pretty much gonna go with the flow (I apologize for the awful pun) of the tri team. Their swim workouts are frequent and I'll defer to their wisdom in that department.
As far as running and cycling, there's so much out there about how one should train for such events, but considering how I'm still a runner at heart, I think I'm going to stick with what I read from Christ Lear's Running with the Buffaloes (p. 26-27). There, cross country coach Wetmore of the University of Colorado, lays out the plan he implemented with his top athletes. The intervals and tempo's and stuff I perscribe myself for running will be reflected in my cycling, while incorporating some brick workouts in there somewhere too. Basically, my training cycles will be as follows (honestly I'm writing this more for myself than anyone out there who would possibly be interested):
Now until Mountain Mist, 28 January:
Recently coming off an incredibly annoying and terribly timed foot issue, or injury some may even say, I really feel like I need to spend a little time reestablishing my base...again. Mist is in 2.5 weeks and really, I should have know better than to sign up, but the tradition must've continued I suppose. I really don't expect to break 5 hours like I did last year, but that's fine, all things considered. I need to tell myself that this isn't something I need to race. I'm not in my ultramarathoning shape I was this time last year. Once Mist is done, barring some sort of injury on the trail, my base building phase will be over.
29 January - 18 February:
This phase will start out with a week of recovery and is then focused on reminding my legs what race pace feels like. Put simply, it'll consist of short intervals at race pace, around 6:00/mile for the 10k (focused on the Olympic distance for nationals), or 22mph-23mph on the bike, with plenty of recovery.
19 February - 14 March:
This phase is geared towards building up longer mileage at paces a little slower than race pace. Long tempo runs and mile reps will be emphasized here.
15 March - 28 March:
Time for anaerobic work. Hopefully by now my aerobic capacity will be significantly increased so that I can capitalize on those gains. Spring break will take place during this phase, so this time will be extremely focused on the Task.
29 March - 7 April:
Now will be the time for hard, faster than race pace intervals. I'll be hittin the track quite a bit. This will basically be 10 days of running myself into the ground day after day. I imagine sleep will be especially deep during this week and a half. Ideally, I'd have a week or two more to do this but considering how the race is the 21nd of April, now is the best time to peak in intensity. If done properly, this phase should recruit my fast twitch fibers giving my legs that edge to release fury when the time comes.
Between the end of the final phase and the race will be spent tapering and putting in maintenance miles. All this sounds great on paper, but I know things will change. I'll keep my blog page posted on how well things are going as time goes on. In other words, you'll probably see nothing worth reading here for the next couple months.
Time to fly.
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