It’s mid-July and probably a good time to talk about how the training is going. As a reminder, my A races are an Olympic distance on September 25th and a Half Iron the following weekend. I have one more Olympic distance race in early August, but that’s it for the events that are shaping the training plan.
After the early season May half iron, I re-entered base mode with an emphasis on rebuilding my dilapidated run fitness through increased distances and consistency. Secondary is bringing the bike base along with the running and maintaining my swim with 1-2 workouts per week.
Yes, yes that’s all I do swimming. Go ahead shoot evil laser eyes at me you people who prefer to swim a zillion times a week, but that’s all it takes for me and swimming is really the most inefficient time investment for the performance result. A trip to the nearby pool for a 65-75 minute workout is easily a 2 hour time investment. A trip to the lake for open water? More than that! So when I swim in the pool, I make it count by doing 2000 yard main sets and a total of about 4000 yards. Open water swims are more like 30-45 minutes of straight swimming, but oh well that’s one reason why they don’t happen every week.
My running is finally coming around. I even had a couple of 40 mile weeks in June, which is awesome. I did that by running 4x per week and getting in some longer runs of 9-15 miles. The paces continued to be unimpressive (8-9 minute miles), but I did the work. Don’t ask me how I ran 6:15′s at Triangle Tri– freshening up the legs and working my tail off I guess? Anyway, today marked the first training run that translated the run work into a faster pace at equivalent effort. Thanks to Nasrin for pulling the latent speed out of me after a most excellent ride. Good timing, too, because now I have the confidence that I won’t get dropped tomorrow by my fast, multiple sub-3 hour marathoner friend on our planned training run.
Speaking of excellent riding, I’ve gotten several 6+ hour weeks of riding over the past few months. Today capped off an 8 1/2 hour week at the expense of run volume, but hey, I need to recover those running legs after popping off a 19:37 5k on a not-exactly-the-fastest course. I’m an aged masters now, you know? (Technically, I don’t turn 40 until August 19th, but like it really matters).
Overall, I really feel like I’m on track so long as I don’t overdo the quality that I’m going to begin inserting into the plan. I’m still over 2 months out, so nothing too crazy yet. September will be the key preparation with the hardest workouts. I’ll share more then what those are.
So that’s triathlon training, but a quick note on potty training for Remy. We’ve been taking a really relaxed approach to it with approximately zero expectation of any headway until he’s about 3, which is quite a ways away at 22.5 months. My Mom says my brother and I were about 3 when we finally potty trained, and the R-Man doesn’t seem overly concerned about walking around in wet diapers, so I figure our trajectory with him is about the same. Having said that, we did get a little training potty and put it in the bathroom where we bathe him at nights. After unclothing and before bath, we get him to sit on the potty and suggest that he “pee pee in the hole.” His typical response is to squirm around and say “pee pee pee” then jump up and try to run out of the bathroom. Last night was a major breakthrough because HE PEED IN THE POTTY! What a shocker! We’ll see if this was a one-time fluke or if it happens again. I’m not getting my hopes hinged on early potty training yet. Maybe we won’t have to hold out until he’s 3 though…
That’s awesome that he peed in the potty! We are taking the relaxed approach as well. Zach always says he needs to poop and we hold him on our potty but so far, no actual pooping has been done. I think he just likes the up and down.
And you’ve certainly got yourself dialed in with your training. You always seem to get exactly the results you want.
Go, Remy! So far it looks like Elena will be closer to 3 until she is officially potty trained. She has been using the potty since before she was 2 and continues to use it when we remind her, but if she wears underwear or is naked in the house she forgets to use the potty and just pees wherever. We are super relaxed about and are letting her progress at her own pace.
I LOVE to read about your training approach. You are about the only blog I read where you don’t seem to kill yourself with crazy intensity and speedwork. It is awesome that you know what works for you and you stick with it.