The Great Compromise of '09

While I have pretty much abandoned the training plan I began following at the beginning of the season, I continue to be mindful of some of the better ideas I gleaned from that particular book.

I am fortunate to have come across yet another book which I made mention of earlier http://www.velogear.com/prodinfo.asp?number=VP+PER. I was a little hard on it for had I read a couple of more pages I would have seen that he qualified quite a bit on the subject which caused a sudden book-flinging.

While the book focuses on half-iron distance, it is very applicable to all distances. I am particularly inspired by some of his swimming suggestions, which helped me come to the great compromise where my training is concerned.

I am going to follow a 3 X 3 X 4 workout training week (3 run, 3 bike, 4 swim). This will necessitate working out 7 days per week because I will need to get in some weight training as well (he also talks about a ten and 15 day training week/cycle, so maybe that's where I'm really heading). As a compromise, on alternating weeks, I will only do my long bike, run and swim and round it out with fuller weight training sessions. I’m guessing these weeks will work out to about half what my long weeks will be. I will also increase training times on my long sessions to increase the workout week by about 30 minutes per long week. My initial goal is to peak at about 15 hours, see how that feels and go from there.

I have also decided to do my long run distance two weeks in a row before increasing by another mile. I’ve got 6 months before my big race and I’m at 10 miles starting next week, so without thinking too hard I can see that that scheme is pretty close.

I’m still thinking about doing the Portland Marathon, which is exactly 4 weeks before my iron distance race. That may be too much, but then again, a four week taper could be just about right.

I’ve decided to really work on getting my swim time down since that is my strong event anyway (unfortunately). “The Perfect Distance” suggests that a good measure is if you can complete a 1500 meter swim in 20 minutes, you’re very competitive. I did my first swim time trial (ever! I know, can you believe that?!) this morning and finished it in 30 minutes. I’ve got a good ways to go, but now I’ve got a nice baseline. My swim times in the two Olympic distance races I competed in were atrocious, so I’ve certainly got a lot of work to do.

I’ve also decided to worry somewhat less about the length of the workout and more on just getting the 3 X 3 X 4 workouts done. Once I gain confidence, I will be more diligent with actual workout times.

I am a chronic fudger on training, but I seem to have worked out of my funk of last week and will re-double efforts to put in a solid season of training.