Looking at the calendar today, I was somewhat startled to see that Ironman Arizona 2007 is only 8 weeks away. The last three months have zipped by - storms, power outages, holidays, family events, work, training. I thought I'd at last blog about my current progress toward IMAZ 07.
Since December, I'm been working with Jill Fry, a local triathlon coach. Last year I used Mark Allen Online, which was effective enough, but I wanted a more personal touch only local coaching can provide. She has me on a much more aggressive training schedule that I think the software would have provided or I would have done on my own. Last year about this time I was doing much less rigorous workouts. Plus she organizes group rides and swims with her other clients and members of her "JFT2" triathlon team.
We communicate workout details via the Training Peaks site. I enter in the details of my workouts, and she comments on occasion. The software is rudimentary in some ways but works. You can go read the weekly totals of my workouts here.
My training has been progressing smoothly in general, but it's been challenging to get in all the workouts. I've sacrificed the run workouts most often (per Jill's advice) because I need to work the least on that. But I can't afford much of that in the next 8 weeks, not if I want to deliver the best possible performance.
Swim
After IMAZ06 I took too much time off from swimming, and I've been paying the price. Today I did a straight 2000 in the pool, and it felt great. This was the first swim that made me think my performance this year will be better (faster) than last year. I was on a 2:05 100-yard pace for the 2000, and the last few 100s were right on 2:00. I felt like I could just keep going today.
Bike
My cycling has come back strong. I kept my riding up since IMAZ with various events including the STP over the summer (which I failed to blog about and should). The big spike on the chart below includes a century ride the JFT2 team did from Bridle Trails to Orting and back. And yesterday I went on a 67 mile ride with my new toy, a Cervelo P3C. More details on that in a different post.
Run
My running is still strong, despite having some short weeks as you can see below. This week will also be short; I skipped a bunch of runs to help keep a mild cold I was fighting from turning into a full-blown illness. Too much of that going around the office.
I'm going to try to be better about blogging. They might just be short notes, but at least that's more than radio silence.
Cool graphs. I am so not ready for Ironman Arizona. Just treating it as a nice long training day, and hopefully get a chance to meet with you finally.
Posted by: Rafael | Saturday, March 03, 2007 at 06:12 PM