Official Pie-Season Winter Training Kickoff Day

I've toiled over the schedules and have come up with a plan for the most of winter: an olympic distance plan that I'll probably modify here and there as I go. And today (drumroll)................... is the first day of it. [cheering!]


A snapshot of the schedule:

Sundays - off
Mondays - base swim in the a.m. / run in the p.m.
Tuesdays - biking...which I'll do mostly through an a.m. spinning class / strength
Wednesdays - interval swim in the a.m. / run in the p.m.
Thursdays - biking...1 to 2 hours
Fridays - swim (base or intervals) in the a.m. / run in the p.m.
Saturdays - biking...which I'll do either in an a.m. spinning class or on my bike / strength

So that's it in a nutshell.
I'll see how it goes every week. It seems pretty balanced.


This morning I swam 1200 yards. Warmed up 200, did 6x25 pull drills, 4x100 main set, 8 x 25 kicks, 6x25 pulls with high elbows, and cooled down 5 x 50. Wait. That's 1350 yards. I can never count correctly when I'm in the pool! Oops.

Lucky for me, this day is supposed to be nice and sunny and warm, so when I run this afternoon, it should be nice. It's been getting colder, and I'm just not acclimated to the dark and chilliness yet. I'll get there though.

Running in the Sun

Thursday after work I went for a little 2.5 mile run in the sun. I was hoping for another crazy awesome run like I had Monday, where I felt like I was going so fast (and was indeed going faster than I normally do with little effort). Instead my legs hurt a bit and I had to stretch at 1.3 miles because they had tightened up so bad.

There is a 2.5 mile loop from my house that I think would be fun to use as a time trial of sorts. If I can run this short distance somewhat hard on Thursdays, it may be a way to gauge how I'm doing: if I'm getting faster, feel fatigued, etc. 

Yesterday I was certainly fatigued, and I'm not sure why. Maybe the swim the night before? I have been taking it pretty easy the past couple of weeks, so maybe I'm just settling in. Work has been busy too. The training plan for the week I posted Sunday isn't exactly what I've been doing...it's just been a rough week, but that's ok.

It's fall. I love fall, and I really hope there are many more days of this weather!

Breathing While Swimming

Work was rough yesterday and I decided to come home after the 5:45 spinning class instead of swim right after. Honestly, as I mentioned before, I don't think swimming right after spinning is the best/most realistic idea anyway. I thought I'd try the gym in the evening and see how that would go.

Turns out the entire community goes to the community center in the evening. I got my swim in, but it was way too crowded to be able to concentrate. I was in the lane that butts up against the rest of the leisure pool, which was full of frolicking children and bobbing adults. I shared this lane (of course) with a back floater. (I'll have to describe these breeds some other time.) After she left, her spot was immediately replaced by a very hairy guy who complimented me on how fast I was swimming (um...compared to the back floater over there? sure!) After he left, I shared my lane with a teenage girl and her swim instructor. All this time I also partially shared my lane under the ropes in parts by people who liked to hang out right on the edge and kick into my lane. Finally, I had the lane to myself for a bit! Until, unexpectedly, Original Back Floater decided to come back into my lane...without making sure that I knew. I was swimming right down the middle and nearly collided with her.

So, lesson learned. If I want to really do a swim workout, and not practice siting the entire time, 7:30 is not the time to go to the pool.

My swim was 250 warmup, 8 x 25 pull drills, 4 x 100 main set, 6 x 25 kicks, 6 x 25 pulls again (and breathing focus) and 300 cool down. 1450 total.

I'm trying to work on my breathing balance and dominance in the water. I am a flailing mess when trying to breathe on my left side. It feels terrible. I've read that this can be common and that you just have to force yourself to get that bad side up to par with your good side. I have all fall and winter!

Spinning and Coffee and Pecans

Work is getting a bit busy right now, which is fine, but adds a challenge to the workout schedule. Luckily spinning class on Wednesdays is early...easy to fit in before work!

I was going to swim after spinning; had all my stuff packed and everything. But during class I began thinking about work and decided I'd be better off doing the workout later when I didn't feel it was so pressing. And honestly, I think the workout will be better having a break. We'll see how it goes today. I am not thrilled with the idea of heading to the gym twice in a day, which is why I have been planning to do the swim on Wednesday after spinning. But, really, I think I'll have to break it up.

I may or may not be able to get to the gym because my car died last night (something wrong with the battery connection). While G was going to work on it this morning, heading over to the lot we left it in, his car had problems: his clutch pedal lost pressure. Soooo thank goodness for our truck Big Blue (aka Dodge Dakota Fanning, Money Maker, Snot Nose and Rust Bucket). Some of those nicknames I just made up. G has that, but I'm stranded for the day...unless he gets my car running.

Anyway, the morning has been good. I made coffee when I returned from the gym, though after a spinning class, it definitely isn't necessary. I thought it would be since I was up 'til midnight working...but elevated heart rate trumps caffeine any day!

This Week

Planning and planning and making schedules and changing the schedules...

I've decided to try an Olympic distance schedule to see how I handle that amount o' stuff. But for a few more weeks, I'm just going to take it easy, doing all the workouts, but no serious pushing or strict direction to follow.

So, next week is going to look like this:

Monday: swim 1500 yards / run 2.5 miles
Tuesday: cycling class / strength: upper body
Wednesday: cycling class / quick swim 800 yards
Thursday: run 3 miles / strength: upper body
Friday: swim 1500 yards / run easy
Saturday: cycling long ride (tentative - because it's fall and I don't want to ride in cold rain)

Strength Training

I have never done much strength training, at least never consistently or properly. In my ongoing triathlon knowledge research, I've been reading a lot about what different athletes do in the off-season (aka Season of Pie, see previous post) as well as regular season. I have a ton of room for improvement as far as my strength goes (in other words, I'm pretty damn weak). I have free weights, but have been wanting to try out the Machines. Machines!! So yesterday after spinning class, I went wandering into the weights area of the community center.

It was intimidating, but I know it will get better once I'm confident with what I'm doing.

What I did:
• Curls
• Seated row
• Tricep extension
• Rotary torso (rotisserie chicken?)
• Lateral arm raise
• Shoulder press (really hard...which might explain why I am swimming slowly)
• Abdominal something or other (which I'm pretty sure I did wrong)
• Bench press thingy (awesome- felt very good for swimming muscles)

Then I did some core work:
• Leg swirl thingys (I should come up with better names)
• Reverse crunches
• Crunches
• Plank (I hate planks.)

Then I high-fived myself. Not really.

Schedule Making

After many weeks perusing the internet, trying to find a training plan for the "off season" or figure out how to make one, I finally broke down and bought a book.

It's huge. Very thick. And has every imaginable scenario for training. It covers Sprint, Olympic, Half-Iron and Full Ironman distances. Within each, there are 10 levels of plans to choose from/manipulate into something that will fit. And there are 2 levels for off-season training. Perfect!

The difficult part is deciphering it. There are codes for everything. You don't just run, you RFR3 (foundation run level 3 which means it's for a certain time). Or maybe you RLT2 (lactate threshold run level 2).  What? Also, the design of the book is pretty clunky.

So what do I do? Redesign my chosen plan, of course! (I am a graphic designer, after all.) I made an overview schedule, where I can just see what sport I'm doing every day in words, not codes. Then I wrote out the codes of my chosen plan in sentences for each day so I know what I'm doing. Because I'm never going to be able to remember what something something 3 is verses something something something else different 2. I already can't keep human being names straight that begin with the same letter.

So I'm settling into a plan that I'll use until the new year. Then I suppose I will start actual training for something or multiple somethings. I still don't know for sure what I want to do, which is pretty lucky. So many things to choose from:
1. Flying Pig half or something
2. Sprint triathlons (definitely want to do these)
3. A half ironman? (because crazy?)