Starting up again

So I decided I'm going to start training again this time for a half Ironman. I know it's crazy that I did one race now I'm going to have waited 2 years then I'm going to do my second one. Truth be told I didn't stop because I wasn't interested in doing triathlons I stopped because I was too busy, too busy getting married and then too busy trying to figure out if I was going to move to Hawaii, and didn't know what was going on with my life and job so I couldn't focus on training for a race when I didn't know what race i was going to be doing. Unlike most people that compete in this sport I don't train and figure out what race I want to do as I go along. I focus on one race and put my full attention to that.

So since I moved to Hawaii and now can race on the same course as to where the Ironman championships are held I decided to go for it and truly focus on training again and try and actually compete this year, not just race to show I can do it and finish. This time I'm going for time and hopefully, if all goes to plan, a qualifying time for the 70.3 championships. And yes, I realize I'm lucky that I can now train year round outdoors. I realize that my downfall in my last triathlon that was that I didn't ride my bike nearly enough in order to be successful in my new sport. It didn't matter that I finished in the top 5% of the swim if my bike speed was 5mph slower then my competitors over a 56 mile bike ride I had no shot. That puts me 45 minutes behind the leaders when I start my run and no one can over come that deficit.

The only problems as I'm planning out my training are that I'll have at least a two week lay off over the christmas holiday, so until the holiday starts I'm planning on staying in a base phase of training to get my cardio, LT, and VO2 max as high as possible before then so that when I do take time off hopefully with doing yoga and plyometrics I won't lose much time. When I return from my break my plan is to do another 3 week base phase to hopefully regain anything that was lost. The other problem I am going to face is that I don't belong to a gym that has a pool, there is one that's associated with my gym but it's too far away just to go to gym at night for an hour swim. So I'll be doing about 95% of my swimming in the open ocean. The positives will be that I'll get used to swimming in the open water and more importantly the ocean, getting salt water in your mouth is very different then pool water when your swimming. The negatives will be that I won't be able to work on speed drills or technique drills as easily and monitoring my pace like I could in a pool will be much harder. Currently I think the benefits out weigh the negatives for me but this is only because I'm already a strong swimmer. I plan on gaging my progress by once a week starting in March swimming the same 1000m length in the Ala Moana park.

So far this week I've done three training sessions. One swimming, one running, and one biking (I'm also doing strength training to help with my biking but I"m not counting that towards my cardio preparation) the swimming workout I think was the most surprising to me. I swam about 400m when the salt water built up in my mouth so much that it began to irritate me and I started coughing in the middle of the ocean. I had to stop my swim in the ocean and return to shore. I was also feeling anxious about swimming in the open ocean, the water wasn't as clear as I thought it would be which freaked me out a bit. One positive though was that my spotting markers to swim didn't seem to slow me down at all. When I didn't my last race there were more then a few times that I was off course because I couldn't see where I was going so this was very encouraging. Three weeks out from the race I want to swim the Ala Moana park 1000m length 4 times without stopping. I'll focus on swimming last in my training, as it's my strongest event but because it's the least important time wise I think extra work but in here to gain a few seconds won't do me as well as getting in an extra ride a week that would earn me minutes if not more, and also because I think that my endurance can be gained much faster in swimming so I won't need to tapper as much.

My running went much better then expected. I ran almost exactly 6 miles in 54 minutes. Not the fastest time at a 9 minute per mile pace but considering it was my first long run since I've been in Hawaii and it was almost half the distance of the race I was very encouraged. I plan on extending my long runs each week by at least a mile. Once I get to a two hour run I will stop focusing on distance and just focus on building time. Eight weeks out from the race I want to do a 4 hour run without worrying about the distance at all just continuing to run for the entire 4 hours. This far out from the race it will allow me to properly recover from the run as well and make any adjustments to my training so that I can run the entire time during the race.

The bike didn't go as well as planned. Not sure if it was because of just having eaten or being out of shape. I biked for 40 minutes and only managed a 15 mph pace. Although there were many times that I had to stop because of waiting for traffic lights. I need to find a section of road around 10 miles long that doesn't have traffic lights or stop signs on it so that I can practice my cadence. I'd like to find that in a section close enough to bike to the spot ride it up and back and then bike home but that might be hard to do without going far outside of the city. This will also be hard without getting into really hilly areas. The north shore or Kailua would probably be best but these areas I'm not able to get to on my bike. For the race I want to finish with a minimum of a 20 mph pace, this means I'll need to be practicing on flat ground at a high pace that I'm currently able to go for more then a mile or so. Eight weeks out from the race I want to do a 4:30 to 5 hour ride, this will require setting up an aid station for myself possibly a 20 mile or so loop that I can do 3-4 times stopping to get water and other supplements each time. This ride will be done the day after the run. One so that the stress of the ride will effect me more on the run if it was done first than this way and two so that I know that my endurance level will be as stressed as much as it will be on race day. Again this will allow for enough time to make any corrections to training and recover from the stress of this weekend.