Month 1

Well Janurary has come and gone, and with it my first month of training for multisport. On the whole it's gone well, but I still need to be more consistant with my training. I need to be training 6 days a week EVERY week... in Janurary I managed 6 days once (2 x 5 days, 1 x 2). My monthly total distances were:

Swim: 3.4km / Run: 98km / Bike: 198km


Janurary Workouts (In hours)


Also I have recieved my new book, Joel friel's Triathlon Bible, and am using this to develop a better training program than what I am using at the moment. I will post something about that when I have finished... it is an interesting process.

Finally last weeks training, 2 x swims (4x100m, 6x50m), 2 x cycles (1x30km, 1x18km) and 3 x runs (2x8km, 1x10km)

Cut Back Week (aka going sailing)

As far as training for triathalons goes, last week was pretty poor, but I had a great week none the less. As was always planned I spent most of the week up in the Bay of Islands racing. We had 2 fantastic days weather wise, and 1 which got a bit nasty and caused some carnage. Our results weren't that flash, It's actually the first time in 4 years that I haven't come home with a trophy for this regatta. But it was great to get out of Auckland and do some sailing. Much better than working all week!

The big positive for my training, was that I tried a Brick workout for the first time, 18km cycling followed by 8km running. I was able to do it quite nicely, so that is definetly a positive sign. Another positive thing is that it's only the 24th today, and I've already overtaken last months total distances... That has be be good too.

So the goals for this week are 1, do all my workouts amd 2, try to undo some of the easy living I did up in the Bay.

Training

Last week I achieved some of my goals, enough to be happy with my weeks work, but not enough to be perfect. On the positive side I swam 2 mornings and I increased my strength workout to include side planks, and dips. On the negative side, I didn't increase the frequency of my strength workouts, still only managed 4, and I missed 1 run, and 1 cycle.

This was mainly due to sailing, Friday afternoon I delivered a boat up to the bay of islands, this resulted in missing Fridays workouts, no sleep on Friday night which in turn turned the rest of the weekend into a write off. I did manage to get in a very slow 10km run, but didn't have the energy for the rest. In the end my totals were 18km run, 36km cycled and 1.6km swimming.

This coming week is also going to be compromised, I have 5 nights out of town for a regatta, There's no way I can bring my bike, and to be honest I can't see much if any workouts happening while I'm away anyhow.

So I'm going to treat this week as a bit of a cutback/rest week. But I still want to get some workouts done. We will see...

It begins again!

Training that is. The first full week of the year saw me complete the first week of my new training program. First up is a 4 month long base building stage, that will see me running and cycling  times a week, building up to 45km/week running, and 130+km/week cycling.

The first week was a nice easy start, 2x8km runs, a 10km long run, 2x18km cycles and a long cycle of 30km. I'm also trying to add some strength workouts to my routine, at this stage its nothing special at all, 2 sets each of 10 push ups and 15 sit ups, 4 times this week. Next week, that's going to increase to 5 times, and exercises are going to be slowly added until I am doing a decent amount. But I feel that like running, its best to slowly increase, than jump straight into huge workouts.

So that's me for now... It feel's good to be getting back into things.

Happy New Year

Well 2010 has come and gone, and its onwards and upwards into 2011. December has been a quiet, 'rest month' like I had planned. It did end up being slightly lazier than I had planned, but after my big November a break was needed.

Kilometers run in December

Now we are getting right back into things. The goals for January are 2 fold, firstly, weight loss. And secondly, start to ramp up my training back to a more reasonable level. I'll be aiming for 3 runs, and 3 cycles a week. I'm also going to use January to develop a plan for the year. I have some pretty high goals for this year, I'm no longer going to be happy with just completing events, in 2011 I want to do respectable times in anything I do.

Lastly, my grand totals for the year:

173 workouts recorded, covering 130 hours and 1,705km. Burning 117,000 calories.

Not Alot Going On

The title of this post pretty much says it all. I'm not really training much at the moment. Down to 2-3 runs a week. Reasonable length runs tho, 10km's most of the time. And I'm hoping to add some cycles, and strength workouts to the mix soon too. But really I'm just enjoying having a bit of a quiet time before I start training proper in the new year. Because next year is going to be quite intense. I want to lift myself to a new level, and by the end of the year I will be able to call myself an endurance athlete, as opposed to a fat guy who runs, as I am now.

But there will be more about that in the new year.

So what now?

Its been interesting times since Taupo. For the first time since May, I haven't got an event on the horizon to train for. I've been away from home for work for most of the time since the weekend of Taupo, so its been very easy not to do any training. I've only run 20km since the Kerikeri half marathon, which is nothing really. And haven't touched the bike since I got home a week ago.

The next big event I'm targeting is going to be the 2011 Northern Crossing Duathalon, which isn't until May. No doubt I'll do some more events between now and then (The guys I did Taupo with are already talking about going down and having a go at the round taranaki cycle challenge at the end of January). But my main goal, for the next 3-4 months is to build up a huge base level of fitness, in preparation for targeted events in the 2nd half of 2011. Specifically what I want to do, on a weekly basis is:

• Short runs (5km) in the mornings (before work) 5 days a week.
• 3x medium - long runs a week. (approx 2 x 10km during the week, 1 x 15k ish on the weekend)
• 3x cycles (2 x medium length during the week, approx 1 hour, 1 x long on the weekend, 2 - 4 hours)

This would end up with me running around 60km/week and cycling for 80 - 120 km/week which is a big step up from where I am at the moment, so will take some time to get to. But if I'm able to get to that then I will be at a level I should be happy with.