April 2010

What March was for my training schedule, April was the complete opposite. I really found a nice training groove, in March, only to see it unravel in April. Erik Svans, one of my One Multisport teammates, was offering to coach track workouts on Wednesday evenings. Problem was, I had this time/day reserved for my long swim workouts at the YMCA. Now, you would think that the solution would be pretty simple….just switch the speed run (on Thursday) with the long swim. Well that would mean that I would have back to back swim days (since my speed swims were on Friday). While it’s not a huge deal, I really didn’t want to set it up like that. As a result, I tried a number of different schedules to try and get something that wouldn’t have me doing the same discipline on consecutive days. What I came up with looked like this:

Monday –Moderate Swim / Moderate Run
Tuesday – Speed Bike / Weights
Wednesday – Speed Run / Long Swim
Thursday – Moderate Bike / Weights
Friday – Off
Saturday – Long Bike
Sunday – Long Run

I quickly realized that Wednesdays wouldn’t be able to handle the track workout AND the long swim because I the YMCA doesn’t open their pool until 7:00AM. I wouldn’t be able to fit in a long swim, shower, and get to work in time. Also, the YMCA only has 3 lanes and allows a maximum of 6 people swimming laps at a time. What brain child came up with that set up? What happened if I showed up at 7:00AM and 6 people in front of me all had swim gear and were planning on getting in the pool? I’d have to turn around and go home. OK, where do I put my long swim? It’s roughly 2 hours long. I think I’ll try this plan and see what happens.

Monday – Speed Bike
Tuesday – Long Swim
Wednesday – Speed Run
Thursday – Moderate Bike / Speed Swim
Friday – Moderate Run
Saturday – Long Bike
Sunday – Long Run / Moderate Swim

If I can take care of my cycling, and running, in the morning, I should be able to take care of my swims in the afternoon with no problem. April was also the month when Todd, CEO/President of our company, was going to be in Scottsdale for a conference with a couple of his cycling associates. He is a Cat 2 rider while Brad is a Cat 3. According to them, the forecast called for riding, riding, and more riding while they were here. That being said, I stayed on my road bike the entire month in preparation. This also meant that the running, and swimming, would probably take a back seat. I was right. In the 5 days they were here, we put in about 270 miles. The first day out was a fairly fast 71 mile ride on an empty stomach. I can honestly say that this was the first time that I experienced a true “bonk.” Said bonk set in right around mile 60 or 65 and was truly horrible. It probably took me a good 4 or 5 hours before I started feeling normal again.

TRAINING

SWIM – Pretty much the same as last month. Monday had me going around 3500 yards, Wednesday was in the area of 5600 yards, and Friday saw 2100. I totally blew off the pool the last week of the month which shaved a good 11,200 yards off my total.

BIKE – All miles, this month, were put in on my road bike. My longest ride was 100 miles. The remaining rides were between 20 and 71 miles long. The 20 mile ride was speed interval training with Todd. We also did the Bartlett ride and climbed Yellow Cliffs (the run course for the Bartlett Triathlon mentioned in the March Blog).

RUN – While I didn’t run the last 2 weeks of the month, I was able to match the previous months run total. My times were down slightly, but pretty much held steady. My 10.5, and 8 mile runs, came in around 9:05 min/mile while my 5 mile runs clocked in at 8:34 min/mile. The speed workouts are hard to judge since it’s a lap sprint and then a half lap recover. Two laps sprint and then a full lap recover. The distance of sprint vs. recover varied on the day.

BRICKS

04/08 – 42 mile ride / 3 mile run
04/19 – 3500 yard swim / 5 mile run (a result of my new training schedule being out of whack)

APRIL TOTALS

SWIM – 25,800 yards (14.6 miles)
BIKE – 644 miles (All Road Bike)
RUN – 51.5 miles
GYM - 0