February 2010

When this journey is completely over, I have a feeling that I will look back at February as the month where it all started to "come together." James was able to go back to his previous Ironman training logs and find a workout schedule that his coach put together for him. The schedule is as follows:

Monday - Moderate Swim / Lift Weights
Tuesday - Speed Bike / Moderate Run
Wednesday - Long Swim
Thursday - Moderate Bike / Speed Run
Friday - Speed Swim / Lift Weights
Saturday - Long Bike
Sunday - Long Run

February was also the month where I decided to seek out a multisport team to help me with the journey. I ended up meeting up with John Dean and Michael Nemeth of Tri-Scottsdale (now One Multisport) and couldn't be happier. The wealth of triathlon knowledge on this team, and the camaraderie, is exactly what I was looking for. This was also the month where I REALLY got back into the pool and realized just how much I missed swimming. I wanted this month to be the beginning of my "base building" for swimming, so I pretty much stuck to same formula of 3 sets of varying length. No intervals, no predetermined rest between sets, etc. I just wanted to get in and go. This was also going to test my shoulder to see if there were going to be any limitations from my cycling accident in August - there weren't. The sets were simple:

Swim
Kick
Pull

On Monday's, I would log in about 3000 yards (1000 per set). On Wednesday, it was about 4000 yards, and Friday saw around 1500 yards.

The riding increased dramatically this month when I made the decision to shelf the criterium races (and road races) for 2010 to concentrate solely on triathlon training. My longest ride was 75 miles while the speed work rides came up around 20.

This month I had 4 bricks:

61 mile ride / 5 mile run
10 mile ride / 3 mile run
20 mile ride / 8 mile run
32 mile ride / 3 mile run

Running seemed to be getting better at times, but then, just when I thought I was getting faster, I'd bust out a horrible min/mile pace. My moderate run days were about 6 miles and 57 minutes long. My 3 mile "speed" runs were down to about 8 - 8.5 min/mile. I was able to complete my two longest runs ever:

8 miles @ 9:41 min/mile
10.5 miles @ 10:13 min/mile

FEBRUARY TOTALS

Swim - 24,050 yards (13.6 miles)
Bike - 459.25 miles (all tri)
Run - 39.5 miles
Gym - 5 times