Still going

I haven't written in a while. Too busy training I guess. The last entry was my crazy 7 mile run. That turned out to not be the best thing. I had some pretty painful tendonitis of some kind in the foot and lower leg. So I was off of training for about a week or so. I learned my lesson though. Steady progress, no big jumps in distance. Actually, I probably haven't learned that lesson, I am sure I will do it again. That's just how I am.

Training is going pretty good. I am up to about 1500 yards for my swim work out, four miles running, and 10-15 miles on the bike. I have been trying to include a run after a bike work out when I can. I am getting a sense that I am not training as effectively as I can. When I train, I have just been doing a continuous distance and evaluating how successful the training was by the speed or pace that I covered the distance. I think my body is figuring out what's going on and has decided that it doesn't need to adapt because I am not going to do anything to intense.

I went and talked to a trainer a while ago, thinking that I needed someone to help me lay out a better plan. The guy I went to talk to was Eric Doehrman. A super nice guy, seemed to really know what he was talking about. The only problem was that he was pretty expensive (at least for me), and he wanted a year commitment. Both of which I totally understand, but I started to have flashbacks to all those gyms I have belonged to that I stopped going to but had to finish out the contract. Since I am just starting in this sport, I decided to wait at least until next year and make sure I am still in to it.

I have also been taking a training class at Fleet Feet. It is a great class with some great instructors. But there are about 75 people taking the class and they just can't spend the one-on-one time with each person. Also, it is an introductory level class, so the training is rather wholesale, not really much more than the couch-to-5k type program. It does work somewhat, I couldn't even run half a mile when I started now I can run 3 miles after biking 10 pretty easily. But none of the reason or science behind the training is presented. So a novice cannot really figure out how to tailor the training. It is not getting me to the next level.

I have been researching endurance training on the internet. There is a lot of information to process. I think my goal is to come up with a training plan that has very detailed workouts, not just "run 3 miles this week and 4 next week". There is going to have to be some interval type training and some other higher intensity type stuff to really improve. I am really bogged down in the details right now. I have learned just enough to confuse myself. I don't know how or when to do endurance type training versus speed type training, or how to set up a session using things like VO2Max and lactate threshold or even how to determine those quantities.

As far as races, I ran in the "Big 5K" a few weeks ago. It went pretty good. I ended up talking to a guy while I was running, so it really wasn't my best time, but it was fun. I have signed up for 6 events in the next 8 weeks (see, I told you I didn't learn my lesson). The Wet Dog sprint tri is this weekend, Paint the Streets 5K the next weekend, and then the Summer Sizzler (45 mile bike ride) the next. Then I get a weekend off. Then the Huntsville sprint tri, RocketMan Oly tri, and the finally the Frantic Frog sprint tri. I think I am going to sign up for the Aquabike at the RocketMan. I am not sure I am ready for a full olympic distance. The 10K run would be really tough.

I have also signed up for a half marathon training class at Fleet Feet to try to improve my running. The Huntsville Half Marathon is in November.