Training

This week was another great week.  It ended with 9 hours of training for the second consecutive week.  The highlight of the week though was the swimming milestone I hit where I was able to swim for 2000m without stopping.  It was just a week ago that I swam for 1500m without stopping so hitting 2000m just one week later was great.  I really wasn’t expecting to hit that until nearer the end of the year.

I ran for 18 miles again, doing 3 days of 6 miles each.  I will continue to stick to that level and will probably only jump to 20-21 miles at the beginning of December.

This week I only managed to bike 2 days.  Last week Tuesday I started my ride but my headlight failed after a few minutes and wouldn’t come on.  I had to abandon that ride and I only ended up doing 2 rides for the week including a 2-hr, 32-mile ride on Sunday

I managed to join a local cycling club, Lone Star Cyclists and they do Tue/Thu rides and a longer Sat ride.  I can’t do the Tue/Thu rides with them as they do it in the evenings and I need to swim then, but the long Saturday rides are perfect.  It will help with monotony of riding alone, allow me to explore new routes, and to be a bit safer as I’ll be in a group.  I plan to try my first ride with them on Saturday November 10.  They would have multiple groups for each ride covering different distances and different paces.  I will end up riding with the faster/longer group but for my first ride, I’ll probably go with a middle-of-the-pack group.

Goals for Next Week: After doing two weeks of 9-hrs, I plan to make this week a recovery week as I’ll be in FL and that always impacts my training.  I’ll also be swimming in a small hotel pool.  So, I will aim for 3 days of 45-mins of swimming, 2 days of running and a 2 days of cycling including a group club ride on Saturday

This week is as close to the perfect training week as I’ve come.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was very close. In all, I did 9 hrs of training which is a new high for me.

First, I hit a major swimming milestone by swimming for 1500m without stopping.  That is a swimmer’s mile.  It took me 41 mins to swim that distance so I’m not breaking any speed records, but I’ll take it.  I was looking back at my swimming history and 3.5 months ago on July 9, I took 42 mins to swim 200m due to all the long breaks I had to take every 25m. It’s amazing to see how much progress I’;ve made in such a short time.  For the week, I swam for 3 days, 1500m each day.  This would have been a perfect swimming week if had swam for 4 days.

On the running front, my plan was to up my mileage to 18 miles for an average of 6 miles each day.  I managed to do that.

This past week had some very cold mornings including one of my mid-week rides. It was cold and so I only managed to ride for 30 mins that day as I just could not get warm.  I have since bought some long cycling pants and I’ll have to wear an additional base layer for those colder temperatures.  I did do a 2-hr, 34-mile ride on Sunday.

Goals for Next Week: I would like to do another 9-hr week this week.  I’m travelling to FL the week after and so my training time may be impacted so doing a 9-hr week this week and then using the travel week as a recovery would be ideal.  I plan to swim 3 days, 1500m each day and to run 18 miles again.  The remainder of my workout time will be riding.