My Happy Season Totals

This past Sunday was the official end of my 2009-2010 training and racing season. I've stopped posting my weekly totals here because, well, it's boring, but I figure some people might be interested in what I did overall, so here goes!

Season Totals	08/31/2009-08/07/2010
Swim:	563375 yards (319.74 miles) in 193.64 hours Planned Yards: 626664 Hours: 226.29
Bike:	Approx. 5305.12 miles in 290.86 hours Planned Hours: 351.22
Run:	Approx. 1453.54 miles in 227.01 hours Planned Hours: 248.51
Strength:	70.19 hours Planned Hours: 55.64
All Sports:	Approx. 7078.4 miles in 781.7 hours; approx. 343064 calories burned Planned Hours: 881.66
Walking/Hiking:	Approx. 75.51 miles in 18.32 hours
Stretching:	125.13 hours. Massage: 42.05 hours

A couple of things to note: If you add the walking/hiking time to overall, I hit 800.02 hours total ;) I was actually hell bent last week to get that total to 800, being OCD and all. That was the most running I've ever done in a season, and close to the most swimming I've ever done in a season (my most was 2003-2004, but I got faster since then). That was not the most biking I've done, but that's OK, I could go back and figure out that from January-July it probably was. I cut back on my biking from September-December last year at the expense (and for good reason) of swimming and running.

It's funny to look at how much I'd originally planned, and what I actually hit. I now know that I about top out between 750-800 hours of training in a year. I just can't put in more than that while working fulltime and having some semblance of a life. So I do the best I can on that volume. Truly, I love training so much that if I worked part time I expect I might go up to 850 or so, but as the years go on, I expect that as long as my performance is reasonable in races, I won't feel compelled to stretch it.

Now for the weekly averages:

Season Weekly Averages	08/31/2009-08/07/2010
Swim:	11497 yards (6.52 miles) in 3.95 hours
Bike:	Approx. 108.27 miles in 5.94 hours
Run:	Approx. 29.66 miles in 4.63 hours
Strength:	1.43 hours
All Sports:	Approx. 144.46 miles in 15.95 hours
Sleep:	9.13 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.55 hours avg./week. Massage: 0.86 hours avg./week

Things to note: My average swim yardage is right around 10km! Which is what one would expect, right? Since I'm not a lifelong swimmer, I know from the past that I do best when I am at about 10,000 yards per week, just for Ironman, but when it comes to swimming, more is more. It is tough to hurt yourself swimming a lot (provided you do what I did and build up your core and upper back/shoulders to be bullet proof), and besides, the aerobic conditioning you get from it is unsurpassed! I really believe that I was able to ramp up everything because of this. Plus if you think about doing an Ultraman, you find that you will need to ingest nutrition during the swim, and I just got super precision about my calorie intake in training, because if I wasn't always replacing what I burned, I would be dead in a ditch from glycogen depletion!

I can't believe I stretched that much! But again, during this cycle, I stretched whenever I had time, like in the sauna after swimming, waiting in line at the grocery store, dentist or doctor(I didn't track that time, though), and then I had my daily post-work stretching/yoga/trigger point work and a beer time. I spent more time stretching my upper body than in years past because of all the swimming.

The running is actually a little more because of the walking/hiking which isn't included in the weekly averages.

Again, the biking is less than years past because I cut way back last fall/early winter.

All told, though, my average total weekly hours was the highest ever, same for stretching, running, swimming, and...SLEEP! You can see why I had no social life, right? But it was all worth it, and I'm ready to do it again.

Since my A race for 2011 is Ultraman Hawaii, I have many months in which to do not much if I so choose. I really don't need to start training until January, but it is still summer and so I will bike as much as I feel like because I love it, do modest amounts of swimming, and get in some good running. My plan is to do a full NothingMan in 4 weeks (yikes guess I should start training, huh?), and then run the marathon at CheaterMan (Ironman Florida). So that will be another couple of marathons (I don't plan on doing any 50-milers at this point, but who knows?), and then I'm thinking about Gasparilla in February next year instead of the more expensive Goofy Challenge. That should set me up for my run block (and of course, I will do the local indoor triathlons), and then I will either find some local-ish cheaper 1/2 IM's or just do fucking NothingMan's on my own. Part of what got to me mentally this time around was not racing between early March and end of July. Ironman Sado is in September, which is great timing, and I will do it as a training race (as someone pointed out to me, now "Ironman is for breakfast!"), be able to recover and then head to Kona in November.

I hope to get a bit faster on the swim and run, but I think that will come more from just my body having been exposed to what I did over the last year. I pretty much just don't want to slow down, you know? For the 10 years that I have been doing triathlon, I have accumulated about 7400 total training hours. Some sources say the magic number is 10,000 when you can really be a champion. Who knows? Maybe I will still pursue that qualification for Ironman Hawaii, but for now, it's

ULTRA, BABY!!!

and oh I just registered for Gasparilla Michelob Ultra Challenge!!! I've already updated my race plans on the sidebar ;)