It is that time of year when I need to begin planning out my training for the next season. Right now, I'm winging it in preparing for my next NothingMan on 19-SEP. I am doing as little (ha ha) or as much (more like me) training as I want.
This Sunday I'm riding in the Bike Psychos 200k. I've done this ride a few times before. I missed it last year because it conflicted with ROTPM, so I'm looking forward to it again. I still haven't decided whether I will ride Bitchie with the Cane Creek race wheels or Skull Kingdom. I still haven't put Skull Kingdom fully back together. The funny thing is that Bitchie used to be my lightest bike--now it's my heaviest! Skull Kingdom is the lightest, closely followed by LGL. I've been enjoying riding Bitchie knowing that she's my heavy bike, and that it will feel good to ride one of the lighter bikes, too. But putting the Cane Creeks on Bitchie will lighten her up by a few pounds.
The following week I head up to Wisconsin for the Ironman weekend, staying with a friend, and I'll get in a swim and run on Saturday and then ride in the race against traffic on Sunday. Then I have a training class for work most of the next week, and I'll be tapering for NothingMan 2010, my 4th self-supported Ironman.
I have put a number of things on my race/event calendar for the 2010-2011 season already, and while I have learned to train by feel and make it up as I go, I still like to have a plan to keep me honest. So I started by expanding the ATP (Annual Training Plan) I used for UMC to add through the end of next year, and typed in some of the events. Then, I reviewed what I did last year (actuals) to see which sorts of things I might want to repeat this time around. In doing this, I am being Coach Crackhead, not Athlete Crackhead. When I put my coach hat on, I am able to be a bit more objective about things. Last year when I made my UMC ATP, I was wearing the Athlete Crackhead hat, which is why I created a plan that worked through March, but then I switched hats and Coach told me to back off my original plan.
In looking what I actually accomplished the past training/racing season, I am somewhat amazed. I knew I did a lot of running, but I'd forgotten just how much I crammed in last fall and winter. I was a running FOOL! Coach says we will try and do some of that again, but maybe just a tad less so I can keep my base bike fitness a little higher than I did last year during that period.
Right now, I'm just doing "basic Ironman training," and it feels pretty comfortable to me. I did my first training ride of 100 miles on Sunday (actually 101 miles) for the year. I was a bit slower than I'd hoped I'd be, but I attribute it to some lingering fatigue from UMC. Aside: I know several UMC finishers who are racing Ironman Canada, and kudos to them--but I think I'd dig myself a deep, deep hole if I were to do an Ironman this weekend.
I put in 18 hours of training last week, and that is a "basic" Ironman training week for me, and I didn't even run that much! But it's like a build week, one of those in the last 8-12 weeks before an Ironman, and I felt pretty strong doing it. That ride on Sunday reminded me once again just how much I love riding, and riding long. The need to hold back early on (which I did for 2 hours--no big chainring during that time), the rising strength approaching the 4-hour mark, the inevitable feeling of "maybe this sucks" around 4:30, and then just the single-minded determination to get it done for the remainder.
The day before, I rode for 2:30 and then ran (cough, cough) OFF THE BIKE for :25. I hadn't run off the bike since those indoor triathlons early this year. But, like I've said here before, running well off the bike is not about running off the bike--it's about overall run fitness, and for me that means running FREQUENTLY, 4-6 times per week (5 being my preference). So even though I hadn't done a real brick workout since March, I knew the first mile would suck, like it always does, but it always feels worse and that I am running way more slowly than I am actually running. The suck felt good! After just 3 hours of training, I wasn't trashed, and managed to do some other stuff around the house, including preparing for Sunday.
I saw a great quote in this blog post by Gordo Byrn: "It takes all day to train 4-6 hours per day -- even with support." My Sunday ride was like that. I woke up, ate my normal breakfast, woke up, did some computer stuff, drank my Ultrafuel, pumped my tires, chose my clothes, applied sunscreen and Chamois Butter, washed up a little, got suited up and headed to Fermilab. I was riding just before 7AM, and I was only stopping briefly at my car about every 1:15 to get a new bottle of Infinit and maybe pee and maybe eat some snacks. I was doing well until I was 92 miles in when I was a dufus and used both derailleurs at once and locked up my chain. Oh well, stopped and fixed that before I did any damage, rode some more trying not to touch my pristine bar tape, made it to Wilson Hall and went in and cleaned up my hands and finished my ride. I always take a frozen washcloth with me on these rides, and when I finished, I first cleaned off myself, and then used it to clean up the bike, loaded everything back into the car, began drinking the Endurox R4 and drove home. When I got home, I ate lunch and drank more water, then had a beer, mowed the lawn, showered, stretched, made my annual batch of pesto, ate some dinner and then crashed. I am surprised I still had energy to do the things besides eat and stretch after riding, but I needed to get those things done and out of the way due to some special work duties this week.
All I'm illustrating is that there's a big difference in a 3-hour training day on a weekend, and 4+ hours. On a 3-hour day I can do all sorts of things afterwards, but more than that and I had better not have any urgent plans. I try and make my weekday goal to "get one thing done after work if possible," since I'm usually training 2-2.5 hours on a weekday. But those 3-hour Friday swims (which I gladly won't see for awhile) required I not have any plans other than to make it through the work day. So what I'm doing now feels almost easy to me!
I am totally excited about working on my ATP. That is the thing that gets my juices really going for the approaching training season. How much do I need to do? How much should I do? What fun self-supported things can I do to keep up my motivation? How will I use the holidays to do something fun? Which of my friends can I rope into doing crazy stuff with me?
Each time I begin working on my ATP, it brings into full focus how I did the prior year and what I learned from it, what I will need to do in the coming year to improve, and how what I accomplish prepares me for the years beyond the next one. It's all about focus--right now I am focusing on making sure I am recovering from UMC but also preparing for NothingMan, and my focal point is now shifting to preparing my ATP, then I will flesh out the training behind it, and then I'll move right into training.
I've been told many times by many people how focused I am. Ya think???
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