Here We Go

A few people have asked me why I decided to work with a coach again.  Here's why:

• To take my training to the next level.  More of the same would not have worked for me this year.  It was time for a big change.
• To perhaps take my results to the next level.  I have some serious goals for the year (PR at Ironman Canada; perform strongly at Ultraman Hawaii), and I couldn't afford to mess around in training in order to achieve those goals.
• To learn a bunch more training techniques.  I've learned about and adopted certain styles that have worked well for me in the past, but again, time for some changes.
• To take some pressure off myself.  Now all I have to do is show up and do the workouts!
• To have an objective third party looking in on me.  Lord knows I can lose perspective in terms of how much I'm doing (too much; not enough), how well or how poorly I'm doing (I am a tough critic of myself).  Coach does have access to my full history in black and white, and numbers don't lie.  She gets to interpret them, though, and set a course for improvement.

I couldn't have picked just any old coach, either.  I know many wonderful coaches, both locally and across the U.S., and there were several I considered, but it was really important for there to be a good personality/style match.  I'm not sure Joanna gets all of me, yet (I've been asked whether she reads my blog and my response is GOOD GOD I HOPE NOT--just kidding), but I think we are both the type of people who can size up others pretty quickly.

Last week was my last week of self-coaching for awhile.  I had a great week--partly because I came off those hard sprint races, and partly because this is exactly where I expected to be at this time!  I'm typically in this shape in mid-January, but that would be for a July Ironman, and this year's isn't until August, so I am more or less right on schedule.  I knocked out a 3-hour ride on Sunday where I hit all my power numbers and then some (hit the 56.1 mile mark at 2:33 in--at that point I'd done 30' easy, 1 hour at 80% FTP, and 2x(18' @ 85-90%, 6' @ FTP, 1' @ 105%, 5' easy), and then yesterday I had a solid 2:05 run with building pace, and got in 13.3 miles.

I am always surprised because it seems like all of a sudden I feel really fit, but it's all very much planned, and I shouldn't be surprised, but I think my brain enjoys the feeling of SURPRISE!  So I'm not going to question it.

I got my first 2 weeks of training from JZ and let's just say it's going to be awesome!  Good thing I'd been training like a Crackhead for the last few years, because if I wasn't, NO WAY would I be able to tolerate what's coming up.  So maybe it's a test to see if I can handle it--we will see.  All I know is I need to be religious about going EASY when that is what I am supposed to do, because there is plenty of HARD stuff where I will need to HTFU to get it done.  It's been a few years since I've been challenged in this way, and it's exactly what I need--not that I didn't challenge myself in training for my first Ultraman--that was a huge challenge and stretch, but now I've had another year for my body to really absorb all that and kick it up a notch.

On that note, I must go and get some training done.  This ain't no party, and this sure ain't no fucking disco!