2011 Training Plan

The last several weeks have been extremely full. Good and full. Like belly of bananas. Therefore, just to get something out there in blogville, this week's blog will include a rough outline of the training plan I came up with for myself for the season. It heavily borrows from the brilliant work of coach Joe Friel. What a thorough and objective dude! (I highly recommend any of his books EXCEPT probably the one he co-authors about the dumb ass low-carb Paleo diet). Oh yeah-- and I've added several more olympic distance tris in June, July, and August. Nothing quite like real races to prepare you for real races, huh?

As with any plan, it's a work in progress and it is a clumsy attempt at getting Excel to calculate all my workouts for me based on the training theory of periodization. I want to hit a couple of fitness peaks at just the right time of year-- my A-level races. If anyone would like me to send them an Excel version of this training plan, feel free to send me an email.

Due to my ankle injury I had to eliminate all running for about the last month and I've upped my swim hours. While in the pool, I've had to swim with the buoy pinched between my ankle won't allow me to kick. It's really helped me adapt to a more proper arm stroke mechanics, BUT it's become a crutch on which the back half of my body is overly-depending.

My training buddy James took me swimming to his swanky pool this week and led a cool drill where he swam in front of me with fins and I tried to keep up in his wake. It was sick! Such a good workout and such a good simulation of swimming in a racedayclusterfcuk. As it turns out, the intense effort forced me to ditch the buoy and I had to kick full power. It hurt bad, but I think it helped break up the scar tissue in my ankle. The good news is that the ankle is feeling really good now and I got back on the treadmill--3 slow miles yesterday and 4 faster miles today. YEAH BABY! But no road running quite yet, though. :(