We this was not a good week at all. I missed my Monday workout because my foot was hurting. I managed to run Tuesday but Wednesday I intended to run. The only problem was that I forgot to pack running clothes when I left for the gym. I did have a swimsuit with me so I at least got a swim in. Thursday morning I woke up with a headache. Friday I just skipped working out because I felt lazy. I at least avoided junk food most of the week but there were a few failures that I don’t want to document.

Maybe I can get serious next week.

Well I am almost 3 weeks into my Olympic Distance Triathlon Training and I actually feel like it is having some effect. My training week looks something like this. Monday is an easy paced run somewhere in the 3-5 mile range. Tuesday is a swim day. Wednesday is my speed work day for running. In my case, speed is a relative term. It is quite humorous to use speed and my running in the same sentence. Thursday is another swim day. Friday is my “long” run day. My training plan never puts me over an hour running before the race, but I am pushing that one a little. Saturday is my long bike day where I get up at dawn and ride for a couple hours. If life allows, I also try to squeeze in a bike ride after work mid-week.

I am seeing improvements in all areas. Swimming is feeling much more natural and I am more than confident that in a wetsuit, I can finish the Swim comfortably today. On the bike, I have finally done enough tweaking and have improved my conditioning enough that I can ride in the aerobars comfortably and my long ride is up to 40 miles. The biggest difference I am seeing in my running is that my heart rate is staying lower for long on my easy runs. I guess it is time to start pushing the pace a litte.

This is my secret, Race a distance you have never raced before. In my case I will be racing in an Olympic Distance Triathlon on August 19th. I have spent the last couple of weeks on general conditioning in preparation for execution of Gale Bernhardt’s Olympic Tri in 6 Weeks Plan from her book “Training Plans for Multisport Athletes”. This plan lines up perfectly with my goals. It is intended for someone looking at 3-4 hours to complete the 1500m swim, 24.8 mile bike and 6.2 mile run. I have a primary goal of 3:30 based on a 40 minute swim, 1:40 bike and a 1:10 run. This is basically doubling my sprint time on the same course, plus a little fudge factor. If things go well, I may be able to make a run at 3 hours. That would require me to hit everything out of the park. That would be a 30 minute swim, 1:20 bike and a 1:10 run. If you haven’t noticed, hitting it out of the park on the run is the same as my rough guess. This is because I just can’t seem to make improvements in my run fitness.

I will be modifying the plan a little. I will be running Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Monday will be the easy run, Wednesday will be the Speed work day, and Friday will be the long run. I will swim on Tuesday and Thursday. I will do my long bike ride on Saturdays and I will try to squeeze in a midweek ride either Wednesday or Thursday after work. This will make Sunday my rest day.

It really has been 6 months since I have updated this blog. I think I was too embarrassed to write about not getting close to meeting my goals. I think my only goal for 2012 is going to be to get out of my running funk. I have lost a lot of my running fitness and working my way back up has been difficult. I’ve struggled with all the same things everyone else.

So to catch you up with 2012, I have only raced once this year. The Spring Island Lake Sprint Triathlon was my slowest of 4 attempts at this event. My swim time has been better, but both the bike and run has gotten slower. It is time to get back to work and I think I need to blog more to help keep myself motivated. I can commit here to trying the Olympic Distance at the Summer Island Lake Triathlon. I have a 6 week training plan for someone who expects to be in the 3-4 hour range. Once I get through that, I hope to leverage that base of fitness to improve my run and bike.

I have made it through another week of training. I ran 3 days and swam 2. Monday morning I went to Lifetime Fitness and ran 4 easy miles on the treadmill. For me that is setting the treadmill at 5.5 mph and 1% incline. Tuesday I swam 1200 meters on a morning I really did not feel like getting up. Wednesday I ran 4 miles with 2 one mile interval at 6.5 mph, I overslept so I did this run on the treadmill after work. On Thursday I slept in and took a rest day. On Friday I swam 1600 meters with a main set of 10 x 100 meters. Finally Saturday morning I ran 9 miles outside. I felt horrible during the run and couldn’t keep up much of a pace. Those were simply miles I put in to get them in.

My weight has been going up this week. I am sure it is mostly related how poorly I have eaten this week. The plan is to get back to eating better next week. The training week isn’t necessarily over. I may try to get some form of a bike ride in, either on the trainer or outside on the mountain bike.

Today was the first workout of the year. Just an easy 4 mile run on the treadmill. If you don’t know me yet, I wake up at 3:45 am to work out before I go to work. I weighed in this morning at 238. So I have some work to do before the Martian Marathon on April 14th.

I am hoping after a year of keeping my weight between 230 and 240, I can drop a few pounds from this. Hopefully losing some weight will help me reach my goal of a sub 5 hour marathon. Losing weight will help with energy management at least.

I am starting 2012 a little behind in fitness and I am hoping to fix that. My first goal is to complete a sub 5 hour marathon. I intend to sign up for the Martian Marathon on April 14th. This will be my first goal race for 2012. Depending on how my training goes, I am thinking about making an attempt at a sub 6:30 Half Ironman. I am looking at either the Racing for Recovery Half Ironman in June or possibly another one in September. My backup plan for the Marathon will be either Grand Rapids or Detroit in October.