1 wk down, 30 to go

I can already tell that updating this is going to get annoying. Anyway, this week was pretty good. Only one little hiccup in my Wednesday workout with Jasper where he left me in so much pain I could still feel it Sunday. I think I ended up covering about 225 miles on the bike, ran only about 22, covered an astonishing ZERO meters in the pool, and was in the gym a couple times. All very good workouts at target efforts/HR and I can really tell my endurance is where it was at the end of last year. Anyone that knows me knows that it is so hard for me to ride at low efforts. Not really physically hard, obviously, but my personality is to just GO all out at everything. So, this is challenging for me but I can already see huge returns. I woke up this morning feeling way to good; almost as if last week had been a recovery week (which is a good thing and I hope to continue this). This is a typical week for this period of my training:

Monday – Rest (yoga and light weights)

Tuesday – Todd’s class and run for 60 mins HRZ2

Wednesday – Jasper/Gym for 2:00 and ride 60 mins HRZ2

Thursday – Run 60 mins HRZ2 and Todd’s class

Friday- Gym and run for 60 mins HRZ2

Saturday – Ride 4-5 hrs HRZ2

Sunday – Run minimum 1:45 in HRZ2 and ride 1:30 at HRZ2

Right now, this is yielding about 16-17 hrs a week, which is a little higher than I want to be, but since it’s mostly zone 2 base training, it’s a really a piece of cake. I will do this for 10 weeks before I start layering in a lot of speed and alternating weekends with very challenging bikes and runs. My easy zone two paces are already getting faster. I’m hoping that by spending goods bits of time in low HR zones, my natural easy paces will continue to get faster. Then, with about 20 weeks to go, I’ll be back on the track a couple times a week and weekend long work will become much faster. It feels so good knowing that I could do an Ironman tomorrow if someone asked me too. I feel like I’m literally where I left of a couple weeks before last year’s race. I think a lot of people would disagree with me for having high volumes right now, but I’ll be honest; this doesn’t feel high at all. It feels good, I recovery overnight, and when it comes race day, 112 miles on the bike is just going to feel like a warmup to a fast marathon. Plus, I love riding with my friends and making fun of each other.

I also want to point out that my buddy Patrick Allen is a changed athlete this year. He already has two races under his belt and is racing so fast. I can't believe his bike and run times already this year. Way to go Patrick. Keep kicking ass!

Also, our little B2B group is getting strong. So strong that it's harder to maintain HRZ2 that i'd like it to be. We all just want to ride fast right now. Iron Father is keeping us all in check. I'm not sure wha't we'll do when he and Ray leave us to ride across America. http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11620181