Week in Review (1/1 - 1/7)

Last week was my first week of "serious" training in preparation for Ironman USA. I ended up about 40 minutes above plan - due to a bit of floor work on Monday which is normally my off day. I was a bit concerned at how my body would hold up given the sudden increase in workload. I had been working out somewhere in the order of 8 to 10 hours a week but my new plan called for being at 13:20 for my prep period (shooting for 800 annual hours of training). To get there I added an additional bike/run brick on Tuesday evening, a midrange run on Wednesday, and bumped my long bike on Saturday. Everything else remained the same.



Despite the additional load I felt very strong, had good energy, and my form felt solid on all workouts. I did have a tough time keeping my heart rate reigned in on the zone 1 and 2 workouts - especially during my long run on Sunday. Overall though my training graphs show most of my work being done in zone 1 and 2 which is good.



I had been having some issues with my groin and lower back which I now believe were due to inadequate stretching, as well as poorly focused strength training. I've revamped my core/circuit/stretching block to more of a functional strength training approach - mimicking the movements of triathlon under weighted resistance, as well as working on strengthening the supporting muscles in order to avoid imbalances. In addition I've incorporated a lot of Yoga into my stretching routines. This should help me remain relatively injury free through the season. Guess we'll find out!

The gory details on my workouts and results can be found by selecting the "My Training Peaks Data" link on the sidebar.