Week 13 Report

I’m back! After a good week of rest and recovery (which still meant 9 hours of exercise), I am feeling rested and eager to get out and train and blog about training again. I didn’t necessarily intend to take a rest week from blogging, but it just worked out that way. Of course, I kept thinking about things to blog about, and in fact, today I even did some “filming” of my long run, I am going to attempt to put together a little video blog entry for later this week. In the mean time here is my Week 13 training report.

I decided to just let my exercise happen this week. I didn’t plan anything, except my long run today, and the 8.5 hour goal from the annual plan. I figured that if I had a go with the flow attitude about what, when, and how to exercise, that I’d get more of a mental rest and recovery and that would be just as good for me as a physical recovery. I thought I might try out a couple of new experiments (like running at a new track near my house) and possibly working on some fitness tests ideas and also paying closer attention to what I was eating. In the end, none of these “projects” worked out, and they will be good fodder for blog posts later this week. But I did succeed in getting a good recovery week in before the final 3 big weeks of “Base” (13.8, 16, and 18 hours).

More details at ZappoMan.com…

Week 12 Report

Ok, last week was a really meager effort in blogging…. cue sappy violin music… excuses, excuse… now, onward. No more feeling sorry for myself. Hey, it was a busy week. But I got all my training in, and for the most part I’m happy with my results. Good news is, I actually have got this posted by Monday as opposed to dragging it out until later in the week. More good news is that this week is a recovery week, which is good, because I need the extra time for work.

High level summary of what I learned about myself in week 12. Well, when the going gets tough, I gravitate toward what I like. Notice the giant blue pac-man shape eating the rest of my disciplines in the picture to the left. That would be cycling… my true joy, and oh yes… that’s where I go when things are hard… that would be my happy place.

I’ve written in the past about how amazing triathlon is as a sport with subtleties and strategic complexity… (certainly compared to other endurance sports). I am most intrigued by the idea that different athletes have different strengths and they can tailor their race strategy around their strengths. For me… I am really happy that bike comes right after the swim, and is the longest. Why? Because I can tell myself throughout the swim, “Hey, as soon as you’re done here, you get to ride your bike!” and when I get out of the water, no matter how exhausted I am, I hit T1 and am jazzed that my race is “about to get going!”… Did I mention how much I love to ride my bike?

Anyway, this turned into a bike week… here are the details:
(Read the rest of this article on ZappoMan.com…)

Week 11 Report

Well, as they say, better late than never… and in this case, we’ll say better something than nothing. I realize that it’s almost already Thursday, and I didn’t even write a weekly report for last week. The fact of the matter is, last week was a big training week (over 15 hours) and this week is event bigger (17 hours). And to top it off, last week and this week were very busy work weeks. Oh, I’m having fun, and I’m keeping on track with training, but man, I’m getting tired. I am really looking forward to next week’s recovery week. Anyway, here are the quick details from Week 11.

(Read the rest of this Article on ZappoMan.com…)

Wow, you exercise a lot! (or… How I stopped thinking of exercise as a chore.)

I’ve seen a couple of posts lately and had a couple of conversations lately that got me thinking about how much I exercise, and what it is that makes someone think about exercise as a chore vs. something they look forward to. Now, mind you, I recognize that my exercise schedule is probably pretty hard to believe for must people. We all live busy lives and so the idea of spending 12 hours or more per week doing exercise sounds like a lot. Even to me, when I write that down on paper, it looks like a lot of time… but when I’m doing it, or even when I’m planning my week or my day, it really doesn’t seem like a lot. Why is that?

(Read the rest of this article on ZappoMan.com…)