Week 12: Working Out Plans...

As with the previous weeks, logistical concerns made me move stuff around a bit this week and I didn't quite get all of my planned mileage in. Cycling suffered the most, as while I was able to squeeze in three sessions I wasn't able to go for as long as I would have liked. It was pretty rainy on Tuesday, so with the rest of the week looking nice I pushed that run back - I did manage to get in all of the sessions, however that meant five consecutive days of running so I didn't push quite as hard on the remaining days to be safe.

The one upside to moving stuff around like this was that I converted one of the standalone runs into a brick session on Friday. As last week's brick failed to cause the intended fatigue when starting the run component, I increased my power level up to about 240w to see if that would change anything. That didn't appear to do the trick, so will have to aim for a ~260w target next time I try this (should work out to roughly 32.1km/h (~20mph) on my trainer).

I also ended up signing up for the Harry's Spring Run-Off near the end of this week as I wanted to get some racing in to see how the legs are doing. I've done this race the last couple of years and it's a great course so I figured that it was a decent opportunity. With that said, I'm not really planning on pushing too hard here as I haven't really done any speed or hill work since the injury. With the May marathon off the schedule, the focus has shifted more to rebuilding my endurance base rather than worrying too much about speed.

Week 12 Totals:
Running: 50.0km (31.1mi)
Walking: 2.3km (1.4mi)
Cycling: 85.0km (52.8mi)
Swimming: 7.4km (4.6mi)
Total: 144.7km (89.9mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 459.4km (285.5mi)
Walking: 33.4km (20.8mi)
Cycling: 500.2km (210.8mi)
Swimming: 70.6km (43.9mi)
Total: 1063.6km (660.9mi)

I'm also at the point where I need to start solidifying plans for my races this year. Muskoka has a price increase coming up in April, so I'm thinking seriously of formally registering for that. I had hoped to put that off for a while given the high registration fees ($235CDN), but I don't want to risk it filling up on me. I also have to look at registering for a hotel, as we're required to drop the bikes off the night before and it's way too far away to make two full trips up and back.

Aside from that, however, I need to figure out my schedule for races to build myself up to that distance. Ideally, I'd like to do another sprint triathlon at the beginning of the season, and build up to an Olympic distance race in July/August. Unfortunately, looking over the schedule most of them are either at the beginning of the year and the end. Right now, I'm gravitating towards Woodstock (1K, 32K, 8K) on June 7th and Guelph Lake (1.5K, 42K, 10K) on the 20th - I'd like a little more time between them, but it doesn't look like that's going to be an option. If I do go down that route, I'm likely going to have to find an additional race to fit in during the mid-summer period to keep my skills sharp.

As for running, I'm flirting with either doing the Half Marathon at Mississauga or possibly the Sporting Life 10K. The former is probably more useful (the running stage in an Ironman 70.3 is a half marathon), however I've yet to actually run a 10K race and I've wanted to run the latter for the last couple of years. The SL10K also has the benefit of giving me more time to recover before the Triathlon season. Doing them both would potentially be an option, but with Woodstock following shortly I'm not sure if that's a great idea.

Latter in the year, I'm thinking of mixing in Midsummer Night's Run (not decided between the 15K or 30K) to test out my endurance. Further, depending on how quickly I recover from Muskoka, I'm also flirting with the idea of trying to leverage the remaining fitness and give the Toronto Marathon a shot. There are five weeks between those two races, and coming out of Ironman training I should be in pretty good shape, so it may be a good opportunity to aim for that 3:20 target. It's the last time this race will be run in the fall (the city is moving it to spring next year), so I'd like to give it a shot before that happens.

Either way, still plenty to think about but wanted to get these thoughts down ;)

This Week (Tentative):
Mon 50K Ride
Tue 3.25K Swim, 6mi Recovery w/Speedwork
Wed 30K Ride, 6mi Recovery
Thurs 3.25K Swim, 4mi Recovery w/Hills
Fri 40K Ride
Sat 5K Race
Sun 8mi LSD