Week 8: Changing Plans...

Last week was crazy, and between the weather and other obligations I ended up missing a good deal of running mileage. Cycling was a bit down, but I did manage to squeeze in a speedwork session this week to try and make up for it. Fortunately, I was able to exceed my swimming target for the week so not all was bad ;)

Either way, I've pretty much settled on amending my plans a bit and dropping the 3:20 marathon attempt at Mississauga this year. The back injuries took me out of commission at a sensitive time, and while I'm close to being back into it there is really no margin of error in the 12 week program so it's likely smarter not to risk it. Pushing myself back into my full blown regime too quickly just risks re-injury, and that could easily cause a lot more problems down the line.

I'll instead focus on building my base for the Triathlon season this year, and depending on how I feel coming out of that I might take a shot a the marathon in the Spring. Naturally, that won't leave enough time for a conventional marathon training program, however if I do build up to the half ironman I should be starting in relatively good shape and should be able to build back up. That's a long ways away, however, so I'll worry about the details of that further down the road.

I had hoped to do a few races in March, however as I've pulled back the intensity in this recovery phase I've been focusing more on endurance than speed. Back in January I was focusing a lot on speedwork in the hopes of maybe squeezing out a sub 20 minute 5K, however at this point I'm not sure that I can get back there in time for Achilles. I'll have to look at the race calendar and see what else I can find down the road a bit. Harry's is about at the right time, but there's no way that I can pull of that kind of speed with those hills.

Week 8 Totals:
Running: 25.5km (15.8mi)
Walking: 0.9km (0.6mi)
Cycling: 65.0km (40.4mi)
Swimming: 7.6km (4.7mi)
Total: 99.0km (61.5mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 263.5km (163.7mi)
Walking: 24.9km (15.5mi)
Cycling: 235.1km (146.1mi)
Swimming: 41.1km (25.5mi)
Total: 564.6km (350.8mi)

In removing the fall marathon from my plans, I now really have to focus on finding a good training plan for the triathlon season so I can effectively build up to it. The original concept was to worry about that after Mississauga, but with that out of the way I might as well take full advantage of the extra time to better prepare myself. If I do end up doing the half ironman, I'm likely looking at somewhere in the vicinity of 6 to 7 hours, which is a lot longer than the 3.5 hours that the marathon took. As such, the sooner that I can get started in building myself up the better my chances of making it to that point ;)