Catching Up: Weeks 22-24

Have been pretty busy the last few weeks and unfortunately have been falling behind on adding my weekly reviews. As such, I'm bunching together the last three weeks into one post to get back on track and will have to make sure to find some more time in the upcoming weeks ;)

For the most part, the last little while has worked out relatively well. My running and swimming targets haven't been too much trouble, but my cycling is a bit behind thanks to a string of crappy weather on Saturday mornings (when I normally do my long rides). I've compensated by moving rides around a bit, but it's difficult to find the necessary amount of time on weekdays to complete significant distances. I'll have to try harder as I want to start ratcheting up my mileage and get some 100 mile rides in this summer, but that's going to be partially dependent on what mother nature throws my way ;)

Either way, my totals are as follows:

Week 22 Totals:
Running: 51.5km (32.0mi)
Walking: 1.3km (0.8mi)
Cycling: 140.9km (87.6mi)
Swimming: 7.1km (4.4mi)
Total: 200.8km (124.8mi)

Week 23 Totals:
Running: 56.6km (35.2mi)
Walking: 1.3km (0.8mi)
Cycling: 134.8km (83.8mi)
Swimming: 7.5km (4.7mi)
Total: 200.2km (124.4mi)

Week 24 Totals:
Running: 59.6km (37.0mi)
Walking: 2.9km (1.8mi)
Cycling: 137.1km (85.2mi)
Swimming: 7.0km (4.3mi)
Total: 206.6km (128.4mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 1006.5km (625.4mi)
Walking: 55.4km (34.4mi)
Cycling: 2029.3km (1260.9mi)
Swimming: 152.8km (94.9mi)
Total: 3244.0km (2015.7mi)

Longer term, I still need to figure out a racing schedule for this year. Things have been crazy recently so the two early season races I was eying have come and gone. As I've mentioned before, I'd really like to fit in Ironman Muskoka in September, but before I commit I want to get some intermediate distances in to make sure I'm ready. I'm probably looking at somewhere between five and six hours to finish such a race, which looks pretty intimidating considering my marathon only took 3.5 and I was pretty wiped by the end.

Additionally, it's also quite an expensive race ($270 for registration, plus a hotel for at least one night, pre-race meals, wetsuit rental, etc...) so part of me is thinking that it might be smarter to do a few other races and use the left over funds to buy my own wetsuit by the end of the year. It's not so much that I mind paying that kind of money for a race, but if I'm going to do that I'd like to be a bit more confident that I'm going to do well in it before I do.

Ideally I could do some of the unofficial half-iron races first (with the objective to simply finish) and then the real thing in September (with a proper time objective), but unfortunately those races are in the next couple of weeks and there was no way I could get up to speed this year. If I limit myself to a long course triathlon (2K/55K/15K) this year, I'd likely be able to ramp up fast enough to pull that plan off in the following year.


Either way, will have to think about it a bit more but I do have to come to a decision soon as a formal training plan is getting more and more critical :oP