I think this may be the only post in 2012 of this blog. Its true I've been neglecting it. Really for a variety of reasons. One being I got married in early 2012, two being I spent from December 20th till the end of February on the road with only a few days at home and three being because I dissapeared to go and get married in Florida. All of the above has meant that my training has been seriously lacking! Add to this lack of training the fact that I managed to put on a bunch of weight while enjoying getting married and also spending a lot of time indulging and not training and I've been quite frustrated this year training wise. I have also lost all of my fitness base in biking, swiming, and largely running as well although I've held onto some of that.
In the last few weeks and days I've made a few changes that I hope will lead to some positive things moving forwards. They are as follows:
-I started training just over two weeks ago for the half iron I'll open the season with.
-I deleted my facebook account yesterday. Its fun, but its a collosal time suck and its counter productive.
-I've started working fairly hard to lose a pound a week.
I have to say the last two weeks of training have been pretty lousy however. Losing all your fitness SUCKS. Plain and simple. The amount of workouts I used to sail through that I now have to bail halway through is staggering. It sucks when you hit interval 4 of 10 and you fall apart. Especially when your wattage isn't even that high for the intervals! My FTP is currently sub 200 watts which is also depressing, I have no hill climbing legs whatsoever, and my average power on my short rides is downright embarassing! I show promise when it comes to run speed someitmes but my endurance and fitness is lacking so my long runs are quite painfull and slow and by midweek my short runs have been very slow as well. My swim training has not been going well simply because I can't seem to consistently get my ass to the pool. I'm just not interested in being and not having any fun while I'm there. So that one I really need to work on.
So wheres the good in all of this and whats the point in writing it down? Well you have to start somewhere right? And perhaps writing it down is a way to motivate myself to push onwards and hopefully give me a chance to look back and see that it was really only the first few weeks where I struggled. Plus with Facebook gone I have to randomly ramble on about my workouts somewhere....
So here is where my current level of fitness lies...
Swim: No level of fitness. 2200 yard workouts wipe me out when I do in fact make it to the pool. I've been to the pool three times I think in three weeks. So yeah... not gonna make progress unless I finally get my ass there. In my first pool workout of 2012 I did a 1000 yard TT in 22 minutes. Awful!
Bike: My bike fitness is going to take a few more weeks before its even remotely a shadow of where it was last year. I'm up to 40 miles on the bike now but it kicks my ass even at low watts. I've yet to get through an interval workout in a way I feel good about and I can't sit on my TT bike for more than 40 minutes without a lot of discomfort so I've been favoring my roadbike lately to ease back into things. I'd say my current FTP is around 180 watts. Pathetic! At peak last year I'd say my FTP was around 210 watts and I could manage a half iron course and run well on a 180watt average. I can't even touch that currently.
Run: My long run is up to 14 miles, but those miles aren't fun. That was at 9 minute pace and it felt like the only gear I had. My shorter runs are sometimes good and sometimes bad. At best I've run a five miler at 7:25 pace. At worst I've done a six miler at close to a ten minute average after I completely fell apart.
Weight: I raced my first half iron at 140lbs in 2010. I raced my Ironman at 150lbs and I'm currently 154lbs. I'm hoping to get down to 145 before the Patriot half iron in 9 weeks which means a steady goal of a 1lb loss per week. So far so good in the last few weeks. I was at a peak of 158lbs after my wedding which is just plain fat and ugly. I can feel every pound of the extra weight when running and biking and I'm quite frankly digusted when I look in the mirror. The weight has got to go!!! I think its a large part of whats slowing me down.
Injury: I think my right leg is perpetually fucked. Even taking almost three months off this offseason did nothing for it. The docs have no more help for me and I'm pretty much on my own. It blows that its my limiter right now and that after a long run my left leg feels great and my right leg feels like hell. At this point I think I just have to live with it.
So thats where I'm at currently. I'm on week three of training for the Patriot currently and I've already missed a bunch of workouts. So I'm a day behind and playing catchup. On the plus side however I hope to be headed to the pool shortly so at least I'll get some water time. I really need to love the pool... but its such a struggle for me. I much prefer the open water. But the truth is that the open water means I'll be cursed to be slow again and I need to just put in a ton of intervals in the pool and suck it up until I can get faster one day. So off I go. Today's planned workout... 25x100 on 15 seconds rest. Fun.
