Feed the Machine

So I woke up today with this rockin' song stuck in my head. I figured that I'd find the video and post it. It's an awesome song from an awesome band, who I've seen live a few times and they have yet to disappoint!

           This week has seen a change in my training. I have 8 weeks until the Boise 70.3 Ironman, and I've decided to switch things up a bit with the training and add loads more volume! Yippee for me! I will be doing the next 3 weeks with a way higher volume, progressing in a linear fashion; only to then have 4 weeks back the a more "normal" Crossfit Endurance cycle. I will then have a taper week and then the main event.
           I read an article in the most recent issue of Lava magazine that was written by a Tri coach and he was talking about what he calls "critical volume" which is 2 2/3 (2.67) x the race distance as your volume for the week on the bike. So a full Ironman would have 300mi of cycling in a week, and a half Iron would have 150mi/week. It is also understood that your running is NEVER more than 20% of the total volume of your cycling, except on rare occasions (which doesn't include me).
          With my limited time until the race, I've decided to get near the critical volume limit, but not reach it. This being week one, I will hit 60 miles, week 2 will get me 90 miles and week 3 will get me 120 miles on the bike. The runs, of course, are then geared in the 5:1 ratio off the bike distance. For the swim, there was no recommendation, so I'm just making sure that I get at least 2k yards in a week, which is almost the distance for the swim. The swim will be done mostly in long intervals, and occasional short intervals. I will also still be doing some S&C workouts, banging the weights around. I will be using the CFE intervals and S&C as my basis, and then just adding the increased volume.
            So here's to week one! It started on Sun, and I already have a 25mi bike, 1500yd swim and 3mi run down. Tomorrow I should be getting a package from Xlab with my rear hydration system. This is the last piece of cycling race gear before the event. It will allow me to hit the roads for the longer distances and have all the fluids I need. No worrying about running out of water or anything now. Nothing can stop me!! hahaha

           Right now, the only point of concern I have is with my swimming. I seem to have gotten a little slower on my distance swims when it comes to my 100yd splits. Nothing too super huge, but prob a 5-8 sec difference. I'm not sure if it's because I've been tired when I hit the pool, or because I have a million things going through my mind on my stroke technique, breathing, body position, body roll, etc... since I tried the change up. There's nothing I can really do about it now, other than just try to relax and just continue to plug away. I'm trying to get some good recovery at night, but there are still times like last night when it was after midnight before I got to bed. Such is the life of a family man, firefighter and soon to be triathlete. It's weird, I've been training for months, but I still feel that I can't call myself a true triathlete until this first race is over....
I guess I'll just have to continue to train and continue to feed the machine to fuel the training.