With the Emmett triathlon over, my season seems to be pretty much behind me now. I had a blast doing the triathlons, and am already looking forward to the next season. So the question then begs, what will next season look like for me? To start off, I don't have a clue. Most races haven't posted anything for what the next year will possibly look like, and probably won't until closer to January. That is, off course unless you consider Ironman events, which open almost a full year out and fill up shortly there after. I do have a few things on the agenda of what I'd like to see happen next year, so I guess I can start there. I'd like to do the Spudman and Emmett Triathlons again next year. Spudman is 2+ hours away, but the venue was fairly family friendly so the kids would enjoy the time out there. Emmett is close, and was a fairly well organized race. Plus with the kids tri that they put on the day before, I know that the boys will want to do that one too! If the Boise 70.3 Ironman comes back to town, I'd really like to do that one again and hope that next year has better weather and we can actually get the full 70.3 distance done. As of right now, there is no word on it coming back to town. This year was the last year of the initial 5 year contract, so hopefully it will come back. I also hope to do the Rev 3 olympic distance race in Portland. They had one this year, and I'm hoping that they will have another one for 2013. I am choosing Portland because we have friends that live in the area, and anytime you can possibly save money on the travel fees with staying at someone's house, then it makes it more enticing. My focus for next year will be more of the olympic distance, with a goal of crushing 2:30 for any of the events. I was soo close to doing that in Emmett, and know that it's obtainable on a flat course like that for me next year.
Training for this next season is going to be structured around the Crossfit Endurance model, but probably not following their site. I might follow the Crossfit main site for some of the workouts, but I think that with what my goals are for improving, I'd be better served doing my own programming. The main emphasis is going to be on the bike, and then the swim. My running is what I already consider my strength, and will take a back seat to the other two disciplines. I will still run, but I will probably only have one key run session a week, with the rest of the time being filled by the bike and swim. The interesting thing about training for the next season is how to get it all done. Starting in October, work is changing schedules. No longer will I be doing a 24hr shift, with a day off in between for 3 shifts before I get 4 days off. Now, I will be doing a 48hr shift, and then getting 4 days off. This will be different in soo many different ways, I can't even imagine or describe all of them.
In the triathlon training world, it means less water time. Why? because I would usually hit the pool on my way to work 2x week. But now with the schedule change, my water time doesn't have to be reduced, but it'll be harder to hit the water all the time because of family commitments. My plan? My plan is to buy the swim halo training system. I'll get a full review once I've bought the system and had a chance to try it out. It's basically an indoor training device for swimming that helps to build strength, endurance, pacing and most importantly muscle memory on what a good high elbow catch is for the water. My intention is to use that while at work and at home to get some muscle memory of a good catch and pull phase of my stroke, something that I know I'm lacking in. Hopefully this will then translate into faster swim times in the water.
For the bike portion, I'm super fortunate to have a very serious cyclist as my captain. One who likes to race as well. I've already talked with him about his thoughts on my ability to build speed over this off season, and we will have a plan in place to get it done. The nice thing, is that we will be doing the same basic speed building plan together, getting ready for the next season. So I will have an experienced athlete/coach to not only hold me accountable to getting faster, but to push me harder. Right now, it seems that my average speed is around 19 for most of my rides. The Emmett tri I pushed out over 20, but it was mostly a flat course, vs the rolling hills that I normally ride. On the bike, I really want to have a solid 20+ mph average, and the closer I can get to 21mph for the course of 56 miles the better. The ultimate goal is to do a full Ironman distance, and that is 112 miles. But the Ironman dream is still a few years down the road. For now, I want to build some more speed and endurance at the olympic distance and dabble in the 70.3 world. I know that it's early to say still being so new to the sport, but I think that 2013 will be mostly the olympic distance, and then 2014 will start to have more 70.3's. I will continue to do the Boise 70.3 since it is a local race and I have no excuse not to do it.
Running will, like I said, take more of a back seat. I will try to get at minimum, one key run session a week of a long distance (10k+) and then a second run session of longer distance intervals, 1/2mile - 1 mile intervals. The goals for the run is to push my times lower. The goal is to push myself into the sub 7 min/miles (6:45-6:50) for the 10k, and then extend that into a full 13.1 mile (21k). This should be obtainable with the fact that I can push and do pretty close to a 7min/miles now for a 10k. The biggest issue is just to stay focused during the run and not slack off. Embrace the pain and discomfort as it comes, and push through it. I had my quarterly fitness evaluation 2 days ago, and I crushed the run! It's a mile and a half, and I've had maybe two run sessions since Emmett, but nothing super serious. On Tuesday, I got a new PR for the run at 8:23. My previous PR was 8:28, and that was a couple of years ago. Over the last year, I've had an 8:30-something, and a couple of 8:40's. Tuesday had me do a mile in ~5:25. Granted, I can't keep that pace for a 5k, but it shows that I have the ability to be fast, and now I just need to translate that into fast over an extended distance.
The rest of my training as of late, has been lifting and some Crossfit stuff. Getting back to my roots, as I'd like to say. I haven't done any swimming since Emmett. It's not that I don't want to swim, in fact I actually miss it a little bit. But the big thing is that I just don't feel like getting up at 5am to hit the pool before work. I've been enjoying the extra hour of sleep in the am. Now, If I could only get to bed earlier, that would be even better! I've done a few rides on the bike, and interval based one, and then an outside ride, but I've been enjoying just getting out on the road and not worrying about my speed. Next week, a bunch of us from work are going to get together for a ride, and I'm super stoked about that ride.
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