Sunday, November 23, 2008
Water from thin air!
The Guardian has a cool article on a device that can extract water from air. Bummer it only works where the relative humiditiy is over 30%.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
2008 Triathlon Season Part 2: Training
In Part 1 I covered my races for the year. Now I'm going to look at my training.
Some training data from my last cycle.
Chart:
So there's a couple key observations:
1) I got a cold in early July. I failed to catch it early and had to take several days completely off.
2) My best training occurred up to that point. I barely got back to the same level of running fitness I had July 1st in time for the Austin 70.3.
3)Excluding the 2 weeks I was sick but including recovery weeks I averaged about 11hrs. per week of training total and 5hrs. per week @ Z2 Intensity.
4) Excluding Sick Time, Recovery/Race Weeks, and my Final Taper period I averaged over 12hrs. per week training, 5hrs Z1, 5.5hrs. Z2, 70min Z3, and 30min Z4 time per week.
5) 20min of that Z4 time was my 5x4min running cruise intervals. Most of the Z3 time was tempo bikes.
6) I did no swim intensity and only focused on technique.
Conclusions:
1) Things went well. Immensely better then the year before, so I can't complain.
2) I need to make sure I don't get sick or injured this winter.
3) I would like to push my Z2 time up closer to 7hrs. per week.
4) I want to add some intensity on the swim this next cycle. I mentioned this to my coach and we will add some time in Sunday nights to space it out well with my other 2 intense sessions.
5) I don't see the need to go nuts on distance just yet. IM Cozumel is a long way off.
6) I think focusing on integrating a 3rd session of intensity along with adding Z2 time is more important than increasing the length of the longest of any of my workouts. I figure just by virtue of being faster, my long brick workout will be farther.
I did a little thinking though about where I'll need to be for IM season, and how to get there. I figure I need to morph from the top schedule to the bottom schedule more or less the next 2 training cycles. I added an extra month of base training for my IM period so I think ramping should go OK as well. I'm assuming I'll start by building more time into my recovry days during Wildflower base period, and then really add Z2 time heavily during the 4 months base leading up to Cozumel.
Lets see how it goes.
Some training data from my last cycle.
| Week | Z1 | Z2 | Z3 | Z4 | Z5 | Total | Planned | |
| 5/5/2008 | 115 | 217 | 70 | 20 | 0 | 422 | 370 | |
| 5/12/2008 | 125 | 315 | 85 | 25 | 0 | 550 | 177 | |
| 5/19/2008 | 162 | 190 | 23 | 2 | 2 | 379 | 215 | |
| 5/26/2008 | 292 | 338 | 67 | 23 | 0 | 720 | 507 | |
| 6/2/2008 | 407 | 330 | 59 | 0 | 0 | 796 | 510 | |
| 6/9/2008 | 310 | 158 | 22 | 5 | 0 | 495 | 340 | |
| 6/16/2008 | 392 | 301 | 69 | 40 | 0 | 802 | 640 | |
| 6/23/2008 | 362 | 394 | 113 | 20 | 0 | 889 | 820 | |
| 6/30/2008 | 190 | 398 | 139 | 45 | 0 | 772 | 735 | |
| 7/7/2008 | 100 | 120 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 225 | 315 | |
| 7/14/2008 | 132 | 215 | 21 | 2 | 0 | 370 | 75 | |
| 7/21/2008 | 202 | 342.5 | 85 | 3 | 0 | 632.5 | 480 | |
| 7/28/2008 | 214 | 280 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 515 | 200 | |
| 8/4/2008 | 732 | 565 | 36 | 37 | 0 | 1370 | 405 | |
| 8/11/2008 | 290 | 229 | 20 | 7 | 0 | 546 | 490 | |
| 8/18/2008 | 220 | 392 | 70 | 55 | 0 | 737 | 655 | |
| 8/25/2008 | 200 | 205 | 10 | 30 | 0 | 445 | 300 | |
| 9/1/2008 | 280 | 280 | 15 | 55 | 0 | 630 | 455 | |
| 9/8/2008 | 340 | 135 | 18 | 20 | 0 | 513 | 510 | |
| 9/15/2008 | 310 | 300 | 115 | 15 | 0 | 740 | 650 | |
| 9/22/2008 | 285 | 115 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 420 | 500 | |
| 9/29/2008 | 275 | 325 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 630 | 390 |
Chart:
So there's a couple key observations:
1) I got a cold in early July. I failed to catch it early and had to take several days completely off.
2) My best training occurred up to that point. I barely got back to the same level of running fitness I had July 1st in time for the Austin 70.3.
3)Excluding the 2 weeks I was sick but including recovery weeks I averaged about 11hrs. per week of training total and 5hrs. per week @ Z2 Intensity.
4) Excluding Sick Time, Recovery/Race Weeks, and my Final Taper period I averaged over 12hrs. per week training, 5hrs Z1, 5.5hrs. Z2, 70min Z3, and 30min Z4 time per week.
5) 20min of that Z4 time was my 5x4min running cruise intervals. Most of the Z3 time was tempo bikes.
6) I did no swim intensity and only focused on technique.
Conclusions:
1) Things went well. Immensely better then the year before, so I can't complain.
2) I need to make sure I don't get sick or injured this winter.
3) I would like to push my Z2 time up closer to 7hrs. per week.
4) I want to add some intensity on the swim this next cycle. I mentioned this to my coach and we will add some time in Sunday nights to space it out well with my other 2 intense sessions.
5) I don't see the need to go nuts on distance just yet. IM Cozumel is a long way off.
6) I think focusing on integrating a 3rd session of intensity along with adding Z2 time is more important than increasing the length of the longest of any of my workouts. I figure just by virtue of being faster, my long brick workout will be farther.
I did a little thinking though about where I'll need to be for IM season, and how to get there. I figure I need to morph from the top schedule to the bottom schedule more or less the next 2 training cycles. I added an extra month of base training for my IM period so I think ramping should go OK as well. I'm assuming I'll start by building more time into my recovry days during Wildflower base period, and then really add Z2 time heavily during the 4 months base leading up to Cozumel.
Lets see how it goes.
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