2012 Training Summary

One of the most common questions I got from my race report as posed on slowtwitch.com is what

did my season volume look like and what taper stragegy did I execute.  So here's Part 1, training volume.

Understanding that volume is not everything and the devil is in the details, here is my cumulative volume from my 30 week approach to IMWI.  My average training time for 30 weeks was 12hrs/wk.

My swim volume is almost embarrassingly light.  I swam competitively from age 6-18.  While I'm many years removed from 30,000 yard swim weeks and two-a-day practices, there's a lot of muscle memory and technique that just comes back to me.  I am very fortunate to only have to swim once a week for an hour to swim sub 1hr.

My biking took a huge jump in 2009 when I qualified for Kona at IM Louisville but then I got a power meter meter last year and was fooled that quality was way more important that quantity.  Comparativly, I only biked 180 hr in 30 weeks in my IM Lake Placid build and I paid the price.  Sure I was strong but my biking endurance was inadaqute to compete with the best in the age group.  This year, I swapped some quality sessions to build in some good old plain, bike volume.  Granted, this increase in hrs wasn't just joy riding in a casual group ride, as I was likely cranking out hours at 75-85% FTP.  So working on my weakness from '11 resulted in an increase in hours spent on the bike by 35 hours.  Surprisingly, my FTP was the same from '11 to '12.  Maybe "more is more"!!!  (slowtwitch reference to one biking philosophy on volume).

My running also saw a slight increase.  Up 7 hours from my qualifing attempt at IMLP in '11.  My peak weeks saw little volume incease, but my early season run training for a spring 1/2 marathon was the main cause for this bump.

Core work and yoga is something that I started in '09 and got lazy with in '11.  After a long day of work, family activities and working out, the last thing I wanted to do is push-up, planks and standing triangle pose in my basement.  This year I was dragging my ass out of bed at 4:30am a couple of times a week to make sure I got it in.  Getting out of bed was the hardest part and kind of like my 5am swims, I always hated the idea, but after completing it, man, it really was a great way to start the day!

So in a nutshell, there's the answer to the volume question.  I do love to train but I'm heavily committed so I can't train as much as I'd some times like to, or nearly as much as other, but like I said the devil is in the details and I'll go into much more about that next time.

Enjoy the off season!