In terms of my training, my phases are changing tomorrow and I'm hoping that this change will somehow, through cosmic forces in the universe, usher in an early spring and more tolerable outdoor training conditions.
I've spent the past four weeks on building a solid fitness base, taking advantage of my indoor confinement to work on total body strength. My goal is to create an "iron foundation" so that my body won't break down when subjected to hundreds of training miles each week. In the back of my mind is my knee injury from last year. I've been doing lots of lunges, single leg squats (a.k.a. pistols), and split squats to toughen up both knees for the work ahead.
I've also been slowly reintroducing triathlon-specific training, getting back into the pool and on the spin bike for short workouts. The first week, my Ironman injury was causing me some concern. Not pain exactly, but there was a lot of tightness in my left knee. Luckily, the tightness subsided by the second week and it feels pretty normal now.
In anticipation of the nice weather, I've been fleshing out my racing season. Despite many "tsks" from other Iron athletes, I did other races last year along with (rather than just focusing on) Ironman. And I was so glad I did. After the letdown that Ironman became after my knee injury, I was so happy that I had other opportunities to put all of the months of training to use. And I found that the races did not interfere with my training; I just moved my training around accordingly. Racing makes me happy and keeps me too tired to cause trouble. So I will not give it up.
My race schedule this season looks like this so far:
- 3/22/15 - Shamrock Shuffle (5 miles)
- 6/6/15 - Charlton 5K
- 6/7/15 - Hudson Crossing Triathlon
- 7/4/15 - Firecracker 4 (4 miles)
- 7/26/15 - Ironman
- 8/15/15 - Crystal Lake Triathlon
- 9/5/15 - Lake George Olympic Triathlon
