Professional Triathlete Training Log - Weekly Swim, Bike, and Run Miles For Feb 18 - Feb 24

The Start of the Great Tucson Blizzard of 2013
The Great Tucson Blizzard of 2013
Well if you hadn't heard, it snowed here in Tucson this week. Although it often snows up in the mountains, for the first time since I have been here we actually had accumulating snow on the ground in the city. In all truthfulness, this has to be the worst weather for January and February ever, and by my count we have had only 4 days at normal February temps. Now, as I have spoken about before, I'll race in anything, but as far as general training goes, well I'm not a huge fan of training in colder temperatures. With the being said, I got the work done.

Doing the Snow Swim - Lifeguards Not Happy :(
Snow Swim 
This week I finally decided on my first race and I'm excited to announce that I'll be racing at Ironman Cabo in about 3 weeks. It doesn't give me a lot of time to get prepared and I'm not sure I'll get the exact quantity of bike volume I would have liked, but I'll have to make do with what I can get done. Part of the decision to commit to this race had to do with my calf strain that I picked up a few week back. I continued to progressively increase the load all week and it is feeling a lot better and overall I'm feeling quite confident with my swim/run.

Here are my weekly swimbike, and run totals:

Total: 243 Miles / 24 hours 28 minutes
Swim: 28,600 yards / ~16 miles / 7 hours 40 minutes
Bike: 175 miles / 11 hours 0 minutes
Warmth & Recovery
Run: 51 miles /  6 hours 18 minutes
Core:  0 sessions / 0 hours 0 minutes


Tucson Blizzard MVP?


Professional Triathlete Training Log - Weekly Swim, Bike, and Run Miles For Feb 11 - Feb 17

Makeshift Campsite for 24 Hours in Old Pueblo
Makeshift Campsite for 24 Hours in Old Pueblo
The theme of the week was "less is  more".  I woke up on Monday morning and my body felt like a train wreck. I couldn't straighten my right arm, and to add insult to injury, it was freezing cold, rainy, and just down right nasty outside. It wasn't hard to take it as a sign that the body needed a complete rest day and I had no problems doing so. I never schedule rest days and I prefer to take them as needed.

So after Monday, I decided to keep the good recovery times going. Although still fairly even keel mentally, I had some signs that fatigue was starting to build up, and frankly it just seemed like a good time to get rid of it. As a result, every time the decision came down to "should I do MORE or LESS", I wisely chose less. By the end of the week I was starting to feel really good and smashed the Friday swim set. Then on Saturday I blew the barn doors off my ride. The ride Saturday was enough to give me full confidence that the bike is completely back and my endurance is rising like a champ. It would be all talk at this point, but I know internally that it is game on in 2013.

Rider Heads Out for a Night Lap @ 24 Hours in Old Pueblo
Rider Heads Out for a Night Lap @ 24 Hours in Old Pueblo
The only downside to the week is that I missed out on some swim sessions do to a chemical problem at the pool. Hopefully it is resolved by tomorrow and I can get back at it. Frankly it all still comes down to the swim for me and I can't afford not to be swimming.

Lastly, in addition to physical recovery, I also got a chance to recharge the mental batteries by playing sherpa at 24 Hours in Old Pueblo on Saturday. For those that don't know 24 Hours in Old Pueblo is a 24 hour MTB race but with an epic amount of participation. The make shift village that crops up in the middle of nowhere to support the 4000 racers was insane. In addition, it was so cool to take a high vantage point and be able to watch all the lights in the distance at night.

Till next week :)

-TG

Here are my weekly swimbike, and run totals:

Total: 286 Miles / 20 hours 49 minutes
Swim: 13,700 yards / ~8 miles / 3 hours 39 minutes
Bike: 260 miles / 14 hours 47 minutes
Run: 19 miles /  2 hours 22 minutes
Core:  0 sessions / 0 hours 00 minutes

Professional Triathlete Training Log - Weekly Swim, Bike, and Run Miles For Feb 4 - Feb 10

Definitely get along better with Coyotes than Dogs
Definitely get along better with Coyotes than Dogs
Another week in the Dirty-T has come and past. Overall, I tell my physical therapist that my body has never felt better than it does and the body still feels every bit as strong as I throw at it more volume, intensity, strength, and speed work than I ever have.

Up until recently, I have had a heavy swim/run focus and although I have had good bike strength, I had also seen that my power numbers were dropping substantially as the time length expanded. Simply put I was lacking bike endurance. As a result, this week I put much greater emphasis on doing longer rides to work on that bike endurance and I will likely continue to do so in the coming weeks. However, I'm not going to back down on my swim and run and that is likely going to lead to some of the biggest volume of my career.

Lastly, I did want to mention that I had a little bit of set back today as well. While on a training ride in the middle of nowhere, I came across a very aggressive pack of guard dogs. They worked like a group of Velociraptors from Jurassic Park to come at me from behind, the side, and the front, and boxed me into essentially a very steep 75 foot rocky wall.  I had no choice but to lay down the bike and climb up to higher ground. The dogs followed me and I scrambled to find anything to defend myself with. In the end, I made the decision to climb a tree and screamed for help until a cowboy came to the rescue, but not before the tree broke and I crashed to the desert floor. Overall I escaped with a couple of strained calves from sprinting up the rocky terrain in a "flight or fight" moment, along with numerous superficial injuries.

As a result, I'm going to have to take the run day-by-day. Hopefully everything clears up quickly, but it is a reminder to be safe out there. Ironically, I was just thinking before this happened about how nice it was to not see a single car or stop light for over 4 hours. In addition, I come across coyotes all the time and I always admire how they are so calm and passive. Maybe there is a little coyote in my blood, or maybe dogs are just not huge TG fans.


Be safe out there :)

-TG

Here are my weekly swimbike, and run totals:

Total: 357 Miles / 34 hours 29 minutes
Swim: 27,400 yards / ~16 miles / 7 hours 14 minutes
Bike: 301 miles / 19 hours 22 minutes
Run: 40 miles /  4 hours 54 minutes
Core:  2 sessions / 3 hours 00 minutes





Professional Triathlete Training Log - Weekly Swim, Bike, and Run Miles For Jan 28 - Feb 3

Anyone want a hug with their Jerky?
While the lights remain out at the Super Bowl right now, the lights remain on in my own land of training.  For the conspiracy theorist out there, my take is that this was simply an attempt to drum up viewership for wanning attention to mainstream sports. I'll plug it just for the simple juxtaposition, that unlike the Super Bowl, there was nothing flashy about my training week. There was no 109 yard touchdown return, just lots of good honest training akin to "blocking" and "tackling" in the football world. However, if I aggregate up all of the solid efforts this week then they actually add up to great week of fitness and that is sometimes what it is all about. The little efforts that build on each other that help you do something flashy on race day. I'm still not sure when that first race will be but for now I add that fitness to the bank.

Happy training :)

-TG

Here are my weekly swimbike, and run totals:

Total: 228 Miles / 28 hours 07 minutes
Swim: 28,800 yards / ~16 miles / 7 hours 54 minutes
Bike: 177 miles / 11 hours 37 minutes
Run: 35 miles /  4 hours 05 minutes
Core:  3 sessions / 4 hours 30 minutes