Triathlon Training - the Road to 70.3

As always seems to happen, the blog fell away and I forgot about it. However, I did complete the 70.3 last October, and had an absolutely amazing time. I finished in about 5:08, and have my sights set on going sub 5:00 next time! However, what is now the bigger priority, is completing the Busselton 140.6 on 1 December 2019! I've started the full Base/Build/Specialty cycle on TrainerRoad, I've bought a Triathlon bike (should arrive Tuesday!), and I've begun shunting other commitments to the side. This time around, I have some training buddies! Phil and Bobbles are both planning on doing Busso as well, and so we are all keeping each other honest in our training. I'm nearing the end of week 3 of base, and whilst I haven't been 100% with all my workouts (I missed one swim last week, and I couldn't complete two workouts yesterday), I've been pretty close. Given that I'm only just getting back into this, I'm not too worried about one workout or two

I took a bit of a break from triathlon training over the last month, to focus on two 'pet' events which have been the focus of my early season. I treated them both as 'A' races, despite the fact that they were only a week apart, and despite the fact that my 'true' A race is the 70.3 in 5 weeks time. The first of these was the 2018 City to Bay. City to Bay 2018 For the first time this year, the C2B has offered a 21.1km event, as well as their usual offerings of 12k, 6k, and 3k. Looking at my calendar, the half-marathon was perfectly timed in terms of my 70.3 training, being about 6-8 weeks out. I figured that it would give me a really good indication of where my form was, especially since I'm more worried about the run than any other leg. One of the huge benefits of the C2B is that the offer free running training workshops, for the 12 weeks prior to the race. This year, I managed to make all but one of the sessions, and as with every other year, they hav

What a week this has been! According to TrainingPeaks, I did 941TSS, which is almost certainly the most I have ever completed.  It's also likely under-estimating, because I haven't included my netball match from Sunday night, and that certainly wasn't gentle! So, this week was always slated to be a big week. It followed a rest week, and had the first of the really long sessions on the bike. Monday, which was supposed to be a rest, ended up with a gentle run with my sister, but Tuesday is where it really ramped up. STarting with a solid set of intervals on the bike before work, I then finished at the pool in the afternoon, before going to a core training session in the evening. I still ache a bit from that! Wednesday was a City-2-Bay Training session, consisting of a 3-lap (1.3km) time trial. I wasn't feeling 100%, so I took it pretty easy, but surprised myself by taking nearly 10 seconds off my time from the first week. I think the pacing worked much better, since m

I have a friend who has decided to do the 70.3 with me in November, and naturally there is some friendly rivalry. He works as a PT, lives in a gym, and is probably about 30 watts stronger than me on the bike, even after all my training. He recently completed two 6-hour pedal prix races solo, and nearly managed to keep up with my entire team! However, his swimming is lacklustre and his running is about to begin. So, I think I will lose a bunch of time to him in the bike leg, but hopefully make up more than that in the water. He (jokingly) talked about aiming at a 5 hour 70.3, and I had to do some maths to work out what that would look like. I then gave up the maths, and instead looked at what would be a realistic finish time for myself. Here are my calculations. Swimming: if I can keep up 2:30/100m (which is probable, especially in a wetsuit), I can do the swim in 50 minutes. Ride: if I can average 35km/h (possible), then I will finish the ride in just under 2.6 hours. I allowed

Last week, I came down with a cold. Not an extraordinary one, but certainly enough to keep me off work for a day, and have me feeling rotten for most of a week.  Normally, I would just push through, and try to keep on training, but for once, I actually backed off, and stopped training for a week. So, Thursday through to Monday was 'resting'.  This isn't something I'm used to. If I don't exercise for two days, that's a 'long' rest, so having 5 days off in a row was something new to me, at least in the last year.  Yesterday's bike workout was a set of 1-minute intervals at 130%, with 2-minute recoveries. 5 intervals, and 3 sets. I felt absolutely amazing during the efforts, and felt like I finished each interval and each set comfortably and evenly. Then, swimming that afternoon, felt smooth, powerful and effective. Even the core workout session after that was good, although by that time I was beginning to struggle to keep up.  I guess th

This is a story of how I got serious egg on my face, and how I realised that I need to switch up my training a LOT before the triathlon! I race pedal prix (human powered vehicles) for a team called Reload Racing. Thanks to them, I've had a huge amount of motivation to train, having joined them two years ago as a middling rider, and now pushing the team through as a strong rider. The whole pedal prix scene is incredibly social, and so whilst we are in deadly competition with all our rivals, we are also really friendly. Our team manager Lewy is the kind of guy who will see our closest rival with a mechanical issue, run over, and get their bike working again immediately. He's the reason that our bike is never short of parts, because there is almost no one who Lewy hasn't rescued at some time in the past. One of our main rivals is Unhinged/Underdog. This team is usually about 10 pits away from us, but is just as social and convivial as we are. They usually come 1-2 places