The training begins....week 1

Well folks, here I am, the training, or at least the "off' season training has officially begun. I have entered into the next 20 week block with a new focus to build up a fast and stronger base on which to build the rest of the season. This week was filled with testing protocols to figure out the power and pacing to be used for the next several weeks of training.

There will be musings of races, paces, power, and leg destruction. Sometimes I might go into bizarre detail dissecting out the power numbers and I am trying to learn how to take advantage of all of these numbers. (translated - it might get technical and boring at times...I think I have avoided most of that this week)

As I mentioned in the post abou the chicago triathlon, one of my biggest goals this year was to learn how to become a stronger runner. This became evident in several venues. The first was cracking the 8min/mile barrier for a half marathon at the northshore half nearly 5 months ago. The second was running 7:44 min/miles for the 10K at the chicago triathlon which was a new PR for a triathlon. This week I had two other breakthrough runs as well. I went out and ran a 5k as a part of one of the testing protocols and hit 22:00 for a pace of 7:06 min/mile which is my fastest ever time and run split. I was simply in shock when I was watching the pace on my watch. Finally, I ran a 15k race yesterday and averaged 7:40 min miles good enough for 159/903 in my age group. After about the 3rd mile I started to negative split the race and ran a 6:59 for the 8th mile. (insert smiley face here) I'm enjoying the fast running and seeing the definite progress that I have made this year. Ultimately, I think there there is some good proof that my decision to hold off of the long distance racing this year and instead focus on becoming a faster runner might have very well paid off. The next step will hopefully be figuring out how to translate the shorter faster running into faster long distance running. While I have no expectation that I will be able to hold those 7min/mile paces for an entire marathon it will definitely help on my quest to build a faster run.

I've gotten back on my bike as well. The first ride was a little rough having not been on my bike for several months but my legs are getting back into the swing of things. I am holding the power (well the computrainer is holding the paces and I am along for the ride) and getting through the workouts. I have found that I seem to enjoy mashing the big gears at a low cadence to generate power. One of the things that I am trying to work on in the next several weeks is keeping a higher cadence 85-90 for me is a higher cadence while maintaining the correct power outputs. Perhaps by "retraining" my muscles to go faster it will be able to translate when I get back outside in the spring. One of the best parts is that I get to mindlessly watch movies and not feel guilty about it. This week's movies included GI Joe - fair movie at best and I am halfway through Transformers Part III - the main action sequences are yet to come.

Some data from the first week:

FTP week 1 - 189

Vdot Week 1 - 44.42

Time to rest before getting into the second week of busting my legs.