So moving into this cycle I pledged to myself that I will focus more on the cycling leg. I felt that I really needed to put in some miles and get my biking up to par with my running and swimming. However I feel that I'm detracting from my goals in the other two disciplines.
Ever since doing a 7:09 pace on a 5-miler a few weeks ago, I've been dying to get in some extra running to make sure I can manage a sub 7 min/mile pace on a middle distance (6.2 miles) triathlon run leg- by the end of the year.
In addition to that, it has always been a goal of mine to swim sub 1:30 pace for the 1500 m.
Obviously, there's not enough time in the week to FOCUS on all three legs. As a result, I've come up with a compromise. Sort of.
1) I will bike a lot more. That much is a given, I can't disregard my weakest leg in attempt to meet a milestone in my stronger legs.
2) Running will remain consistent. I won't up the effort level since my first cycle was extremely successful. If I went any harder, this additional intensity plus the increased bike volume will definitely put me in injury territory.
3) I will be totally deconstructing my swim technique. That's right, it's taking way too long for me to reach 1:30 cruising pace. I must be doing something wrong, and that something is focusing mostly on fitness and not enough on technique. Over the next month or so, I will not be doing any hard workouts but will be meticulously fine tuning my stroke. I've read a lot of literature and talked to some pretty knowledgeable swimmers and I think this is probably the right step to take.
So thats that.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Dawn of a new Cycle!
So now I'm solidly into my second cycle!
After my 8k race I took a full three days off. No workouts, no nothing. It felt great and by the 4th day I was brimming with energy and ready to go.
To make things even better, I finally got the balls to ride outside. Yup, after 1158 INDOOR miles I manned up, got myself a bike helmet and headed out to the wild outdoors. My first ride was extremely shaky. I felt like I was always a second from veering violently out of control and thrown to the ground. For an hour I hung on to the bull horns for dear life. It definitely was not a pleasant experience.
However, that ride just made me even more determined to get comfortable on the bike. The very next morning I got up at 5:30am to make sure I could ride without the distraction of traffic and joggers.... and my god was it different. Somehow, overnight, I become much more competent on the bike. I wrote something about this phenomenon in an earlier post. Now I'm definitely a firm believer of 'sleeping on it'.
As of that second outdoors ride, bike training has overtaken swimming as my favorite discipline... not my strongest (by far), but definitely the most enjoyable. Riding alone at the brink of dawn is one of the greatest feelings ever. Catching the sunrise over the horizon, feeling the wind in your hair, seeing the ground past by you in a blur, feeling the surge of endorphins in your veins as you take a descent at 25 mph... these are sensations that mere words cannot do justice.
Sometimes I lie awake at night, my heart beating hard in anticipation of the next morning's ride.
After my 8k race I took a full three days off. No workouts, no nothing. It felt great and by the 4th day I was brimming with energy and ready to go.
To make things even better, I finally got the balls to ride outside. Yup, after 1158 INDOOR miles I manned up, got myself a bike helmet and headed out to the wild outdoors. My first ride was extremely shaky. I felt like I was always a second from veering violently out of control and thrown to the ground. For an hour I hung on to the bull horns for dear life. It definitely was not a pleasant experience.
However, that ride just made me even more determined to get comfortable on the bike. The very next morning I got up at 5:30am to make sure I could ride without the distraction of traffic and joggers.... and my god was it different. Somehow, overnight, I become much more competent on the bike. I wrote something about this phenomenon in an earlier post. Now I'm definitely a firm believer of 'sleeping on it'.
As of that second outdoors ride, bike training has overtaken swimming as my favorite discipline... not my strongest (by far), but definitely the most enjoyable. Riding alone at the brink of dawn is one of the greatest feelings ever. Catching the sunrise over the horizon, feeling the wind in your hair, seeing the ground past by you in a blur, feeling the surge of endorphins in your veins as you take a descent at 25 mph... these are sensations that mere words cannot do justice.
Sometimes I lie awake at night, my heart beating hard in anticipation of the next morning's ride.
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