Early season training status

February. Cold. Snowy. Dark.

Early season base training is definitely a hard pill to swallow. Almost everything is indoors during these winter months.

Ride your bike on a trainer.

Run on a treadmill.

Recover on an elliptical machine.

Swim in a pool.

I can tell the days are getting longer. The sun is staying up later in the day, provided you even see it at all through the clouds or snow.

The real difficult portion of training lately is that Aimee and I are both moving out of base training. We have major events in May, Aimee @ Ironman St. George and me @ Triple-T.

The hours on the trainer are getting longer.

Running outside in cold temperatures is getting longer.

Last week was a recovery week for Aimee. Out schedules are not in synchronicity right now. A forced off week for me has me adjusting my schedule. I'm using this time to test myself and see where my Red-Line is. I thought I wrote about this before but I can't find the post.

The red line is the point at which your training become detrimental instead of beneficial. Pushing ones self to the point of exhaustion where the recovery may be too long or an injury will surface.

It's an overload where the body is being trained to push past barriers and come back stronger. It is a fine line to walk but if done properly can reap huge benefits.

I know I'm close to the line. Last week was some great training.

Going back to Thursday I stayed home for a two hour trainer ride instead of going to the group spin. Time was not on my side but the efforts were exemplary.

Friday I managed to run outside again (damn I have a race report to write). The weather on Friday was great for northern Ohio. Blue skies and warmer temperatures...mid 30's. The best part was running for 1:16 pain free. My right hamstring was doing well and letting me run at a good pace. It was nice to let it open up.

Since I did a longer ride on Thursday I didn't fret about my ride on Saturday. Work had me busy for the morning and I didn't ride until noon. I had some great repeats during my hour ride in the basement.

Saturday was a big swimming day. The Cleveland Tri Club had a swim challenge at Cleveland State University. There was a clinic with a local swim coach or the challenge.

The challenge consisted of completing certain numbers of 100's.
25 x 100
50 x 100
75 x 100
100 x 100

I signed up for the 50 x 100 (5000 yards). I've done 5000 a couple of times in training for IM USA and MOO but typically you don't need that much yardage.

I swam with Mikey Donuts and Mikey Zig-Zag (how bad can you zig-zag in a lane?) for about 4500 yards. We drafted off each other and broke it up in 500 yard sets.

I moved over to another lane and swam the rest on my own. I felt good and decided to push myself to a distance I have never been to.

I swam 75 x 100 and finished with 500 cool down...so 8,000 yards total. I won't be hitting that distance any time soon again but it was a nice boost to the training and confidence levels.

Several people did the 100 x 100 including my Snakebite Teammate Mark. He was in the pool for 3 hours.

I was pretty tired after my swimming but Monday morning I felt pretty good. I had a nice solid 45 minute run and will spin tonight.

Each day I am going to see how close to the red line I am and make day to day decisions about when my recovery period will start. I'd like to make it to the weekend.

My competitive fire is starting to build. I am getting more and more excited about Utah and Triple T.

Big efforts bring big rewards.

Game On.