Training Camp and 5:55

9th week in: nearly 108 hours and 832 miles of training covered. The foundation is built, the real training will now begin… 22 weeks of HARD training and racing and then a 3 week taper down to IM. Gotta thank my track coach, strength coach, dietitian, ironman coach, and tons of friends and family who have pushed me this far. Feeling pretty good and strong so far.

Swim: Nothing this past week, pool closed for swim meets. BUT, it’s open now, and I’m back to doing what I hate… SWIMMING.

Bike: Trace Bike Race Team training camp was this past weekend in Chattanooga. We did about 110 miles and climbed 5 mountains (Suck Creek, Sand, and Lookout 3 times). Total climbing was about 8000 feet. I actually felt stronger the second day than I did the first day.

Run: Well, I finally did it. I broke a 6 min mile in my mile repeats. 6:01, 6:02, and 5:55 were my times on Tuesday’s workout. It left me very tired and I could only do my 800s around 3:00 on Thursday. But I was fully recovered and ready for the weekend bike camp (noted above), so I feel pretty good about how quick I’m recovering right now.

Lift: We cut this week down to two days instead of three since I had training camp on the weekend. Since race season will pick up this coming weekend (and I have an event everyday but one until mid May), weight training will taper down to maintenance.

Racing Weight: I picked up this book to read as I’d heard good things. Even though I’ve already worked with a dietitian and have a rather strict diet, I still have a lot to learn about properly tapering my bodyweight down to the optimal racing weight and getting my power to weight ratio exact for Ironman. Right now, I’m about 8 pounds heavier than I need to be for ironman. After getting into this book, I found that most endurance athletes will gain about 8% of their bodyweight during the off season. I also determined that my ideal race weight is about 157-158. Right now, I’m around 166, so it is perfectly reasonable to expect that I’ll be back around 158 when I toe up to the start line of Ironman Louisville (besides, who wants to carry around 8 extra pounds for 140.6 miles?). As my endurance training increases, the weight will fall off. Right now I’m eating about 4,000 calories a day and that will increase to about 5,000 as the miles grow.