It's Not Like It Was 3 Years Ago...

If you had asked me if I was training right a few years ago, I probably would have said you betcha, "I am hitting all my mileage". I would have believed myself also, but now I know I have not been training like I should until about a year ago, and that is when I started seeing the most results.

Now, I have always followed a plan since I first started training for triathlon, and I thought I was doing it right. If my plan said for me to run 4 miles that day, then I would go run 4 miles. If I were to swim 1500 yards, then I swam 1500 yards and called it a day. I was basically going through the motions thinking I was getting a good workout in.I wasn't getting any faster or making any type of progress. The reason why never dawned on me until I took a good hard look at my training plans. I had nothing planned for interval work, recovery runs, speed work was not happening at all. I was simply running to get the miles completed. This was my mistake.

After really going through my 2010 numbers, it was shown to me that I was not training as much as I thought, and I certainly wasn't training as smart as I should have been. So I knew I needed to make a change in my planning. So I did. I started working on speed drills in all segments. I run three times a week. One run is speed work, meaning I really push the pace for a determined amount of time. Usually for somewhere around a 2 fast pace and a 1 minute recovery for an extended distance. My next run is more of a steady "race pace", but yet slower than a race. My third run is a recovery run and it is the slowest of them all. This has been working for me because I am on a PR streak!

I am only swimming twice a week now and it is simply labeled as a medium swim and a long swim. On my medium swims, I normally try to hit the Master's class. A good solid hour of drills and speed work and my second swim is normally what I call an endurance swim where I try to keep race pace for an extended distance.

My bike, well, so far this year it has been all trainer work. I know a lot of the pros use the trainer, and I can honestly say I feel I am getting the most of it as possible. When it warms up, I will be outside, but until then, it is a trainer ride for me. I am using my cadence sensor to establish my training than I am anything else. While I have m bike computer on my rear wheel, I am just not as confident that the speeds are correct. So I use it only as a "measurement", and rely on the cadence sensor. I have so much work to do on the bike to be ready, but I am not shying away from it.

One thing I can say is that it is taking some planning in order to follow a training plan. As you know, Monday and Wednesdays are my double up days, meaning I run and bike on those days, and it takes everything I have to get up early and get in the run. It is not as easy as I would like it, but I know when I hit that PR at my Olympic race, it will be sweet.

So tell me how your training has changed over the last two or three years? Anything significant?

P.S. I am still sticking strong to my crunches goal, only 6,000 more to go! I added a countdown over here so you can see. I WILL DO THEM ALL!