Gonna Change Things Up!

I am talking about my training plan. I am not changing the pace or distances or even the workouts, but I am changing the days around. I have found that on Wednesdays, it is tough for me to do a run in the morning, go to work, get to church at 5 PM (I have been working with the middle school group), get home around 8 PM. I am usually starving by then, so I have to eat and help get the kids in bed, so it is 9:30 or so before I could even start! Wednesday calls for a medium bike ride, so we are talking around 20 miles usually. I have been so tired on Wed nights by the time I get home, that sometimes those bikes get skipped!  I know!!! I think out of all my workouts, the one segment that I do not need or want to miss is a bike session! So I looked over my plan and see no issue with moving my medium bike to Thursdays. That means on Wednesdays, I will be getting up early for my medium runs and that is all. Thursday will now be a swim and bike day, which is totally doable.

I was looking over my totals for the month and comparing them with my totals at this time from last year. Here they are through Feb:

2012
Run: 85.1 miles  12:49:05
Bike: 279.1 miles 13:06:40
Swim 32,402 yards  10:44:20

2013
Run: 102.05 miles  15:38:20
Bike: 264.13 miles 14:52:54 (one bike left tonight)
Swim: 20,750 yards 7:15:35

I knew my swimming numbers would be lower, but since I am only swimming twice a week, I am good with that. I am glad to see my mileage is slightly up, but I am wondering about the time spent running and biking, I am surprised that it appears I am going slower. It breaks down to a pace of 9:02 in 2012 and a pace of 9:11 currently. Maybe I am over thinking it!

IN OTHER NEWS:

** I will have met my goal of 7,000 crunches in February. Yes, I have pictures, but I have decided to wait until April to post them, because I am going for another month of crunches. Goal is 10,000!

** I have officially added another race to my schedule! The Ragnar Relay TN on Oct 25-26!  a 196 mile relay from Chattanooga to Nashville!  This is going to be loads of fun!

** I have an awesome giveaway in the works that I will be reviewing and writing up soon.

** I also have a cool giveaway for anyone that wants it, everybody will win! That is coming very soon as well!

So Long March...

First of all, look at that! 80 degrees on March 31! Yeah!!!

March was a pretty good month for me training and racing. I was able to do a 5K with my son and a 1/2 marathon. I got my first outdoor ride in the books and I got the ol "unclip left, lean right" crash out of the way early in the season with a group of guys I had never ridden with before. Classic! Anyways, here are the totals for March...

Swim-15, 700 yards, which equals 8.9 miles.

I have been doing Master's Classes once a week and then a long straight swim the other time. I can tell that my technique is getting better, but I still have the need, the need for speed...(Sorry, Top Gun moment there) On the last swim of every month, I do a time trial on my mile swim. The fastest I have ever done a mile is 33:04. Today I did a mile in 33:13. My goal is to get it down to 31-32 minutes by the time I do Ironman Branson.

Bike- 118 Miles. The majority of these miles are on the trainer, but it is saddle time right? I was shooting for 175 miles this month, but with 2 races and recovery time, I am happy with my totals. And yes, the part about falling over is true unfortunately, but to my defense, I lost a screw to one of my cleats while we were riding, and I really couldn't get unclipped while we stopped. So, I fell over. I had fruit punch Gatorade in my Aero bottle, so as I was on the ground, all the guys saw was this red liquid puddling around me, it looked like I really fell, but I was alright! lol

Run- 58.2 miles. This is my second highest monthly total ever, and like I said earlier, that includes two races. I owe it all to my Brooks Adrenaline GTS 10 shoes! I am so happy to see that the weather is warming up, it will be nice to get outside and sweat. I am hoping to maintain this type of mileage over the next few months. I am also hoping that the higher mileage will help me on some of my shorter tris I am doing.

My next race is April 16 and is a Dash N Splash that I am doing a relay with my bride. She is actually a faster swimmer than I am, so I will run the 2 miles and then let her hit the pool. I am looking forward to watching her compete, I think it is something that she will really enjoy. We are going to rock it. Then, I will be racing a Sprint tri in Jonesboro, AR called the Gearhead Sprint Tri. Also in April I am hoping to get in some open water swimming, right now the water is in the 50's, which is way to cold even with a wetsuit.

Hope your month went well! Thanks for reading.