How Do You Eat an Elephant?

On August 1, I posted a very rough outline of what I planned for the coming year. By August 6, I had actually made a little progress and put my outline down on a calendar!

Recovery weeks penciled in :-)

Unfortunately, that's about as far as it went...I kept reading the book (The Triathlete's Training Bible) but kept getting overwhelmed with all of it. I scheduled my recovery weeks and a few potential races, but that was it. This week was one of my recovery weeks and it gave me the opportunity to revisit my plan.

One Bite at a Time

You've probably all heard the saying "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That's how I'm approaching my annual training plan. Every day I'm fine tuning it just a little bit more...

With my recovery weeks scheduled, I then focused on my annual training hours. In the TTB (Triathletes Training Bible) there is a table showing the range of annual hours based on what your goal distance is.

Can this be right?

According to my Garmin data, between Aug 1, 2013 and July 25, 2014 (the day before Barb's Race) I put in 358 hours! What??? According to the table above, I didn't even train enough for an Olympic distance race. Can this be right? Even if I figure some additional hours to compensate for the rare occasions that I forgot my Garmin...I would still be at the bottom threshold for an Oly race. What would happen if I actually trained in the correct range for my race? What if I put in 700 hours for a half-iron (or full) race?

Another Bite

After deciding on the number of training hours, I went to another table that shows you how many hours you need to put in each week based on the the training phase. For example, a recovery week on a 700 hour annual plan would include 10 hours of training. The first week of a build phase is 17.5 hours.

I picked the low hanging fruit and penciled in my recovery week training hours...as well as some of the hours for the upcoming weeks.

Annual training plan work sheet

#dreamingseason

With the training hours in mind as well as CIM, which less than 3 months away, I am laying out my workouts for the next few months. Since my next A race is a marathon and not a triathlon, my focus is going to be towards running, with cycling as an option, and swimming as a recovery workout.

Sept looks a little better than August

#trainingpeaks