Ok, so a 2013 resolution is to get this blog caught up and
keep it up to date. The first thing I’ll
have to do is recap 2012, so that should take a few entries. Join me in the way back machine.
2012 was a little bit of different year for me, as I had 2
main goals. One was to run more and the
other was to get my two friends Marc and Jerry involved in a tri. We had talked a while back at CPC about doing
a relay, so I targeted Timberman 70.3 as the race. They agreed to do it, so we signed up in
January and that set my “A” race for the year.
I added the Wallis Sands HM in May to give me running motivation through
the winter. I also wanted to do a 70.3
on my own, and I added a few sprints, included a replay of the site of my first
tri ever – the Mainiac - to see how far I've come.
So my 2012 race schedule looked like this:
May 5 – Wallis Sands HM
June 10 – Marlborough Sprint Tri
June 14 – Hollis 5k
Aug 19- Timberman 70.3 (bike leg of relay)
Aug 26 – Rev3 Maine – 70.3
Sep 9 – Mainiac Sprint Tri
Timberman was definitely my most important race as I really
wanted to have a great day with Jerry and Marc.
Jerry was going to be potentially the fastest non-pro swimmer, and Marc
is a fantastic runner, so I didn’t want to let them down.
I also knew I wanted to PR the half marathon, so I spent the
first part of the year focused on running and figured I’d flip the switch to
biking after the half. My plan was to
bike 2 or 3 times a week to keep bike fitness in place and run 6 times a
week. I typically don’t swim in the
winter, and in fact do very little swim training at all.
I have to say I was very consistent with my running and got
to an average of low 40s miles per week for all of March and April. I roughly followed a plan put forth by BarryP
of slowtwitch called the 3:2:1 plan.
Basically there are 6 runs per week in the ratio of 3 runs at distance
x, 2 runs at distance 2x, and 1 run at distance 3x. All the runs are at a relaxed pace for a
relative beginner like me, and the idea is just to build miles into your legs
and get a great base. So by the end, a
typical week was something like 3 runs at 4.5 miles, two at 8-9, and one at
13-15. I topped off at 177 miles for
March and hit 169 for April, so those totals made me quite happy. I also ran without any injuries for the first
time in my life, and I attribute that to running so frequently, at a relatively
easy pace, building miles slowly, and not buying into all the new running fads
such as barefoot/forefoot running and messing around with your natural form too
much.
My online mentor group on Beginner Triathlete helped a ton,
and I dare say I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. Special shout out to mentors Dirk, Jeff, and
Jonathan, as well as all the other members of the Asphalt Junkies group. And no discussion of anything I have done in
triathlon is complete without a mention of Dr. Steve Baroody, my ART specialist
– without him there is simply no way I could have accomplished any of
this. He keeps my old body chugging
along relatively efficiently and relatively injury free.
So this takes me up
to May 5th , 7:00 AM, in the parking lot at Wallis Sands, race day for the half
marathon.
