Since February 28th, I have been very focused on improving my swim in both form and distance. For me the swim is still going to be my weakest link, but in knowing that I am working hard to make sure I will still finish strong. Since a month ago I have increased my distance from 400 meters at a time to an entire mile without stopping. I have every bit of confidence I can swim the 2.4 miles required of me come July now.
The past fours weeks have been the first "build" period of my Ironman training and it has included many hours in the weight room working on keeping my body strong and limber. The limber aspect should not be taken lightly as I learned the hard way after a really tough run, I didn't stretch out properly and it left me struggling to do an easy ride the following day. In the end my ride suffered and left me feeling frustrated. Instead of shrugging it off like I used to do, after hoping off the bike I decided to spend an entire hour doing foam roller, massage stick and general body dynamic and static stretching post ride. I felt so much better for my next workout which happened to be a swim day that I ended up finishing my mile swim in record time (for me) of 35 minutes and then decided I needed to get into the gym and work my legs and core.
In the course of the past four weeks I have also done a few hard brick workouts and am learning the what-to-and-not-to-do's of brick training. First and foremost you must eat properly the previous two days, and preferably not go ride a 70 mile ride at intensity with 6000ft of climbing. It only leaves your body worn out and extremely tired to be able to handle the bike run brick. In my very near future (this week and next) I have 2 brick workouts coming up and will be much more prepared in both nutrition and pre workout planning.
Before I can go run any distances though it is time for me to replace my running shoes. I cannot believe its time already, I only bought the shoes 6 months ago. I've really only put on the miles in the past 3 months, but I am having issues with them that weren't there in the beginning. The issues I know are related to the traditional shoes since I switched to my minimalist shoes for today's Sprint Tri and had no pains at all. I think I may end up getting both a pair of traditional runner and another pair of the minimalists because they just felt so good.
Next up April 22nd, San Jose Metro Olympic Distance Triathlon, my first open water tri. This is a scary thought since I haven't even tried on a wetsuit yet. Since January I have been telling myself I have plenty of time, well the time is a flying by and now I cannot sit back and be slow about this. Next up, new shoes to replace my worn out ones, and getting in to try on wetsuits.
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