Today is the first day of the first full week in Japan, and I am looking forward to getting down and dirty with my training. The weather si warming up, I am recovering well from both my accident and my travelling, and really feel the energy and desire coming back. I love this buzz I get when things start going right, and mixed with the arrival of spring, I am super positive and full of ideas and ambition.

I have settled on a 21-week training cycle to get me ready for the 70.3 in Aug, the schedule will include Japan half ironman in June, and I will follow up with a full ironman in September. The last part is pretty ambitious, some may even say stupid, but I am hoping that I can train “long” for the full which will give me superior fitness and endurance for the half, while also training for speed.

I have included last week’s base numbers below in case anyone is interested, I am still in warm up mode, so they are nothing special, however I really had my “eureka” moment on Sunday. I hadn’t used my Computrainer on a pre-set ride for many months, however due to jet lag couldn’t get out for my Sunday long ride, so decided to do a 61k course indoors. I got on and focused well and enjoyed the 2hr session. After finishing I remembered about my new-found knowledge of Power, so I checked the power outage logs and compared with all previous records going back last 5 years (all stored in the settings and never once accessed before!).

Well to cut a long story short, yesterday’s ride gave me the highest power output I had ever managed before, a 20-point jump from last time used in November. Ok, the numbers are still pathetic (if you must know, was 173watts average over 61km), but for me to start improving now, after all the years of mediocracy is amazing. I put it all down to the training regime my coach started me on back in October, and I am super stoked to keep going, and see how far I can get. (I am not currently using a coach as various issues impeded my training, but now thinking who/how and if I should start again)

Ok, so these are the training details

Monday – 30 mins 5.6km early morning run before flying

Tuesday – off

Wednesday – Swim – 1km 25 min “let’s see how my shoulder holds up” swim
Bike – 20km 45 min “let’s try the Computrainer for first time in 3 months” bike
Run – 5.7km 35 min “let’s check out the neighbourhood for first time in 3 months” run

Thursday –  Bike – 32km 63 min fartlek intervals on CT. Including single leg drills
Gym –  60 min strength and condition

Friday –  Swim 1.5km 40 min. Bit harder than Wed, but still need to be careful
Bike 34km 68 intervals in CT. Fartlek Intervals
Gym – 60 minutes upper body. First time since accident, very low weights

Saturday –  Run – 91 min 16.6km Long run. Longest run for 4 weeks, felt good

Sunday – Bike – 2:04 min 61.8km. Great effort with big improvement on my power @ 173 average