Brief update- an early start to 2011

It finally happened.
After more than a year of playing around I've felt the itch.
The itch to get back into structured training, the feeling that something is out of place. That it's time to get back on the horse.

I resisted the itch for almost a month, until it was almost unbearable. I started dreaming about long runs, brick workouts and lung busting swim sets. A bit sick, right?
So here I am, 3 weeks into training and feeling pretty good.
This week saw me swim 7 sessions (30km), ran 4 (50km), an hour of spinning, and some dryland. I'm considering getting rid of my trainingpeaks account- the new system updates make my head hurt. My metrics may just as simply be added to a google doc.
The pool in PG has a bulkhead stuck at 40 meters. So I've been swimming intercourse for the last three weeks. All my sets are in multiples of 40, not 50m, which gives my brain something to calculate to see approximately how fast I am going. This involves multiplying my time by 1.25 to see what it actually would be if I was swimming long course.
About 11 months ago I dropped down 9kg from my 2009 racing weight, and have been sitting around 81kg for the last year. I would be happy with a new race weight of 75-77kg for 2011.
I haven't done any VO2, lactates or preliminary zone testing yet, (will wait till mid November to test) but feel like my numbers aren't bad considering I played a lot and trained very little in the last year. My long runs are already up to 20km, 2 hours without any hip or shin issues, and my feel for the water is coming back faster than I thought.

Right now, the next 12 months are looking like the following:

October - December: Swim hard, fast & strong. Full time swimmer's training schedule, race in December Ice Classic meet in Kamloops. Run 3-4x/week, 1 long run, 1 hill workout, 1 track intervals (600's-1.2km repeats), and 1 build workout/brick. Dryland/prehab up the wazoo and make sure there's not underlying deficiencies, weaknesses or compensations going on. Once cross country skiing starts, go have fun and get some vitamin D.

December 10-14ish day training camp- aerobic emphasis: Cross country ski, long swims, and runs (weather permitting). Start cycling during this time

January-March: transition out swim, start more spinning/bricks and cross country skiing. Consider swimming Western's

April: RAGE long distance tri- Vegas (take 5-10 days off after tri)

May-November: two 70.3 races, *this is a 7 month stint, so I'm sure there will be a lot going in here. For now I'm just thinking to April.

November: Ironman Arizona- race fast

Goals for 2011:
injury free
race weight of 75-77kg
top 3 finish in IM AZ 2011
run time at IM AZ < 3:30
swim time <50 minutes
1/2 marathon time 1:40 (RAGE tri)

More to come... this post was more of a personal unloading of 25 ideas going on in my head, than to try and update on what I'm doing.

Ps. Intercourse because it's not short course, but it's not long enough to be long course.

Day 1 Complete- Surprise Surprise that it didn't look like I expected

It's 8pm.

But it feels like midnight. You know it has been a good day when you could have gone to bed at 6 and been happy with the day.
Recap:
The NorthShore Hostel is great- awesome people, clean location, no A/C but lots of fans.

Run
I need to start looking at elevation climbs before I head out the door. 15km round trip with the first 7.5 km being a constant uphill slog (approx. 600m elevation gain). I'Ao state park is beautiful. Although, I did look out of place when I ran up in my short shorts, fuel belt and tri top, and the horizontally grand tourists rolled out of their tour buses.
The run was good, but hot- I'm so glad I brought lots of fuel that I designed at Infinit Nutrition; yes that was a plug for Infinit. The electrolytes were needed as I was drenched by the end.
HR stayed high for most of the run. I'm going to say this is likely due to the heat as there was almost no variation in HR between 4:45 & 6 minute pace.
I'm glad to say I'm feeling stronger every day on the run- A bit nervous for this 5 minute mile still- when I get home I need to do an attempt and see where I'm at.

Core work:
2 x Ab ripper X Tony Horton runs a tight ship. I'm just sayin'

Swimming:
Did you know all public pools in Maui are free? All you do is walk on deck, sign in on a piece of paper and take a shower
And there is one about 1.5 miles from the NorthShore Maui Hostel?
Ok, onto the workout.
Sunscreen doesn't stay on when you are always sweating or in the water- I wouldn't say I'm burnt, but am feeling quite warm tonight.
Swim was very fresh- 4500 yards. 1000 w/u, 10 x 200 pull fast arm turnover, 1&5 scull/swim, desc 2-4 & 6-10. These were faster than I thought (1:55 for the last set)
1500 kick and then I crashed. I mean cramping everywhere.

Came home, stretched, attempted a nap, ate more bananas and chocolate milk than I've had in a while.
Dinner was rice & broccoli with plenty of soya sauce and mahi-mahi. Tapioca pudding and raisins for dessert (loving the carbs right now).

I'm spent, wishing I had a cold Corona, an ice bath, a personal masseuse and more than 6 hours till my Monday morning conference call.
A 6am PST Monday morning conference call is a 3am Hawaii middle of the night call.
Night everyone.

Haleakala tomorrow morning- bring on the fire.

Waters Wellness 1st Maui tri-camp will be happening in the next year. Hopefully Scotland's great Mike Adams will be with me to run it.

If you're still not doing what you want to do, how come?

"You've got one life to live. And if you do it right, that's all you'll need"

To your success,

Pw.

Here I am- Maui.
Time to get to business- the last few days have been long- more or less by choice but still long. I'm working on four projects right now that take up more time than I expect; my fun job Waters Wellness Consulting, my steady paycheck Usana, my passionate job with Seminar Systems/Blackbelt In Relationship and my book (more details of the book in a future post). I get fired up on all of these projects, but that right now is leading to late nights on the computer and early mornings.
Surprisingly my training has not suffered- I'm running 6x/wk, swimming 4x and starting to spin on the bike; it's still too cold for a wimp like me to ride in Canada outside.
Which brings me to Maui- a solid 8 day training camp.
My flight over was uneventful, watched "The Hurt Locker" and "Up In the Air" and did a bit of work. I was offered two seats to myself if I would give up my center aisle seat to a mother with two children. I immediately said yes and enjoyed the ohh so comfy, but definitely not needed leg room.

Arrived at 7pm Hawaii time (10 pm PST), got on my shuttle to the hostel I am staying and was in bed by 9:30. I'm staying at the NorthShore Hostel for the next two days- If you're wanting to come here on a budget, their 20$/night dorm rooms will fit your budget. The place is clean, staff is friendly, is quiet at night, and is centrally located to use all the services you need. Based on my short stay, I highly recommend it.

Training plan for today:

Steady run around I'Ao Valley State Park















Swim- 4km mid afternoon swim- some threshold work

Bike- Smooth ride to prepare my legs for tomorrow, I'm going to ride to see the some of the best tow-in surfing- Jaws. There's a high surf warning today which could mean the best conditions for the spot- hopefully I'll get to see some of the worlds best go take a shot at it.
The other theme for today- carbo load!
Tomorrow morning I'm setting out to ride the 36 miles and 10,023 ft. of climbing to the summit of Haleakala.

Time to get off this computer and into training.

Here's my question of the day, If you're not doing today what you want to be doing, why not?
Do what you love to do- no excuses!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4#t=0m40s

Patrick

Is the worlds 2nd largest automaker going to crumble? Does anyone else see a buying opportunity? http://bit.ly/b6l2Zp http://bit.ly/cB31z3