Volume 11, Week 10: Building a Base

 “Physical training is good, but training for
 godliness is much better, promising
 benefits in this life and in the life to come.”
I Timothy 4:8 (NLT)

    Week 10 of 52.  Just over 19% of the way through to IM Florida.  I've been building my base endurance and strength to be ready for the full plans of long training ahead of me in the next 9-1/2 months.  Here are my weekly stats for this week.

Weekly Stats:

• Weight: 176.2
• -2.5 lbs from last week
• -4.4 lbs from start
• Swimming: (2x)
• 3.12 miles (5,500 yards)
• 1:57:58
• Biking: (2x)
• 34.43 miles
• 2:00:02
• Running: (3x)
• 14.18 miles
• 2:40:41
• Strength: (2x)
• 1:40:23
• Yoga: (3x)
• 2:01:13
• Totals:
• 12 workouts
• 51.74 miles
• 10:20:17

    This felt like a normal week again!  Getting my good solid base in my endurance and strength down. My first observation was that with the normal routine and mindset, my eating went better than the last couple of weeks with the holidays.  My weight went down by 2.5 lbs from last week, and that just showed me that I just had to get to my normal good nutrition and be consistent.  One thing that I was definitely better at was NOT grabbing something out during school days where there was no class.  Normally I just go out and get some fast food (even if it's decently healthy).  This week I made sure to pack a normal lunch and do it the right way.  Along with some good workouts this week, I see a good trend (so does my Garmin watch, apparently--it tells me I'm doing well!) with getting to my weigh-in goal for my race. 

 I hit the pool twice this week for the first time since before Christmas.  One of the days, Chad Koerner tagged along.  It was great to have a training buddy to hang out at the wall with during my rest times. I was able to get a couple of recumbent bike sessions in at the Community Center.  Not what I like compared to my actual bike, but with my tri bike still at the shop, it'll have to do.  I still don't have my bike back yet due to the weather issues here (it's now supposed to be done early this week assuming the parts come in tomorrow) so I had to improvise with that but it was good to get into a rhythm of pedaling again.   

For running, I used the treadmill twice and ran the indoor track once.  I've named it "Judge Dread" as I dread being on it. I would so much rather be outside, but it does have the times where it is the best option with weather and time.  I did a slow HR-based run on Monday, focusing on my heart rate and not on my speed.  That's easier to do on the treadmill, but it's also hard as I feel I should be running so much faster.  Another day I did an "intensity" workout that is preset in the treadmill.  It turned out that was a incline workout.  Only did 3.2MPH but hit 25% incline.  

My HR was actually higher than my previous slow run.  Then on Saturday, I went to the gym and did 7.76 miles on the indoor track. 10 laps to a mile, but you're supposed to run the outside lane so it's a little longer than 1/10th mile per lap.  I think I did 75 or 76 laps.  Lots of dodging all the walkers/slower-than-me joggers that aren't hanging in the left lane like the sign says to do.  Normal strength workouts this week, still seeing gains in my bodyweight exercises.  And I completed 3 "Yoga for Triathletes" sessions.  Really seeing  improvements there as I can hold the poses longer and am seeing more flexibility in each pose.  Still works me as I can always push myself deeper in my stretches.  Total of over 10 hours of workouts.  I'm looking at a few plans as I see what would work best for me, and this is the minimum hours I'd be doing in a week.  The first three months for me was to build my endurance to the point where I could start increasing distances and time and not hurt myself.  So I feel as if I've done a good job preparing myself for the months ahead.  Feeling good, and it'll be great to get my bike back this week and start logging some miles again on that! Above are the views I had this week at the pool, on the recumbent bike, and on Judge Dread.  

Lessons Learned:

    Although this isn't a new lesson for me, one thing I was reminded of this week was that mental toughness is going to be huge in this training.  There were so many times I didn't feel like getting out and doing a workout or heading to the gym to do the recumbent bike (boring!)  But I know that once I'm out the door and doing what I need to do, I'll feel so much better.  It's easy to sit and say "just a few more minutes".  I have to make sure that I push myself to do all the right things to ensure I hit my goal in November.  Another thing that I "learned" was that I can still improve even though I may not be following my normal workouts.  It's been hard without my bike (and I don't have another one I can throw on the trainer), but mixing it up with the recumbent bike wasn't really a bad thing.  I'll have to be dedicated to my plan, but being flexible will be a big thing too.  As long as I'm still moving forward, a day or two won't hurt to mix up my routine.  I'm still getting my time in.  

Reflections:

    As I've been building my base these last 10 weeks (and really started even back in the summer months), it's been a slow process.  There are days and weeks it feels like there hasn't been a lot of progress. But then I see the improvements as I do more pull-ups or push-ups, hit faster mile times on a run, or don't have to grunt as much during my yoga sessions.  I can't start a training plan without a solid base of endurance.  Most of the plans I am working with as I write my own state that you should be able to run, bike or swim at least one hour at a time, and can do a minimum of 6 hours of exercise a week.  Without that baseline, I wouldn't be able to start hitting longer distances, faster or longer times, or adding hours to my week without either getting injured or burning out.  Probably both.  My plan for my training will be to do 80% of my workout sessions at a low intensity (I'll go into this more when I get my plan down!).  This seems counterintuitive, even for me as I read books, online resources and listen to podcast after podcast that tell me the same thing.  As I tried to go slow this week on the treadmill (and was successful because the treadmill doesn't speed up on it's own), I know that those are the times in my training that will allow me to go faster and longer when I need to do a half- or full-marathon after swimming and biking.  If I went out full speed each and every run, the gains would be minimal, and my muscles wouldn't learn to continue to do their thing mile after mile.  I don't want to quit the race because I wasn't ready for the hard things. Just seems so backwards.  "Go slow to go fast".  Huh?

    My devotional this week was titled " Spiritual Base".  The lady who wrote the opening part talked about that very thing.  As she was running her "Zone 3" slow 6-mile run (zone 3 is your heart rate zone you need to keep in during your training session), she just wanted so badly to speed up.  It just seems so unnatural.  That's the way it is in my spiritual life too.  To be prepared for the big events in life, I have to have a solid base.  If I spend time in God's Word nightly with my devotional, or with my guys reading through the Bible on Thursday nights, or spend time with God on my runs, or (especially) during my swim times, this is building my spiritual base.  It's not fast, it's not an all-out effort, but it's consistent.  Just like in my Ironman training.  There will be times in my life--and they've already happened here and there--where I will need to rely on the training I've done spiritually to get through the hard things that pop up in life.  I've had death in the family, I've had kid issues, I've had hard times in my marriage, and I've been hurt by other Christians in the church. How was I able to continue on strong?  It was because I had a good base of faith.  Now, it's not a perfect base.  I can always do better, but I know without that base, those times would have been crushing, and I very easily could have "quit the race" and just said it's not worth it.  I can look back in my life and see where my "training" has allowed me to get through some tough "workouts" during my daily journey of life.  And I know there will be more.  Today in church, it was said that the Christian life is NOT free from pain, from trials, from hard things.  It would be great if it was.  But what is my base when those times come?  Do I fall back on my slow process of my spiritual training, or do I try and go all out and hurt myself more?  I Timothy says,  “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”  I'm focused on my Ironman training this year, but what's more important?  The physical training for a body that will fail eventually no matter what I do, or the spiritual training will last this lifetime and for eternity? Both are important for sure, but I definitely can't neglect the base training in my spiritual life with God.  

Well, week number 10 down.  Bike should be coming back to me this week.  We should have a completely normal weather/school week.  Thanks for following along, and for spending a few minutes each week to listen to me ramble sometimes.  Just thoughts that go through my mind as I live life, work, and train for Ironman.  Until next week, 

Keep fit, Stay THE Course, and Keep moving forward.  

7,019 hours, 24 minutes, 20 seconds until Ironman Florida.