10 weeks until the London Triathlon; hello training schedule!

don't be alarmed, it's not my latest profile pic :) i was looking for some blog friendly images and stumbled across this lovely lady. hmmmmmm.

SO ladies + gents we have officially 10 weeks until the London Triathlon.

I'm a sucker for a goal, so have spent the morning lazing about with biscuits putting together a training plan. I've been using a book borrowed from a fellow tri-er, Richard, which has been incredibly helpful in making sense of what i'm doing, why, and how to move forward. Let's face it, i'm the most novice person under the tri-sun; but it's difficult mentally to keep working hard in three discplines when you're only point of focus is GO FASTER. like hello, if only it was that easy...

With the help of Joe's book, here's my plan, and a little pic of the book i'm using:


the training sessions are seperated into six goals. one for each day of the week, with a rest day. the only day i'm going to prescribe myself is Sunday, which will be Endurance day. the other days will be worked around other important factors like; Have I just washed my hair, Will I have time before going out/work etc, did I remember to wash my running clothes?

ENDURANCE
(delays fatigue)
> one long run starting with 7kms, working up to 10kms. or one long bike starting at 1 hour and working up to 2 hours.

FORCE
(muscle strength + economy)
> bike hills seated or run hill course for 30 mins

SPEED SKILLS
(arm/leg turnover)
> 12 x 30 secs for bike, 8 x 20 secs for run, with 90 seconds recovery

MUSCULAR ENDURANCE
(strength endurance, lactose intolarance)
> 4 x 6 mins for bike with 2 min recovery, 20 min run

ANAEROBIC ENDURANCE
(elevate cardio limit, sustain high effort, lactose intolarance)
> 5 x 5 mins for bike with 2:1 recovery, 5 x 400 metres for run with 400m recovery

POWER
(muscular power and fast starts)
> 6 x 30 secs hill for bike with 60 secs recovery, 4 x 150 metres run with 250 metres recovery


It sounds all very complicated at this stage, but I figure a couple of weeks into the program it'll feel a bit easier to digest. You may have noticed that swimming is off the list, and that's because I've decided to focus on bike/run for the next 3 weeks, and will pick up swimming thereafter (giving me 7 weeks prep swim time!)

In other news, my wetsuit has arrived! I ended up hiring one from wetsuithire.co.uk and haven't tried it on yet, but will do so over the next week.

My last PT session went well, and I may have picked up another training partner in the midst! Always up for training buddies, though PT runs veeerry fast so not sure how this will eventuate.


And the final news of the week is that during birthday celebrations (happy birthday me) I received a waterproof ipod kit so i can listen to music/podcasts while swimming! am super excited about this, and will gear report once it's been tested.

I'm starting a 10 week countdown now, this is it kids. My previous two tri's were only one hour/one hour and a half long, but this next addition is going to take me about 3+ hours - so it's a pretty intense leap. I feel a bit sick. Someone remind me why I'm doing this?