TRIATHLON SEASON - GIRLFRIEND

TRIATHLON SEASON

My triathlon season has come to a non-eventful end for the year. I decided -- mostly because it's tomorrow -- that I'm not going to do the triathlon down in San Diego. Also becasue I've done little riding and swimming in the past few weeks.

WHITE PAPER - FUTURE TRI GOALS

So, I've been trying to workout my future triathlon goals particularly in the 90 days / 6 months, 1 year and 18 month ranges.

I finish school in the next 90 days. So, that's definitely a focus -- I need to ensure I dot all the i's and cross all the t's for school.

After school ends, there are holidays, followed immediately thereafter with a course and then a significant licensing exam. I take mine in February unlike many of my classmates. I'll get the results in May. Hopefully they'll be positive.

So I figure the month of January and February will be incredibly light months for me. Probably 3-5 hours per week of exercise -- so about 12-20 hours per month for each of the two months. No real training can go on then. Nor can any significant training occur during finals in December.

So, it leaves me with some base building potential in March / April / May, which I suppose is fine.

HALF-IRONMAN PROSPECTS

Though I haven't finally pulled the trigger on it, I would like to commit to doing a half ironman next year -- preferably in the fall. In fact, it might even be preferable to some degree to travel to do a high profile race. That's always fun and a powerful incentive to train harder/smarter.

There are a few half-ironmans in the spring, notably Ralph's down in Oceanside -- but because it's held in either Mar/Apr -- there's no real time to make it work. So I could either plan to do it in '07 -- or do a fall half-ironman in '06 -- which seems much more likely.

But what that really means is trying to schedule in hard training during multiple events:

* successful girlfriend;
* new job at Office (after pass test) (hopefully);
* multiple exams immediately before -- and trying to put everything together.

So I think I could commit to doing it, but I'm going to have to get the GF to sign on -- but that's not for a few months before I need to get her to sign on to that program.

TRAINING IN NEXT 90 DAYS

I think in the immediate few weeks, I'm going to modify the training a bit, notably:

* Try to get out on the mountain bike on the weekends to get some nice Pasadena rides in;
* More rowing -- it's easier on my body than running -- and much more convenient than swimming right now. I find it to be a pretty decent substitute for swimming too, because of all of the upper body work;
* I'd also like to get some real miles in on my new track bike too. It should be fun.

NOV-DEC

As Nov and Dec approach, undoubtedly due to less light, I'll be doing much more indoor training. Notably much more riding on the computrainer -- and perhaps a bit of walking here and there -- at least I wouldn't mind trying that.

My Dec goal is to complete my 1 million meters rowing goal -- which should come about pretty comfortably.

JAN-FEB

Light training - I'm going to plan for much lower hours due to the compactness and pressure of preparing for my upcoming proffessional exam.

MAR-APR-MAY

I think this is full on building more and more endurance phases -- with some significant rowing (for speed work) thrown into the mix.

JUN-JUL-AUG-SEP

The heart of the triathlon season next year.

I think I'd like to do:

1. Another xterra, probably in August or so (but I'd like to do it at 15% body fat or lower, not 23%);
2. 2-4 olympic distance tris;
3. 2-4 less than olympic (particularly enjoyed the ventura county tri -- also I'd like to get down to san diego; I also enjoyed the tri way out in san gabriel).



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