Triathlon Training: Week 5

I think I might call today Triathlon Tuesday…. I kinda like the ring of that!

It’s officially 54 days until the triathlon and Sunday completed my 5th week of training.

Here’s what my week looked like:

Monday*: 30 minute run

Tuesday: Strength training (leg exercises at home)

Wednesday: Brick workout- 45 minute ride + 20 minute run

Thursday: Strength training (machines at the gym)

Friday: 25 minute run

Saturday: 50 minute ride

Sunday: 35 minute run

*Mondays are usually my rest day but that ended up being over the weekend instead.

Besides not being able to swim and being about halfway through my tri plan without dipping my toes into the water, I am overall really happy with how things are going.

Cycling

I love cycling so much that my workouts don’t even feel like workouts. My timer goes off and I feel like I could have done much more. I am not sure how much of that is athletic ability and how much of it is just really enjoying the sport, but I’ll take it. I just hope that I’m not building a false confidence for the tri.

Moving forward, I think most of my cycling days will have to be done at home on my trainer. I had been doing my rides at the Y but it’s so crowded that I have to wait for a machine. On Wednesday, I did my warm-up and then had to wait 30 minutes for a bike. It kind of derails my workout, especially if it’s a brick, and I was the the gym for over 2 hours on that day.

Running

I have really been looking forward to sharing my experience with running with you guys thus far. You might remember that running is my weakest area. Prior to this, I haven’t actually run in 2 years and I had very little speed and endurance even before that. The idea of running 3.1 miles without stopping seemed really difficult, and I wasn’t sure how I would be able to do that after a swim and bike.

I had 2 breakthrough moments this week with running.

The first was on Monday when I ran 2 miles on the treadmill. This was the first time I have ran 2 full miles in a long time.

The second was on Sunday. I wanted to squeeze in my run before the gym was open and the weather was nice and cool, so I decided to go downtown. I had a really bad week last week and was feeling extra stressed out that morning. I started to run and, unlike when I’m on the treadmill counting down the time until I can get off, I started to feel relaxed. I stopped thinking about running. Or anything. There were people walking to brunch and other runners out. It was nice. I ran for 35 minutes.

For my runs, I have really focused on running at a comfortable pace and not pushing myself to be too fast and then burn out. On the treadmill, a 15-minute mile seemed like a good starting point to be nice and slow. I tried to do this on my run on Sunday as well. After looking at my Garmin, I realized my pace was 14:31 and I was still running at that ‘comfortable’ pace for me. This was faster than my treadmill my pace and it made me realize I’m probably handicapping myself by getting most of my miles on the treadmill so far.

I am wondering if I will get faster in the next 6 weeks as I continue to build my endurance.

This Week

Here is what my week looks like. My plan starts on a Monday, which was a rest day:

My Tuesday and Thursday will be replaced with strength training and I omit the swim on Sunday for now. The following week is one of my slow/rest weeks so I’m going to try really hard to stay on track.

Let’s Talk About Racing

What are you currently training for? Do you have any specific goals with that race?

Out of swimming, biking and running, which is your favorite?