A New Athlete...

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If you have followed my blog over the last 6 months, you would have seen that I have really changed my approach heading into Ironman this year. No more endless 30-40hr training weeks, no more long easy hours on the bike, just training with a purpose, every time I get out the door. I have been racing a lot and going hard very often, all on less than 18hrs of training per week. This approach is partly due to my past training load, my experiences with coaches as of late, as well as needing more time to dedicate toward my growing coaching business.

I think that for athletes that are relatively new to the sport; miles logged and consistency in training are the keys to improvement. However, after no more improvement using this approach is seen, it is time to switch things up.

I am now just getting into the last 10 weeks of training before Ironman Wisconsin and this last weekend i had my first ride longer than 4hrs and first run longer than 90 minutes since January! Using my same zone guidelines, I PR'd the Ironman Wisconsin Course by 14 minutes, rolling 4:51 on ~280 watts....the next day I then ran a hilly 30k in 2:01(including warm-up, cd and traffic).

I will now be focusing a little more on my swim before Spirit of Racine in a few weeks. Then will probably hit 2-3 more weekends of similar training to this last, before racing again and finally, tapering for Wisconsin. During this time, my volume will not go over 25hrs in any 7 day period and will probably stay closer to 20 hours.

I will check in again before Spirit!

Blake

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