Plans for the 2011 Event Season

And now for a momentary interruption in the ongoing chapter story: It's April and the season is approaching - I've been very busy planning so here are some thoughts that occurred to me about that in a quick lunchtime post.

As much as I enjoy the workouts, and as many benefits I've gotten already from the training, ultimately it's about the events. In the Northeast, the event season starts in May and

Part 7: Training, Getting Started

I was introduced to one new workout concept that just bowled me over: the recovery run. It goes like this: you run your ass off one day. Wake up the next morning all creaky and sore, and go right out for another run! And afterward, you feel much better! To me, it defied the basic laws of the universe. But then it was explained to me: the easy run you do the day afterward essentially massages the muscles enough to circulate more blood to them than if you were just sitting around. This helps them to rejuvenate more quickly. It really works.

The new workout schedule kept me pretty busy. It was a lot of work – even outside the workouts, scheduling them into my already busy days. With this much time being spent on workouts, I had to get one in early-morning (5:30 or 6:30am) just about every day to keep up. Michael had me doing different things every day,

Part 6: Training, Really

Holy crap - this was going to be my new workout plan? 

More than 10 hours of workouts in the first week. 5 hours of cycling, 3-1/2 hours of running, and more than 3 hours of swimming. Was this guy crazy? He had me scheduled for two workouts a day on some days. What had I gotten myself into?

But I was still excited. I figured that since I had shared my workout logs for the previous three months with him, he knew what I should be able to do, so I shouldn't get into too much trouble.

After the first two weeks, I could not believe I was keeping up with the schedule, for the most part, without any injuries or major complaints. Sure, I dropped a few, like you would if someone suddenly put you up on stage and started tossing you flaming clubs to juggle. I jumped in and got started,

Part 5: The Trainer

After a lengthy phone conversation in which we covered what my goals were, what my previous training consisted of, how Michael works with his athletes (Wow, was I going to be referred to as an "athlete"? This was getting really wild.) and other things, I hired Michael to be my virtual coach.

He would lay out a workout schedule for me each week. I would report after each workout using Michael's coaching web site. We would chat by phone once a week or so.

He suggested a few pieces of equipment, one of which was a workout "watch" with embedded GPS that could be used for running and cycling. All the "data" including heart rate, bicycle cadence, speed, route and altitude are recorded and uploaded to the website after each workout so he would be able to analyze it. Pretty slick.

After looking at my previous three months of workout logs, Michael observed that