There will be spreadsheets

(OK, so I borrowedstole the blog post title from one of my favourite bloggers - but I like it and more to the point it is true :)

It's been too long. Last year was slack, slack, slack - apart from a trip to France and the National Relays, I barely got on my road bike. Silly girl. Time to rectify that and find some focus.

I've done a few editions of Waveney sprint tri in the past (1 - 2 - 3), and marshalled a few more, so when it opened to club members this week I figured it was time to race again, and signed myself up before I could come up with some lame-arsed excuse. I've been swimming and running regularly, so it's not like I am starting from rock bottom.

Plus race day, May 8th, is 16 whole weeks away, which gives me time to follow one of the 12-week plans from the training bible plus 4 weeks extra at the start to build up a really good base. My overall goal is to beat my Waveney PB of 1:05:23. I figure that along the way I should also be able to crack my frankly dismal parkrun PB of 28:35 (if not my all-time 5km PB of 24:38), and lose a few kg as well - plenty of those to spare at the moment.

So, the plan is this.

1. Follow weeks 5-8 of the level 4 sprint training plan ("modest initial fitness level; 6 workouts per week"), which is three "build" weeks and a recovery week.
   
2. Follow weeks 1-12 at level 5 of the same plan ("decent base fitness; not just finish, but finish well; three workouts per week per discipline"). That's 3 weeks of "base", one recovery, three "build", one recovery, three "peak", and one taper leading up to the race.

I have a big spreadsheet where I am putting the training plan elements into a quick-to-read format. (I'm also tracking calories in/out, and weight. I said there would be spreadsheets, didn't I?). Next week's schedule is:

• Monday: off-plan - hit the gym for some gentle strength and core work
• Tuesday: swim - base intervals plus drills and kick
• Wednesday: bike - (in the gym seeing as it's still dark when I'm not in work...) "hills", plus core
• Thursday: swim - tempo intervals plus drills and kick
• Friday: run - steady including short sprints
• Saturday: bike - steady
  
• Sunday: run - steady
  

I might change the order to find myself training buddies and do parkrun on Saturday - perhaps swap Weds/Fri and Sat/Sun.

So, goal for this week, 17th-23rd January: complete the above training plan! Eat to fuel the training, and stay hydrated. And keep blogging - I feel better for writing all that down, so that's a good start :)