Calendars and Things

As promised, here are my training calendars and other pertinent details about my fitness. As previously (maybe?) mentioned, I have not planned a thing past April. I likely will be moving into some build phases, but I want to race a bunch too, and I actually don't know where I will be living/what I will be doing so it's a little hard to make decisions right now. Anyway, on with the pictures.

Base training overview

Hopefully visible is the annual training plan. Things to notice are the weekly hours through each base phase, as well as races starting as soon as Base 2. I don't intend on being fiercely competitive during these early races, but I figured I might as well break up the monotony of base season with some quality. In the past I believe I have peaked at 12 hours in one week. This season I will be attempting to push that up to 14 in Base 3. Oh! I also wrote in some objectives. Testing every 4th week is a must - I always intend on doing this but push it aside. Consistency in training - I have mapped out every week with a what-sport/how-long calendar (below) so I don't have to make it up day to day. Increase volume and listen to my body and stretch - I can honestly say I have not had a time-off injury since grade 10 (horrible shin splints, lasted pretty much all through high school). I want to keep it that way. I've already fallen off the stretching wagon.

Nov-Dec Weeks

Dec-Jan-Feb-March Weeks

March-April Weeks

 These are fairly self-explanatory. Note the large weekends and easy Mondays. I understand you old people now. I don't like it.

Power to weight vs Time

I like this chart. Y-axis is my watts/kg, x-axis is duration. Dotted line is maximums from the 2012 season, solid line is this season. As a spoiler for later posts, notice how the lines meet around the 5 and 20 minute marks. These are the two times I test every 4 weeks.

Performance Manager chart

Another neat chart. WKO+ is a training program that lets you dump all your GPS/power/HR/everything data in, organize it, plot pretty much everything you could ever be interested in, and have it plot things you never knew you could plot. There are some not-so-complex-but-time-consuming-to-explain calculations it does with your running speed and power data based on your functional thresholds that allow it to estimate your training stress volume. Pink line is your acute training stress (over 7 days, accumulated stress), yellow line is essentially your restedness, and the blue line is your overall fitness. Red line with points is top-10 1 minute powers, black line with points is top-10 20 minute powers. Check out the pink line 5x peak-plateau-drop. The last three correspond to 1st, 2nd and 3rd weeks in Base 1. I bet you can guess where Sat-Sun are. Notice also the progressively deeper pits I'm digging myself in the restedness department. However, there is quite a nice rise in overall fitness. I am currently on a rest week, so you can see my restedness climb and my fitness drop a little bit. Acute training stress should also drop quite a bit. This chart only tracks biking and running.

So on the whole, these are the overarching things I use to track and plan my fitness. I will refer to them often from here on out. There isn't much else to say about them, as I am saving the specifics for later posts. If anyone is reading and would like more information, please send me a message or leave a comment. I've never had either happen and I don't know how to tell if it does, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Adam "A Good Presentation Has More Pictures Than Words" Fortais

A Repurposing of Sorts

The motivation for maintaining this blog is not all too clear to me... So I propose a re-purposing of sorts. Rather than chronicling my training in semi-ambiguous, boring detail I will be ultra specific. In the coming days I will be uploading my calendars, hours, and all forms of data that may be interesting. At the very least this will be a permanent back up of my training log. At the very best I would receive feedback, suggestions and comments on the rhyme and reason behind my training. I love planning, graphing and analysing data, and I find training theory very interesting. Were physics not an option I have no doubt I would be a kinesiology student. Maybe I still will (just kidding).

In the mean time (before I work up the motivation to fire up my scanner (which literally only needs to be usb-plugged into my computer (...which I am obviously on right now))) perhaps I can fill in the details since my last post.

So uhm, I ran a comparatively fast 10k at the end of October and then I proceeded to sit for two weeks. Actually though. I just checked my training log. Blank between October 28 and November 12. However, I sprang into action, getting an eight-week strength plan under way...

I did this same plan last year, more or less, and thought it was pretty great. The program is broken up into a three main phases. Part one builds on volume. Low-medium weight, lots of repetitions and sets. This builds over four weeks. Part two is a maximum strength phase. Low reps, medium sets, super-high weight. This is two weeks long. Part three is the ultra-important power phase, because what's the point if not to get that snappy sprint that every triathlete* is looking for (*kay, maybe I haven't given up my single sport cycling dreams). This is low weights, medium sets, very fast movements. Also, one sprint set on the bike a week. I will fill in the details with real-deal numbers shortly. Not today. Don't hold your breath either.

During this phase I started my much needed swim campaign. From what I have heard, it's pretty tough to over-do it in the pool in terms of injury and burning out, so I decided to forget traditional periodization for swimming this year and go all-in right from the start. I mean, I certainly won't be swimming slower for trying it. I have a very limited swim background so when I tell you I've been managing about 10km/week fairly consistently all winter, you will bite your tongue! Since I've become such a high-volume, heavy hitter in the pool, I've seen some huge improvements. Additionally I took the opportunity to get my stroke filmed earlier in the winter, and I believe I have managed to improve my stroke. Another filming session is coming shortly. Don't hold your breath. Breath bilaterally. Really though, this will also be its own post soon.

Otherwise, strength phases consisted of just enough running and cycling to not get too out of shape. Which is code for "pretty much none". I bike to work every day though so that's gotta count for something right? Turns out it must, because heading into my first real base phase (of which I am currently in the heat of) I had increased my cycling functional threshold power (according to a 20min test) by 15 watts (from 250 to 265) from Nov 22 to Feb 1st. I would like to re-emphasize that the total extent of my riding was 1-2 hours at an easy endurance pace (150-200W) plus riding to work every day on my roughly 3.0 gear ratio fixed gear (~6km one-way). This is also fodder for another post. I have some theories as to what I can attribute this improvement.

So here I am, week three of a four-week base period. I'm training more consistent than ever, and feel healthy and all the regular stuff you'd expect to hear when things are going well. It's a little tough getting the hours in what with full time work, but I find the time. This means up at 5:00 am a minimum of Tues/Wed/Thurs but I like it. I've started to level out in terms of priorities. Swim is still the top of the list, but in terms of hours, cycling is picking up and so is running to a lesser extent. Another post coming on what I've been working on specifically.

Last (possibly) interesting piece of information, I am planning on upping my racing this year. Again, this will be better explained in a later post, but starting next month I will be doing some races for the sake of training (2-3 before April at least). Additionally, I have some ideas of what I want to do in the summer, but I have declined to plan any further than the end of April, or, the end of my base periods.

So in recap, look for a couple more posts on

a) my training calendar for the year
b) weight training
c) swimming hard all year
d) commuting performance gains
e) base 1 recap
f) race planning

Done.

Adam "Don't hold your breath" Fortais

Halloween Haunting 10k

Success. I was ambitiously wishing for a 35:00 10km today after running a 16:44 5km over thanksgiving. I missed that time (likely due to poor pacing) but I still managed a respectable 35:29. That put me in 9th overall, 1st AG. Additionally I was going for top 10 and 1st age group. Again, success.

I programmed my watch to carry me through the first 5km at just above 17:30 so I could negative split into my 35 minute goal. I ran through the first 1500m following the absolute leaders (who came in around 31 minutes). Despite my watch screaming at me to slow down I was finally running with people in a race and my brain stupidly took over. I let the lead 8 go and started running with 2 other guys. We traded leads through to nearly 4km holding about 3:25/km. Still too fast. At the first turn around (3.5kmish) I let them go to try and salvage my pace. The course was 2 loops of 5km so coming into the second lap I slowed right down and crossed at 17:30. Right on pace... sort of. The last 1.5km were at a much slower pace than I wanted so I told myself that was a little breather, a reward, and now I would have to hold a real pace. This was easier said than done as for the next 3km my watch would be screaming at me to speed up. At about 6km I had caught one of the guys who had passed me earlier. He told me he was finished, I told him he was not. However I would go on to beat him in the end. The next person up the road was quite far ahead so I set my sights on carrying myself to the turn around at a pace under 3:35/km. From there I was banking on adrenaline to put me back on track. What I wasn't expecting was the motivation to finish coming from a very fast female hunting me down. I think she ended up around 36. That really woke me up though. At the turn around I told myself I would find my 3:30 pace until 9km then I would dig deep and smang the last km. I spent most of my training doing kms. I can crush one, it's only one. However it was all slightly up hill. I thought I heard 10th behind me and I absolutely refused to be caught so I surged on every incline and held the pace to the next one. By the final turn I was flying however the clock reminded me of my pacing mistakes and seeing the clock counting up from 35:20 gave me all the reasons I needed to sprint for the finish. 10th was 4 seconds behind me and gaining. I made it.

Adam "2-weeks of rest and swimming" Fortais

New PB, racing almost done

Dear reader,

I've cut about 30 seconds off my 5km PB, I learned how to swim proper, and I've safely increased my swimming and running weekly volume to great effect. I am racing in about 2 weeks and then I'm taking a couple weeks off.

Swimming:

I decided that this winter (and fall I guess) I would dedicate myself to improving in the pool. The game plan was essentially to increase my volume, spend most of the fall and winter increasing my max speed, then continuing through the standard build parts of the year getting faster at middle distance stuff. I think my best 800m time ever was around 1:35/100m and my fastest ever 100m was about 1:30. In the past couple weeks I've gone from about 3-4km/week up to 11.5km in my biggest week. I would like to make 10ish/week the norm but I'm not foolish, I'm not going to just jump into that kind of distance. Therefore during my last 3-week build I started at about 5, then 7ish and hit 11.5, took an easy week and am starting over at about 7. This block I may try and build to 12-15. We'll see. Regardless, the most interesting and rewarding part of this swimming thing came 2 weeks ago. At a big 5k practice coached by friend Alex Vanderlinden, he noticed my right arm was way too close to my body during the pull. He told me to pull a little wider and POW, huge difference right away. Lately I've been enjoying 100 splits in the ballpark of 1:25-1:30 with very little trouble. Weird how a simple technique change can help so much.

Biking:

I bike to work every day and occasionally do an endurance workout. Nothing noteworthy really. During my rest week I did a CP20 test (critical power) to ballpark my FTP (functional threshold power). Surprisingly I managed 270W over 20 minutes giving an estimated FTP of about 250W. Not super high but good all things considred.

Running:

I really want to be up to 50km/week comfortably but I'm not quite there yet. I will generally hit one week at 50km per block, with the other two around 35-45. As long as I'm still improving and not getting injured... Which brings me to my last run test. I decided I would run a straight 5k to test my current fitness and to decide which event I wanted to race at the end of the month. I decided I would try to hold a sub-17 pace with 16:40 being the fastest I would allow my pace to go (thanks, gps watch). I did this at home in the Sault around my neighborhood. There is a 2.7km loop I like that starts at my house and then my block is exactly 1km so I set to do the loop + my block 2.3 times. I had the benefit of a little tailwind at the beginning and my pace was about 3:15. Woah. It didn't even feel that bad. The last half was pretty tough though. However I managed to keep my pace to 3:21/km for a positive-split 16:44. That made me very happy. That also convinced me that it's time to update all my other PBs this year. I mean, I've cracked my 20k bike time, 5k run... Might as well hit the 10k run and 800m swim right? Right. So the next run performance will be October 28th in Springbank Park for the Halloween Haunting. What's better is that the UWO tri club will be there as well as my parents. I'm not sure when my parents saw me compete last, but I'm always excited to show off for them. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll crack the top 10!

Sincerely,
Adam "Volume isn't everything... but it might as well be" Fortais

You shouldn't have to wait this long (and neither should I)

There just hasn't been much to say. To tide you over until the next real post, I pose you this question:

You are quite hungry and have a workout to do. Do you run on empty or push the workout off until you're fully fuelled and digested? This is the reality that I live in almost every day. Hurry up and invent Jetson food already, science.


Adam "Impatiently waiting" Fortais

Half-marathon race result

Just kidding. I hurt my foot in the last week and a half leading into the race and haven't been able to walk on it very well until today. I could hardly even bike on it actually. So I stopped running for a week now and obviously dropped the race. A little upset but it happens. No use over-doing it now, for a very unimportant race.

Instead of run training I've started getting back into pool shape. I don't have a whole lot of swimming knowledge so for the time being I'm working on getting myself up to a reasonable amount of volume (say, ~10-15km/week?). I will be joining the Western Triathlon Club again for swim practices and hopefully I will be able to stay consistent with it.

At the moment I'm trying to decide when to get started with real base training for each sport which is hard when I don't really have any specific races planned. I think I'm going to have to go pretty hard all winter in the pool, take a little break in the spring and get back at it for race season. Bike training went fairly well this year but I will have to adjust the timing since I will be tri-sporting all year. What I'm really trying to decide right now is if I give my foot a bit of time to heal and seriously go for the 5k (maybe 10k?) at the end of October or not. If I do I can focus on running and swimming until November, take a break and start it all over again around January which is where my bike training started this year.

Another thing I'll have to decide is what, if any, Tri Club races to do this year. There is a duathlon in the fall I could do for fun (I would seriously under-perform on the bike by then) as well as some indoor tris during the winter. I will certainly be thinking about the aquathlon in March though.

That's pretty much it I guess. Here, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47xbkT3calM

Adam "Today's Supernatural" Fortais

Fall is my favourite season

Anyone who loved high school XC season has to agree with me to some extent. However it hasn't been since high school that I've raced in the fall... But this is a strange year I guess. I finished up bike racing by the middle of August (hold on, I'll get to that) and now it's full-on run season. I am exactly one week away from my first half-marathon and my final race will come in the form of a (hopefully) ultra quick 5k at the end of October.

My build-up to the half-marathon was not a solid, real half-marathon training program... but I'm not particularly interested in half-marathons and long distance stuff right now. Rather I know I'm quite weak at the longer stuff and I suspect that is holding me back so I figured I would work on that this fall. And what's better motivation than committing to a race you know you don't currently have the ability to race? So I'm going to do my best and use the rest of the fall leading into the end of October.

In terms of race predictions, I don't really know. I'm certain I'll go under 1:30 since I've pretty much done that a couple times this summer as a LSD run. I would really like to try and keep it in the range of 4:00min/km but I think that may be a bit quick for where I'm at right now. My peak volume for running this year has been 50km (lifetime record!) and I have been fairly comfortable in the 40km/week area if that is any indicator. I've done a couple race pace tests in the last couple days with sore legs 4:00min/km seems like a really good, tough, ideal goal. Friday was a straight 10km tempo run at 4:00min/km. I went under 40min with a bit of trouble, but my legs were ultra sore and truthfully, I was limping all day. Still limping today I went for my last long run before the race, 8km easy out, 5km race pace (pfft) and 3km cool down. I went through the 5km in 19:10 huffing a little too much... But on the bright side, a long run like that would have ruined me at any other point in my life so at the very least I'm working toward my real goals.

So what of this biking? Had some pretty good times but noticed some interesting things that only my power meter could have told me. I will show you in the form of a picture.

I hope this isn't too small. Pink is training stress, blue is fitness, yellow is "freshness" or "form". The red squares with lines are top 10 power over 1 min. The black squares with lines are top 10 power over 20 min. The first point I will make is about peaking. My original plan was to do two races per week for 3 weeks. I only managed to do 4 races/simulations but they all took place in a week and a half or so. It was too much for me I think, and my performance dropped with time. It may have gone up if I continued, but I doubt it as I was feeling very rough at the last TT.

The more important point is less of a point and more of a point I have to look into. Interesting fact: out of all my TTs this year, my highest average power came from my very first race. In fact, it's so much higher than any other race (about 15W higher) that I feel like it might even be a mistake. Especially considering the time. This has to have something to do with starting running training after this point, and having a very strong winter and spring training plan... Another picture.

Yellow lines indicate kms/week on bike starting Jan 1. Quite clearly a stronger beginning. However, my speed kept increasing all season. Obviously the last two times are partly due to the new bike, but fact is I was definitely getting faster (crits got easier and more successful with time as well). So perhaps my drop in power as the season progressed was due to the running and less training but maybe there was some benefit coming from the running, such as weight loss or something. I don't know. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

I almost forgot to give you some of these times and some details. Best 15km? 22:3-something. Best 20km? 30:20ish. Another interesting thing, I went out one Saturday to sprint around and try and claim some Strava KOMs. T'was very successful and pretty tough, but upon returning home I decided I wanted to turn it into a brick workout. My plan was 30 minutes easy. When I left the apartment I felt pretty good. about a minute into the run I checked my pace and it was about 3:45min/km... and it felt completely fine. So I decided 20 minutes tempo would be a cool idea. I checked my pace again a little later... 3:40min/km with no increase in effort. So then I decided 2x10min. I hit about 6min and noticed my average pace had dropped to 3:30. Then it was game time. I changed my plan to doing a 5k as fast as I could. It was tough but I finished up with a time of 17:20. Off the bike. My best ever 5k time is 17:17, no biking included. Sweet.

Anyway, I have a little time out of the saddle before I get started again and my run training is all planned out. I have been swimming once a week for a little while and plan on increasing that slowly so that I can take November easy and jump into a true triathlon plan starting some time near December. I've yet to plan out next year, but that's coming soon. Fall is the time to start planning... I love planning.

Adam "Enjoy the Pictures?" Fortais