Upcoming Testing Week

Alright, my motivation had been waning of late. I would get fired up about training during peak work hours when I couldn't go out and do anything, then end up worn out or not motivated by the time I got home. I blame 3 things: adjusting to a work/train schedule since I was unemployed 6 weeks ago, PS3 particularly Call of Duty 4 which is just far too good of a game to be healthy, and the weather.

I thought I would have no difficulty adding in some 5am workouts considering just over 9 months ago I was waking up at 4:30am 5 days a week for rowing practice, now I was only planning on 2-3 days of morning workouts. I was wrong...turns out when the threat of someone banging your door down to get you to workout is gone, it's much easier to roll over and go back to bed when the alarm goes off. Who knew

However, this past weekends break in the cold and dreary, along with daylight savings on the horizon and the end of my prep period at the end of next week has rejuvenated me. I'm having a great week of training this week, and some of its even been outside.

Since next sunday is the last day of my prep phase before moving to Base1, I am going to be doing my first testing of the season (and ever for that matter) and I am excited. I asked some people for advice on this, and took what they had to say into account before deciding how it will go. So, here's what I came up with:

Swim TT: 900yd pool swim (45yd/lap at my local pool)--I will be looking purely at time and split/90yd (which I'll probably convert to 100yd or m) since my HR monitor doesn't read well while swimming

Bike TT: 10 mile out route (will use back 10mi for recovery)--looking at time and HR mainly to get pace, etc... I had originally wanted to do a longer test ride, but as long as I have a consistent benchmark to test against, that's fine with me.

Run TT: 4.2mile paved route thru local park--looking at HR and time

I know I should probably do the run on a track or treadmill and a shorter bike if I really want lactic threshold data, etc. However, I think I would like it to more simulate the environment of a race (real roads, closer to actual distances) so I can see my fitness improvements through time drops while also working on pacing, at least in the swim and run.

All tests will be done in the last week of every training phase (prep, base1, base2, build1, etc) and will be run on the same courses in hopefully as similar as conditions as I am able to replicate. They will all be done on separate days in the same week and will be the only high intensity work of the day. I will post results as they come.

YAY for a second wind of motivation to pull me through the remaining winter (hopefully)