2010 has started

So we are already one month in to 2010. I would normally be in my off season right now given my past 4 years of triathlon seasons as reference but this year I have aimed to be a little more organized.

For the first year, I am actually trying to follow a good periodization schedule which takes into account the years intended races. This means two things. One, I have to know what races I intend to do before I start this schedule, and two, I will be starting the build up as of January. In comparison, I only started training properly in April last year with my first time in the water coming in the Redondo Triathlon in May. To help me out, I am using the online training package, TrainingPeaks.

This year, I plan this race to be my third of the year so hopefully I won't be caught out by my lack of swim fitness.

As a result of this extra planning, I am also addressing some of my weaknesses in the sport. For the most part, this is done by addressing efficiencies in technique rather than adding quantity.

I have been working hard on my running cadence. I downloaded a nice application called BeaTunes that is a variant of iTunes. It is primarily designed to help you fix and analyze your iTunes library. I am using it to add Beats Per Minute (bpm) information to all of my songs. With this done, I have made a playlist of all songs that have a bpm of 180, (or 90). I can then play these songs as I run and I have a perfect beat to try to stick to. I am naturally running a little slower than this at the moment, but I am feeling the cadence getting faster over time.

I can listen to the same playlist on my way into work on my bike as I am aiming for 90 bpm here too.

As for the swimming, I am going back to basics. I am currently being coached by Ian Murray from TTS (Triathlon Training Series) as part of a 4 week clinic. My session today for example was 40 minutes of balance drills without taking a single stroke. It's addressing some crucial basics so I am pretty confident with how things are already feeling. We'll know in 4 weeks.

Finally, On the bike, I am doing drills as well. One legged drills are helping iron out any dead spots in my pedaling which my left leg nerve damage hasn't helped with.

Anyway, back to my schedule. My first race of the season in next month, (March 7th), at the Desert Triathlon where I will be doing the USAT sanctioned sprint race. Let's see how things improve before then.