The past 4 months have constituted my off-season, and as such I've focused on preparation. First of all, I've been able to stay healthy. Secondly, I've undergone a professional bike fitting and aerobar installation, which I'm optimistic will keep my back spasms more at bay on long rides. In an effort to focus my training, I've also picked out the four triathlons I'd like to do next year: one Sprint triathlon, two Internationals, and one Half-Ironman. I also committed to a 6-person 100-mile relay race from Hickory to Boone with my brother David in March. As a result, I've been mostly focusing on inching my run mileage and intensity up over the last 2 months, and am starting to see improvements in my workouts as a result. Just yesterday morning, I had a very nice interval workout on the Appalachian State intramural fields in perfect "Indian Summer" weather.
I've also been more consistent about high-intensity interval training, and have integrated farmer's carries and overhead carries into many of my workouts in an effort to strengthen my upper body and core. I'm hopeful this upper body work will translate to some gains in the water. I've even started developing callouses on my palms from the weights, which has been peculiarly satisfying!
With a new baby in the home, recovery and workout timing has particularly important. As I am able to sleep more on my work weeks thanks to Mindy's willingness to shoulder the baby's nocturnal feedings, I am better able to recover from workouts on my work weeks than I am when I am sleep-deprived on my weeks off. I've also found that a sleep-deprived workout is often hardly worth doing given how sluggish I feel. So I'm squeezing as many work-day workouts in as I can.
True to form, here's the graphical representation of my workouts over the last 4 months. The main takeaway is that I'm starting to run more. Hopefully the other lines will be on an upward trajectory too in my next update!
