And we are go!
Entire workout at a glance
Week 1 is always a baseline week where the main focus is to get some test workouts done which are then used to calculate intensities for future workouts. These test are performed regularly (some 8 weeks or so) to adjust the intensity for increased fitness.
I started the week off with a swim speed test and was pretty happy with how it went. I swam 400 and 200 meters as fast as possible and was quite surprised to swim a 6:52 (1:43 min/100m) for the 400 meters and 3: 17 (1:38 min/100m). This put my speed to 1:48 min/100m. I was expecting something north of 1:50 to 1:55 so this is an amazing result. The goal is to get this done into the mid 1:30s again and shoot for a 1 hour and 5 minute or below swim at race day.
Next was a bike FTP test. Simply put, warm up for 10-15 minutes with easy pedaling and some bursts mixed here and there. After that you go as hard as possible for 20 minutes. Take 95% of the average power for that 20 minute period and you got your FTP which is then used to calculate all other training intensities. Here I also feared a bad result of 240 W or below but in the end I up with an FTP of 253 W which for my current weight of almost 80 kg is a 3.16 W/kg somewhere in between the moderate and good categories. As I start losing weight and increase my FTP (I hope to get back or even beyond my 292 W max from 3 years ago) this will get hopefully into the 4.2-4.3 range pushing me into the very good range (I would still be bad at cycling races but it will work well for triathlon). The goal for the race is to finish the bike part in something around 5 hours and 10 minutes which equates to roughly 35 km/h.
The last test I did was a run test. I was shooting for something around 4:30 min/km which would have been doable if I ran on a normal road but I chose a dirt road close to home. The problem there was that some heavy machines drove over it and loosened the top soil quite a bit so it felt like running through sand for half of the test. All in all I am still happy to have a 4:34 min/km threshold pace and with more than enough time to lower it back to below 4:00 min/km where it was when my fitness was at its peak. This should put me in a comfortable position to push a pace of 4:45 min/km on the race so that I can finish the marathon in around 3 hours and 20 minutes.
With transitions included I should finish the race is something like 9 hours and 43 minutes but of course I will be shooting for a lot more 😊
The goal
The rest of the week was filled with easy workouts (2 hour ride and 1 hour run) as well as a simple brick (bike-run) workout at the end of the week.
Unfortunately, the kids were all a little sick at one point during the week so I couldn’t really leave the house for 2+ hours to swim but since it’s still very early in the process I think I can make up for it.
I will also include some tables and graphs to monitor my progress throughout these 36 weeks. These graphs will be displaying my fitness (fit test results) once I get at least 2 data points and my physical characteristics (weight, body fat and muscle mass).
Here is also a breakdown of my training last week.
| Swim | Bike | Run | Strenght | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance | 1.5 (1.5) | 76.9 (76.9) | 18.8 (18.8) | - |
| Time | 0:29 (0:29) | 3:12 (3:12) | 1:35 (1:35) | 1:20 (1:20) |
| Skipped | 1/2 | 0/3 | 0/3 | 0/2 |
Values in brackets show totals
Next week I’ll talk a little more about one topic I neglected a lot before - recovery.
Until then,
Stay healthy