Holidays are over tomorrow and the new year has begun. Many have New Year's resolutions and I guess I do in a way, I want to complete my first Ironman 70.3 this year. However, that to me is more of a goal that is unrelated to the new year.
Over the past 4 or 5 months Ian and I have been trying to build up a base in swimming, biking and running in order to be able to handle the training for a half ironman. We've done fairly well but over December we got a little slack, it is time to get back on track as the real training begins now.
I have been searching and searching for an Ironman 70.3 program that fits my schedule and abilities, everything I found was either too intense or too basic. I spoke with my godmother about this, as she is a triathlete who has competed at the world championships as an age grouper in the olympic distance...throwing that in there because I'm proud :) She recommended that I look at a book called "The Triathlon Bible" by Joe Friel. He has a lot of tips on how to build your own program. I spent a lot of time over the holiday studying this book and finally came up with a program that I think will be challenging enough but still manageable enough, that we can be consistent.
Also, starting this week and next are two group sessions I've signed up for. The first starts tomorrow and it is with the Nepean Masters Swim Club. I have no problem swimming 1.9km if I mostly do breaststroke but I want to do this race with a little speed, so I figured training with a group, will force me to push myself harder. The second group session starts January 14th and is with the Ottawa Triathlon Club, the Cast Iron program. From what I understand, the program includes biking (spinning in winter), strength and flexibility, and then running. The first week the whole thing is about 2 hours and we work our way up to 4 hours. I'm really looking forward to this as I think I'll learn a lot from both the instructors and the other members.
I'm really excited to take on this new adventure. :)
