Snowy trails wearing me down, swimming SLOWLY improving.

As the old year ticked over into the year I officially started training for the 2010 race season. Over the last three weeks I have been averaging around 80-85 km (50+ miles) of running a week, 10-15% more than I have on my training schedule. The past two weeks we have had up to 20 cm of snow on the ground, making longer runs challenging. On Saturday it warmed up just enough to make the snowy trails treacherous to run, I slipped and slid my way over 24 km (15 mi.), the effort leaving my legs sore and tired, particularly noticeable when I woke up Sunday. I ended up reducing my Sunday run from 20 km to 13, no point in overdoing it on icy trails, besides my mileage was well over what I had on my training schedule.

I was looking over my training plan yesterday afternoon and concluded that my training is much too advanced so early in the year. My gut feeling is that if I continue at this rate I may end up peaking way too early - not around the 100K in June when it is desirable. To counter this I want to drop back to 4 days a week running and add some weight training (Crossfit). I also want continue with my two days a week swimming for a couple more months, at least until my mileage starts to peak.

Speaking of swimming, I was at the pool on Friday following work and for the first time in a couple months had a halfway decent workout. Since my swim course ended at the end of November I have been struggling to complete a 50 meter freestyle lap without running out of breath. On this particular night I slowed down and concentrated on my form and was completing 100 meter laps without hesitation. I swam a total of 1300 meters, alternating 100 meters of breaststroke and crawl, with a 5-10 breath pause at the end of each 100 meters, probably not impressive for most of you out there, but nevertheless a breakthrough for me.

My swim goals for the next few months are to work up to 2000 meters combined breast/crawl by the end of June, with at least 700 meters nonstop crawl. The latter is needed for my sprint Tri in July, it will take lots of hard work!