Training Plan

After some silence on Bernal Hill yesterday morning I drove down to Santa Clara to meet up with my friend Chad to work on our training plan for Ironman Coeurd d'Alene. First thing we did when I got there was go for a run at Rancho San Antonio, a beautiful open space preserve in Los Altos; with all the congestion in some of the cities in the Bay Area there are still plenty of places to get out and enjoy creation. It was a great chance for us to catch up and talk everything life while we ploded along lungs and legs burning. The process of life is something to be marveled at, embraced. You do what makes sense in light of your life goals, making decisions today that will hopefully bare fruit in the years to come. I was struck by the beauty and gift of life as I talked with Chad about his plans to move to CO and what might more fulfill his dreams vocationally.

Returning back to his place we cracked our books and began the planning session. While I've participdated in triathlons before, and even followed a schedule I'v never actually developed a well thought out schedule. I know the principles, periodization, variability, etc, and I've implemented that on a whimsical scale but never on a planned out dilio. Partly because I'm not a planner straight up.

So we got into it and CRIPES it's a lot a work. We laid out the year, our ATP or "annual training plan" if you will, and only started at translating the macrocycles into actual weekly workouts. That's where the art of training and knowing your body comes in and will take some time to develop. Setting aside the 4 hours it took to get our overall plan was well worth it, and there's the added satisfaction of establishing it together.

Here's a picture of what we've got so far: