Week 2 Training for ITU Worlds: Better But Still Getting There

Editor’s note: Ian Murray is using Zwift to train for the International Triathlon Union Long Course World Championships held in Odense/Fyn, Denmark July 2018. His weekly Zwift Insider series discusses the previous week’s training and the plan for the upcoming week.

I know, starting a training plan right before the holidays is a recipe for failure early on in the process.  I am well aware of this and have built the plan accordingly.  To be honest, I only started training this far out to keep myself occupied during some down days while the wife is traveling.  So, while it seems like I have built in a lot of training, I have no delusions that I will hit everything spot on in the first few weeks.

Week 2 Recap – Still Getting Around the Work Schedule

Unlike in the previous week, I had more control over my schedule.  Not complete control, mind you, but way more control than the previous week.  As it is early in the training block, I am still focused on strength and running, and really I am erring on the side of strength when it comes down to it.  The foundation needs to be strong this year, as the longer distance can break me down.

That being said, I also had a fitness test for work on Tuesday, so that limited my Monday training a little bit.  I still got in some work on Monday, 90 minutes of riding and a short strength workout, but I kept it fairly light.  Tuesday followed with the test, which consists of 2 minutes of push-ups, 2 minutes of sit-ups, and a 2-mile run.  I had a good day, doing 82 push-ups, 82 sit-ups, and running 11:03.  A little cool down jogging following the test and a short swim in the early evening capped off a great training day.

The rest of the week went fairly well.  On Wednesday I led the Endurance Lab group workout in the morning and the SkillZ and DrillZ Ride in the evening.  I was pleased with my long run of a little over 10 miles on Thursday and the strength session that followed.  Friday was a mixed bag of a day.  The strength work went very well, but my swim got cancelled in the afternoon due to work issues. Of course, all of this led up to a planned Zwift race on Saturday morning, one of the TeamODZ special events.

Despite some significant technical difficulties associated with the Friday night Zwift update, some of us still managed to get in the module and race.  It wasn’t my best 80-minute output by any stretch, but it was good for what I had done to my legs this week.  I ended up taking the sprint victory almost entirely due to good tactics.  My breakaway partner was at least equal strength, so I had to race smarter.  Here’s the video of the race (the sprint finish is at the 1:25 mark.)

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcK2nEu9N0U[/embedyt]

And then there is Sunday.  You see, it’s the damndest thing those hard efforts.  Although the race was not very long, I did bury myself a little.  And, the race started later than I normally start my rides.  Why do I mention that?  Well, let’s just say that my normal feeding plan got thrown off on Saturday.  Yeah, I ate breakfast at 11:00 or so and then got busy with errands.  Before I knew it, it was 4:30 PM.  I had not eaten lunch, nor did I have my planned ice cream snack.  No, unfortunately my ice cream shop was out of the flavors I like.  I was pretty disappointed to be honest.

By the time I ate, two hours later, the damage had been done.  I could only put down so many calories, and it was not enough to catch up.  Thus, as I type this, I am not running as planned.  I am sitting in a cafe near my house waiting on some french toast, drinking a cappuccino.  I plan on doing my strength workout later, but I doubt I will get to the run.  That’s ok.  I am well over my targeted TSS for the week, as recommended by TrainingPeaks, so I am not going to sweat it

Week 3 Preview – Getting Ready for Santa

Week 3 will be a bit more of the same.  I will keep the strength work going and add a little more running.  I am not sure if the TeamODZ race will be rescheduled to this Saturday yet, but it looks like that will be the case.  Thus, I am planning on an easy Friday to be ready for Saturday.  To be fair, I have about 500 TSS going into the race, so I’ll have a good bit of training leading up to it.

As you can see, the week has started with green.  I hope that we keep the green going throughout the week.  Speaking of that, we’ll cover the green, yellow, red next week.  For anyone who wants to join in on some of the training, I’ll be riding leading a group workout on Wednesday mornings at 0515 EDT and running long on Thursday morning at around the same time.  Hope to see you out on course!