I have an annual training plan and training woes.

So I found out through casual conversation that I have an annual training plan.  Nothing before, since, or now has made me feel like an athlete like that has.  The smile hasn't left my face.  I don't need to know what the plan is, I just get a kick knowing that I have one.

So I found out I was getting shortened workout weeks because of races.  Wish I had known!  Not doing Vegas RAGNAR anymore.  I was planning on making 2014 my RAGNAR year and just do all of them and just do 1 IM and 2 HIMs that year but I'm really getting into this whole SBR thing and I think I'm just going to keep with those and just do more HIMs and Olys and Sprints and maybe two IMs per year.  I already did 3 RAGNARs, might as well do something new like some more marathons, some centuries, things like that.

My running and biking are getting slower, and I don't know why.  It really may be just as simple as the heat and increased weekly miles.  But at today's 11.4 MPH for 35 miles, I'm not meeting the cutoff for PM.  15 weeks to get to 12 MPH+ for 56.  I do have my first 40 miler training ride this week, excited for that, and  my first seven miler training run this week.  I have ran 14 miles once and 7.XX miles a handful of times.  Starting to enjoy the increased mileage.  I'm about halfway distance wise for PM.

I view training as consistently hitting your head at a wall.   You hope the wall breaks before your head does.  In the same way, I hope I get better and my times break before my spirit does.  But if I have anything going for me, it's endless hope.

It kind of ticks me off, though, especially reading so many triathlon and SBR books.  You come upon the sport, train, get better.  I'm almost done with my sixth month and I have times worse than when I started.  Longer distances, but worse times.  I don't improve, I regress sigh.  I have an average of 8 hours per week training from the beginning of the year until now, 9 if you add in the strength training.  That's including when I started from scratch.  I have the consistent training, where are my results?  My coach said something I found quite brilliant when I told her I wans't progressing as quickly as I wanted.  She said, "No one does."  But it's not that I'm not progressing that fast, it's that I'm REgressing!!

One step forward, four steps back.  That's how I view training.

I want sooooooooo bad to go a spinning class and sandbag it.  Sit in the back corner, pretend I have resistance on, and just idly move my legs while I close my eyes and breath in the music, the instructor cuing, the people talking and texting.  I'm starting to realize my next group class is going to be after 5/18/2013.

Coaching group is starting trainer workouts on Tuesday, we all meet together with our bikes and trainers.  I realized this is as close as I'm going to come to a group class for the next year, so I plan to enjoy the hell out of it.

I miss group classes so bad but I don't know if I can go back to them.  In a year I'd be able to go on pretty much any ride around town any day, do long runs just for fun, swim.  Maybe just do the Ironman for now and then decide later.  Should be easier to keep IM shape than getting there.