Monday was the first day of my 16 week training program for Ironman 70.3 New Orleans.
I decided to use the book IronFit Secrets for Half Iron-Distance Triathlon Success. It's by the same authors of the training book that Matthew used for his full Ironman training last year, which he really liked. The book addresses many different training needs including heart rate, nutrition, transition strategies, etc.
The training programs provided include beginner, intermediate or competitive. I'm using the intermediate program while Matthew is using the competitive.
The 16 week program is broken up into two 8 week sections. The first is focused on building volume. The second section includes peak training and taper. Peak training is where volume essentially stays the same while effort increases to build speed.
Mondays and Fridays are rest/slide days (so only 5 days of working out, not bad!). The authors understand that most athletes have busy lives and sometimes life can get in the way of workouts. So they allow for you to choose to use Mondays and Fridays as a rest or to slide in either of the workouts next to it and take a different day off. I love this since my schedule changes fairly regularly.
Each week will have 5 days of workouts including 2 swim sessions, 2 runs, 1 bike session, and 2 or 3 bike then run sessions. So you can see most days include two disciplines.
The authors base your workout effort on heart rate and each session is outlined in what zone should be used and for how long.
This week's planned long run and bike ride are longer than what I've done lately due to injury. So I just plan to continue to let me body get used to training again and just play catch up over the next 8 weeks. The goal is to be on point on week 9 when the peak training begins.
Three days in! I'll share all about my week in my wrap up post on Sunday!