April Review

OK, so this is a little late, but I believe better late than never.  I am actually using this blog as one way to deal with the post ironman blues!  It is my review, reflect & plan to keep moving forward!  being in recovery phase is tough, physically & mentally!  So let’s reflect:

In April I trainined for 26 out of 30 days, taking 4 rest and recovery days (not bad considereing there was a 7 day taper to IMOZ).  I trained for a touch over 60 hours for the month of April, which happens to be my biggest moth of 2016.  During April I finished (or attempted to finish) the following strava challenges:

Running:

• New Balance Spring Distance Challenge – 96miles finishing 19,102 of 115,234 participants
• Strava half marathon – (completed 3 times) 6:08min/km pace finishing 28,400 of 81,704 participants
• Strava 10km – (completed 6 times) 5:04min/km finishing 34051 of 143662 participants

Cycling:

• April Gran Fondo – 213km was my longest ride finishing 6,512 of 197,498 participants
• April Climing Challenge – 5024m climbed finishing 104,473 of 209,178 (missing the target of 5500)
• April Distance Challenge – 809km finishing 48,772 of 256,451 participants

Following is a summary of activities for April and a total distance for all three disciplines for April (leading into my second ironamn):

The following little chart is from my excel spreadsheet I use to track volumes & hours, it helps me stay on track for my annual goals, also giving a good summary of the monthly totals:

With my 2nd ironamn on 1st May 2016, Ironman Australia at Port Macquarrie, now behind me I had prepared for May to be a very gentle & light on month.  Even with an additional 12 months under my belt, recovery from ironamn still takes time, possibly 4 to 6 weeks for me!  I mean I wont stop everything completly, but the load is a lot harder to manage during this recovery phase.  It is really easy to resume too soon and find myself injured, fatigued or hurt.  I bloged about this very topic last year:

Getting back into it…. How soon is too soon?!?!

So May & June will be gentle gentle gentle months, with simple goals of re-building and reviewing my goals for the up coming summer and 2017.  Currently I have only vague ideas & plans on what I what to do & where I want to race.  So I need to take some time to sit, assess and evaluate where I am going & what I want to do and how that fits with the puzzle of family & work!  Who knows what I am going to do.  No doubt that process will be the topic of a future blog.

In the mean time, I hope you are enjoying my journing into the world of long distance triathlon, I know that I am loving evey race and only wish I had the gumption to attempt something like this in my younger years.

Till next time build consistency, keep smiling and live to Tri!