First 4+ Weeks of TC 10 Mile Training

(... with Coach Jen’s training plan from 2010 for 20-something-year-old Steve)

Now that I’m over half done with Coach Jen’s old workouts (AND STILL SURVIVING!!), I figured it was time to reflect back on these few weeks. Here’s what the first 4.5 weeks of training with Jen looked like in 2010, showing early August through early September:

Lots of swimming, some back-to-back running days,
and mainly easier/shorter rides (ending with a race on Saturday the 4th).

And here’s what the same 4.5 weeks looked like this year:

More strength, more riding, no back-to-back running days,
and a race on Sunday the 8th.

(Part of the reason I raced the Square Lake Sprint Triathlon this past weekend is that it lined up with a a short duathlon that I did back in 2010 in the middle of my 8+ weeks of training with Coach Jen.)

So the captions under those calendar screenshots tell most of the story. I’m biking more (and harder) now. And swimming a lot less. I think Jen had me swimming a lot to keep up my endurance (without stressing my body), but I SORT OF feel like I get that from all my riding lately. I’m NOT doing any back-to-back running days. In fact, I’m “shuffling” her workouts around to keep them close to my norm for the last few years: long run Mondays, usually an easier run on Wednesdays (that I’ve replaced with a harder run from Jen), and then “speed work” on Fridays. Then weekends off from running. We’ll have to see if me messing with her workouts will still have a decent payoff.

The rest of the story is a shocker: I can’t believe that I’m keeping up with 2010 Steve!. When I started re-following her workouts, I noted that I was shocked to have 3 out of my first 4 workouts FASTER NOW than back in 2010. And then the 5th was faster too, and I expected that workout to humble me more. If I compare all of the workouts from then and now, here’s what it looks like (with GREEN meaning faster now, and RED meaning slower now):

Of the 9 hard workouts of Jen’s that I did over these last 4.5 weeks, 7 of them have been faster! Only the hill repeats were a little slower, and one of the long runs was slower because it was SO DAMN HOT (I lost a lot of weight during that run, but was just BARELY slower than I was in 2010).

I don’t know what’s going on. I still don’t think I’m setting myself up for a 10 mile PR, but I’m starting to get more hopeful of having a NICE race. It’s becoming realistically possible to have my 2nd fastest 10 mile (that would be between 59:05 and 1:01:20 - my 2010 and 2011 TC 10 Mile times). I’m still not getting my hopes up as there’s still a lot of training days left, and things could still really tank.

Also, it’s possible I’m “training” faster because I’ve gotten better at “training” since 2010 - it might not equate to having a faster race. Maybe my training has become more intense over the years, so I’m used to training hard like this, but then my race will be how my races usually are (and lately, that’s been around 1:02:xx for a 10 mile). I just figure I’ll keep training as hard as I can with her workouts and see what happens in 3.5 weeks!