First 5 Weeks of TC 10 Mile Training

This is sort of a follow up to last week's "August in review" post about a HUGE biking month. August was also my official kick-off to TC 10 Mile training. I was ready to start in mid-July, but the Raspberry Run (and then recovering afterwards) kept me from starting 2 weeks earlier.

I did a post like this 2 years ago when I re-used Coach Jen's workouts from 2010 (those are the only 2 years I went sub-60: 59:05 in 2010, and 59:23 in 2024).

Only this year, I'm comparing 3 years worth of times. So RED TEXT means I was slowest of all 3 years, ORANGE TEXT means it was the middle time of the 3 years, and GREEN TEXT means it was my fastest time of the 3 years of doing these "Coach Jen" workouts for the TC 10 Mile:

That first workout was a hilly run from Jen, and that kinda screwed up my calf a bit which is why the next 3 runs were all non-Jen runs. That scared me and made me COMMIT to making sure every Wednesday run was just an easy run.

So then I re-kicked off the "Coach Jen" workouts with my fastest 4 mile tempo. But that could have been "artificially" fast as it was a FLAT trail.

For the 3rd week, I posted about both of those hard runs in the same post. Feeling good about the training!!

The biggest mental shift happened after the start of the 4th week. I cranked out a PR for that 2x10 minute effort on my long run and was suddenly looking at 3 out of my last 4 runs being PRs for those TC 10 Mile workouts! I was hoping to do some Coach Jen workouts as to not look too shabby at the TC 10 Mile after an injury in January and again in April. I was NOT thinking about racing WELL at this race... until just after that run!...

... but then I started turning in some slower times. That mid-summer heat came back, and I had some hot steamy runs that really sucked. I had my stickiest run ever just before the start of this training, and we had a few more bad days in later August. The 8 x 3:00 hard / 3:00 easy wasn't a hot day, but it was extra hilly. And I turned in the worst performance ever for that workout.

And that final full week was split (as I posted about both of those runs in this post): I had a GREAT long run on Monday, but then a hot and slow tempo run on Friday... that run on Friday was 90 sec slower than the last time I did it. Ouch.

Finally, I never posted about that last long run in August on the 31st, but that one felt OK. It was humid, but I felt like I did OK for the conditions. Coach Jen really likes to descend workouts and have me get faster throughout, but this one was just a FAST 5 MILER in the middle of a long run. No descend. Just fast from start to finish. In the humidity, I cranked out a 30:30 for the middle 5 miles (with no mile split dropping below 6:00), and like I said, I felt OK with that. I ran a 30:02 two years ago, and a 29:26 in 2010, so it was my slowest ever. But not depressingly so.

Bottom line: after a big month of training, I couldn't expect any more than what I see above! If at the start of the month you'd have told me that I'd do 8 Coach Jen workouts in August and run the fastest version of 4 of them, I would not have believed you. We'll see what these final few weeks hold, but I'm happy with how things have been going. I'm not looking to drop below 60 again, but I'd be happy to post something faster than 1:02:00, and POSSIBLY even shoot for sub 1:01:00 on a perfect morning. Lots of workouts between now and then though...

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400+ Mile PR Bike Month!

August was one for the record books. This was NICE:

• SWIM: 6,810 yards (odd yardage because of 1 swim in a 25 meter pool)
• BIKE: 413.63 miles (A PR since IM training... maybe a lifetime PR!)
• RUN: 110.60 miles (top 3 month)
• STRENGTH TIME: 60 hours and 23 minutes (top 3 month)

Swimming wasn't special. I skipped a swim while on a family vacation. Nothing amazing here.

Biking was HUGE!! I don't have my old paper records from when I was Ironman training in 2007, so I might have had a bigger July and/or August 19 years ago, but it's been my biggest month since then! I had a 130 mile week on a family vacation (also written about here), and just had solid rides all month.

I hit 400.7 miles 2 years ago in August, but that's the closest I've come to this 413+ mile total. But back in August of 2024, I was commuting around town on my bike a lot - it was less "training." Really only about 225 miles of those 400 were "training" 2 years ago, whereas nearly 400 of 413 were "traninig" this year! They were SOLID RIDES! (Sidenote: I still want to commute more on my bike, but just noting there's a difference between having a high mileage month with lots of easy commuter miles vs working hard on my tri bike for more "real" rides.)

Running was also good! As far as I can tell, my biggest month running was January of 2016 with 116.49 miles, and then last December with 113.68 miles. So this MIGHT be my 3rd biggest month since high school with 110.60 miles! Ramping up for the TC 10 mile again!! (Speaking of which... I looked back to [and actually FOUND] a "month in review" from August of 2010 when I was working with Coach Jen to hit my big sub-60 goal at the TC 10 Mile later that year, and I saw that I ran 108 miles that August, so I've out-done that month!)

And I think strength time was my 3rd highest ever too! I had a few more hours in May of this year, and I noted in that post that 2nd place was April with 60 hours and 42 minutes. So 60 hours and 23 minutes is just behind that 2nd place from April, so that appears to be lifetime top-3 months of strength time all with in the last 5 months! (Slightly artificially high because I try to do an extra 20 minutes of PT shoulder exercises about 3x/week since hurting my shoulder in Decemeber and starting PT earlier this year.)

Trying to keep this going for the TC 10 Mile. I'll be back within the next week with a recap of how that's been going (with notes from old "Coach Jen" workouts).

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July in Review

Here's what July looked like in my training log:

• SWIM: 7,800 yards
• BIKE: 258.6 miles
• RUN: 95.02 miles
• STRENGTH/CORE TIME: 57 hours and 25 minutes

As I stated in my "June in Review" post, I knew July could hold shorter bike mileage because of being gone for the first week (Henry's fencing tournament in Portland, also posting about a long run in Portland). But I still cranked out over 250 miles, so that's not horrible.

Running was just fine at 95 miles. It would have been over 100 (my loose threshold for it being a "good" month) if it weren't for backing off mid-month for the Raspberry Run 1 Mile (the 1-mile race on the 19th replaced an 11 mile long run on the 20th, so do the math...).

And my stregth time was nice! 57+ hours is easily a top-10 month for me based on time.

None of the individual weeks in July were that great, except for that last full week of the 20th. It was a post-race week, and I got in some nice bike time as I noted in this post. It ended up having 23.5 hours of training time, which is a BIG week!

Ramping up now for the TC 10 Mile. Back with a post about 2 good "coached" training runs shortly!

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June's Training in Review: Decent (for Being Busy)

Here's a quick look at June's training in reivew:

• SWIM: 8,800 yards (first swims in 10 months!)
• BIKE: 256.24 miles
• RUN: 105.41 miles
• STRENGTH: 51 hours and 58 mins

This June was much better than last June where I had so little training. I still had 4 nights up north with 4 kids (the gaps in training the 5th through the 9th), so that meant a hit to my strength time and biking time. But on another long weekend get-away, I still got in a long bike ride and then a decent long run a few weeks back.

Speaking of June 2025's crappy training, I've apparently had busy Junes with poor training. This year, I beat all my numbers from June of 2024 as well. And it was also much better overall than June of 2023.

Happy my run miles were back up over 100 miles since March, and thrilled with getting in 250+ bike miles!

The boys and I just got back into town after being at a national fencing tournament for 5 days, so I'm already calling it that July's numbers won't be STEALLAR. I'll work to make them DECENT, but they won't be amazing as I've already skipped 2 bike rides.

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May in Review: Lots of Biking, and MAJOR Strength Time PR!

May saw some DECENT numbers! Here’s what my training log looked like:

(Don’t let the red and purple in the final week scare you: the red is just noting a race, and the purple was noting some shoulder pain after trying something different in the gym - I don’t think they are related.)

I had some BIG NUMBERS for strength training and bike miles!

RUN: 91.85 miles
BIKE: 360.69 miles (outdoors)
TRAINER TIME: 2 hours and 21 minutes
STRENGTH TIME: 66 hours and 53 minutes

Total saddle time: 22 hours, 3 minutes, and 24 seconds

That’s not really super impressive saddle time, but so much of it was outside, so 360+ miles of outdoor riding is huge! That might be a top-5 month of bike miles in the last 18+ years (post-Ironman training). I had 1 bigger month all of last year, 2 bigger months all of 2024, and 0 bigger months all of 2023. And my years were all smaller before that. So this random May might have been my 4th biggest of month of biking in the last 18+ years.

And that’s a massive lifetime PR for strength time! I’ve been getting in some good longer workouts! And what has helped (artificially) bump that number even higher is that I’m doing an extra 15-20 minutes of new shoulder exercises about 5 days/week to help strengthen my shoulder issue from December. May was nearly 67 hours, and my previous PR was April with 60 hours and 42 minutes. So 6+ hours more is a big jump from a previous lifetime best!

This month will see a decrease in bike miles - partly due to more family things happening this summer, and partly due to getting a gym membership so I'm HOPING that one of my biking days each week will transition back to pool time instead.

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An Injured Month: April's Training in Review

I had some calf pain on April 1st and ended up taking the entire following week off from running. So April was an odd month:

Here are my monthly totals:

RUN: 60.97 miles (a few less than January where I was also injured)
BIKE: 113.17 miles (outdoors)
TRAINER TIME: 11 hours and 39 minutes
STRENGTH TIME: 60 hours and 42 minutes

Total saddle time: 20 hours, 09 minutes, and 33 seconds

Partly because I started seeing a PT for my shoulder pain, I set a PR for strength time for a month because of added in shoulder work! I beat my previous PR from March 2025 when I had 60 hours and 33 minutes (only 9 minutes more last month!), and my previous 2nd best was just 6 weeks ago in March of 2026. March is usually a good training month for me.

Running and biking were nothing special. Biking was on the low side of average, and running was REALLY low because of that week off followed by a shorter week of "test" runs.

Also in April, I had a night of (unplanned) diarrhea, a night of (PLANNED) diarrhea to coincide with my first colonoscopy (and a long run hours after getting that done!), and a big training week between those 2 incidents.

Trying to ramp things up more this month!

This post gives a quick rundown of my calf pain / issues throughout the last few weeks.

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March in Review: a BIG Month

I mentioned in a post last week that March tends to be a good month for me. And this past month was no different:

Here are my monthly totals:

RUN: 106.74 miles
BIKE: 183.82 miles (outdoors)
TRAINER TIME: 15 hours and 2 minutes
STRENGTH TIME: 58 hours and 24 minutes

Total saddle time: 26 hours, 29 minutes, and 24 seconds

183 miles biked and 106 mile ran are both just NICE numbers! (Both a little shy of last March's 217 and 109 miles.)

Strength time MIGHT be my 2nd highest ever! (Again, behind last March's all-time monthly PR of 60 hrs and 33 mins.)

And my trainer time is really big too (especially for getting in 183 miles outside as well!). Just over 15 hours of trainer time is my 2nd biggest month in the last 42 months (since the "big trainer year" of 2022). I had more trainer time in March than in all of 2011, 12, 13, and 14 (shockingly, those were the years with babies in my household, so there's that...).

What's nice when glancing at the month is that I had bike workouts EVERY Tues, Thurs, and Saturday! They weren't always the best, but there were also some nice ones in there as well. And also regarding my biking, those 183 outdoor bike miles totalled out to be just over 100 miles on my tri bike, and 83 miles on my mountain bike. So 83 of those miles were HARD and SLOW because I was on a heavy, rusty, cheapest-mountain-bike-Erik's-Bike-Shop-had-to-offer, 22-year-old mountain bike. I'm not about to say something like "those 83 miles on my MTB are more like XX miles on my tri bike," but I DO feel like I could get more credit for those miles. (My heartrate is just as high as on my tri bike, but I'm going about 2/3 the speed on my MTB: more like 13 mph compared to 20 mph.)

And it was the last partial week of Febuary (slightly grayed out at the top of the calendar above) that I started doing a shorter outdoor ride on my mountain bike on a chilly day, followed IMMEDIATELY by a trainer workout as a more fun way to get in a longer workout. I did it twice at the very end of Febuary, and then 4 times in March (my first 6 times I tried that were within 5 weeks). I hope to only have to do that a few more times before it's ALWAYS nice enough to be outside! In case you're wondering why I do that, there are 2 main reasons... First, when it was icy out, riding my tri bike is a death trap. And second, it's easy to be outside on a mountain bike on a shorter ride when it's kinda chilly as I'm not moving as fast (creating less cold wind) and I'm not out there as long (as toes get colder and colder even on 50 degree days). So to get SOME time outside feels good, but I'll just do enough before I start to freeze. On a recent 50 degree ride, I came home with my 2 smallest toes on my left foot turning white because they were so cold.

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February in Review: Light but Hard Running, Heavy Biking

It was a pretty uneventful month, but here's how it stacked up:

• BIKE: 45.17 miles (all on old MTB)
• TRAINER: 18 hours and 20 minutes
• RUN: 91.56 miles
• STRENGTH / CORE: 47 hours and 38 mins

For it being a "short" month, those are OK numbers. Less than 100 running miles isn't stellar, but if the month had 2 more days at the end, it would have been nearly 103 miles (more normal). One nice thing here is that each Friday was a speed day... none of those workouts were GREAT, but at least I was trying to run hard. I did a treadmill 5K, 2x2 mile intervals along the river, treadmill 3x1 mile intervals, and a 3 mile tempo run outside.

The biking is big for me: that's nearly 22 hours in the saddle, which is solid for a short, winter month. That's averaging 5.5 hours/week, or 1 hr and 50 mins for 3 rides/week. And EACH WEEK had 3 normal days of biking! (Bike workouts on Tue, Thur, and Saturday, with a few extra rides in there.) I had a long trainer ride on the 10th, and then the 24th and the 26th both had outdoor mountain bike rides to START the workout, with then more done on the trainer on my tri bike immediately after - that was a fun way to get 2.5 hours in the saddle on each of those days!

The month started with a few treadmill runs, had some decent outside runs mid-month, and then I was back on the treadmill for 2 runs near the end of the month (12 total runs, 4 on the treadmill, 8 outside). Sidenote: I always run treadmill runs to the perfect TENTH of a mile, and I make sure outside runs go to a HUNDREDTH, so that I can take a quick glace and see what runs were on the treadmill. So my Monday long run on the 16th was outside because it was 11.59 miles, but I was inside on the 23rd because it was 10.9 miles.

So a decent month with some consistent workouts!

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January in Review: a Small, Injured Month

Here's what January looked like in my training log:

• BIKE: 14.28 miles
• TRAINER TIME: 11 hours and 55 mins
• RUN: 65.39 miles
• STRENGTH TIME: 41 hours and 38 mins

None of those are good numbers, mainly because of some random butt tightness that popped up on the 5th and came back with a vengence on the 12th. I skipped some runs and bike workouts on the 14th through the 19th because of that, and then we were in Costa Rica for a week. I also had some failed treadmill intervals on the 9th as well. My strength numbers are a bit smaller because of the trip, but also because I'm not doing some longer leg exercises until my butt heals up a little more.

Last week, I had a decent speed workout to end the week, and I had a NEARLY NORMAL long run this morning. So I'm hoping that February has some bigger numbers in all of those categories above!

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December In Review: Using a NEW TRAINING LOG (and Hating It)

I posted a few weeks ago how BeginnerTriathlete has died. It was where I tracked my workouts since 2009. Ouch.

So here's a glance at December's calendar from FinalSurge instead of BeginnerTriathlete:

What do you notice? I'll tell you what: it's unreadable at that size. Compare that to my November training in review post that showed this calendar from BeginnerTriathlete:

Hey look!.... it's legible!! And easy to read! Even showing weigh-ins! And splitting up trainer time from outside biking workouts!

None of that is true with FinalSurge.

OK... about the only noticeable thing that is nicer about FinalSurge is that the TIME OF DAY of the workout is displayed on the calendar. BT used to place your swim, bike, or run workouts in the correct order based on time of day, but strength workouts or "sports" workouts (like trainer rides) would always show up at the bottom as they didn't have a "time of day" that you could note.

Here's FinalSurge at normal screen size (if looking at it from a computer, not a phone) showing gray runs, black strength, and green bike workouts, and with the time of day noted at the top of them (at least the ones where I recorded the time of day):

Oh, and I just realized... if I go back to FinalSurge and make the browser window really (unnatually) narrow, then the data shifts a little and makes it a BIT more readable here:

Being able to see that a little clearer also shows the weekly totals at the lower right of each week. It totals run distance and time (good), strength time (good), and trainer time (good). But any weeks I have trainer time AND outdoor rides, it gives me total "bike" time as trainer and outdoor combined, but then with outdoor miles recorded (not as good). I can't see outside time and trainer time noted seperately, even though they are seperate options for logging workouts. (The 12th, 17th, and 20th were my only outdoor rides last month.)

Oh, and one more decent thing is the bright purple you see on the calendar. That was noting an injury when I hurt my shoulder lifting a lot. It's still an issue (and I'm still not doing shoulders right now), but it really seemed to turn a corner last week and start feeling better! Less SHARP pain now, and more of an ache.

Finally, one thing that stinks about FinalSurge is even though it's got a normal "monthly" calendar, there's no quick and easy total that it shows for the month. BT had totals at the bottom of every month, whether it was a completed month or still in progress. With FinalSurge, I can "create a report," but again, it lumps trainer time in with bike time. So it shows my bike totals as 18:59:31 and 29.43 miles. I have to go in and subtract out my "outdoor miles" from those 19 hours to split it into 16 hours and 32 minutes of trainer time, and 2 hours 27 minutes and 31 seconds for 29.43 outdoor miles on my mountain bike. Lame. *

So December totals were:

• SWIM: 0 yards (no pool access)
• BIKE: 29.43 miles
• TRAINER TIME: 16 hours and 32 mins
• RUN: 113.68 miles (BIG!!!)
• STRENGTH TIME: 54 hours and 3 mins (quite decent!)

That run total just happened natually! I wasn't trying to get in any extra miles before the end of the year... it's just the way the long runs lined up in December. It was my biggest monthly run mileage since January of 2016! Nearly 10 years since running that far in a month!


* After noting that I had to calcuate my trainer time from my overall bike time, I realized there's a "Group by Activity Sub-type" option. So that way it shows trainer workouts seperately. So that's nice. But it then shows every kind of run workout totalled seperately, like tempo runs vs intervals vs easy vs long runs. So I'll just have to do a normal report for MOST of my numnbers, and then do a "Group by Activity Sub-type" option for trainer time vs "actual" biking. It's clunky, but a decent work-around. Still... I miss my BT... :(

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November in Review: Book-Ended by Races, and OK Training in the Middle

November was nothing special. It started with a slightly disappointing 8K CC race and ended with a much more exciting Turkey Trot 5K. And the middle was decent. Here's a glace at last month:

• BIKE: 89.47 miles
• RUN: 88.70 miles (not great - taking it easy because of the 2 races)
• TRAINER TIME: 12 hours 0 mins
• STRENGTH TIME: 54 hours and 50 mins (quite nice!)

I finally (BARELY) got my biking mileage higher than my run mileage for the first time since August! (That won't happen again this month!... Maybe not until March!) I only had 1 real outdoor "training" ride early in the month, and the rest of the rides were just spinning out my legs with my mountain bike.

Nothing was great about my run total, but I got in those 2 races and 2 speed workouts in the month (busting my pinky after one of those speed days).

And strength time was decent! I've been getting a lot of that in lately, and I love that!

As I posted about on Thursday, I had a NICE BIG WEEK later in the month! Followed by a small race week. The big week was an "intensity minutes" PR for me with over 2100 minutes! (And that week was a strength time PR as well - 16 hours and 22 mins!)

Hoping to wrap up a solid week this weekend!!

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October Training in Review

October's training wasn't amazing, but it started with me recovering for a few weeks from the TC 10 Mile so I didn't end up injured for a while like what happened last year (I think the 10 mile distance is the "perfect" distance to hurt my body a lot, so I NEED to take times to heal up).

Here's what October looked like:

I had just raced the Fall Classic Duathlon the weekend before Oct began (Sept 28th), and then the first part of Oct was also pre-race for the TC 10 Mile so I was going easy. Then I had 2 weeks easy after the 10 mile that ended with a few days outside of Chicago for a fencing tournament for Henry (the 16th through EARLY in the morning on the 20th). I was POOPED that morning (as I posted about here) after just getting a few hours of sleep after we drove from Chicago starting around 7 pm on Sunday evening.

Then the final few weeks of Oct were a bit more normal, but I ended the month going a bit lighter as I was resting up for an 8K CC race on Nov 2nd.

Oct totals look like this:

- SWIM: 0 yards (still no pool access)
- BIKE: 40.58 miles (not a single "training" ride)
- TRAINER TIME: 4 hrs 56 mins (2 good workouts the week of Oct 20, but the rest easy)
- RUN: 97.47 miles
- STRENGTH TIME: 51 hrs 10 mins (decent considering there were a few races to work around and a trip)

I also randomly had my biggest month of steps ever, averging nearly 22,000 steps/day for the month:

I've been ending this first full week of Nov with some decent workouts! Like a SOLID week! Back with some good weekly numbers shortly.

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August in Review: Big Running Mileage

August had some BIG bike miles and BIG run miles, and the rest was pretty low:

• SWIM: 6000 yards
• BIKE: 370.88 miles
• RUN: 110.21 miles
• STRENGTH: 51 hours and 8 minutes

Swimming is low because I finally lost acess to the pool at the U where I've been swimming since getting back in the pool after covid (in 2021-ish?). I still haven't swam since that swim on the 19th. We'll see if I start hitting up the community pool, but the timing of school drop-off and lap swim hours makes things more difficult.

Biking was great as the beginning of August was the end of 3 big weeks of biking. I had a 118.51 mile week in early Aug that ended with a bike crash (and here's an update on that brusing).

Running ramped up a bit because of TC 10 Mile training. 100 miles is a nice month, so 110 miles is big! In fact, it was my biggest month of running since before getting injured in the summer of 2019! (And I didn't look back before that... it could be my biggest month since 2017 or 2016.)

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July in Review: Big Bike Month!

Here's what July looked like:

The month started with me in Hawaii (family trip) and then in Milwaukee (Henry's sports). Then I was without a car starting on the 15th because of a hit-and-run I was involved in (I was the "hit" and not the "run"). So the 15th was a huge day of intensity minutes according to my Garmin! But that week was cut short because it ended with the Raspberry Run, so I had some pre-race rest days along with some post-race recovery days.

And those last 2 weeks were both big biking weeks, partly because I didn't have a car. But also because I fit in some decent rides.

So July looks like this:

• SWIM: 11,950 yards
• BIKE: 340.74 miles
• RUN: 90.56 miles
• STRENGTH: 56 hours 45 mins

Swimming is pretty standard, biking is BIG (3rd biggest month since IM training in 2007), running is on the smaller side, and strength time might be the 3rd biggest month ever.

Hoping to keep August big in the saddle as well as get in some decent run workouts to prep for the TC 10 Mile!

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June in Review: CRAPPY Training

I noted in my post about May's training that June's training would be be lacking. And I was right. Here's what June looked like (and the first few days of July):

Here's the same calendar highlighted with big events:

The first week was normal, but a BIT lighter because I was racing a duathlon on the 8th. And then I left that race and went straight up north with 4 kids, coming back just in time for Henry's birthday. And then we left for camping in WI the very next day!

Then FINALLY a normal week before 10 days in Hawaii!! (Still going through those photos!) We got home from Hawaii and the boys and I took off the very next morning for Summer Nationals in fencing for Henry in Milwaukee. WHEW! That was a wild 4 weeks!

And my training suffered, but I didn't care. I did what I could, so it was pretty normal runs, very minimal swims, and no biking when on those trips. Here were my totals for June:

• SWIM: 7758 yards
• BIKE: 82.46 miles
• TRAINER TIME: 38 mins (an easy spin on a hot day)
• RUN: 101.20 miles
• STRENGTH: 36 hours and 50 mins

That "run" number is good - a totally normal number. But the rest of them stink. It's my lowest swim yardage in YEARS. Only 3 months over the last 2+ years had fewer bike miles, and they were all dead-of-winter months. Combining trainer time AND outdoor miles and you'd see that June was the lowest since probably sometime in 2020 or 2021. And strength time would have been a good number a few years ago, but it's low as of recent training (being it was under 37 hours and I had 57 hours the month before).

Here's the last 26 months, and it shows last month is the lowest in overall training time when you add up time spent swimming, biking, running, lifting, and on the trainer:

Last half of June had me at "unproductive."


My "floors" shows some of the FUN of last month...


... here are the things labeled that stand out!


Finally, a "normal looking" week of intensity minutes after some smaller weeks lately!

July will be a bit more normal after an odd first few days. And I'm hoping August is pretty normal too - maybe even try to make that a big bike month!

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May in Review: A Final 'Good' Month Before a Busy Summer

March was a huge month. April was decent. And May was pretty solid overall. Here's what it looked like:

• SWIM: 11,900 yards (average)
• BIKE: 306.13 miles (nice!)
• TRAINER TIME: 1 hr 40 mins (1 workout on a chilly day)
• RUN: 93.54 miles (OK... shorter because of skipping a long run because of a race)
• STRENGTH TIME: 57 hrs and 46 mins (top 3 months all time!)

I ended the month with back-to-back decent bike workouts which was the only time that happened all month. I've been letting my bike speed slide in the name of being more rested for harder runs. (My overall bike "fitness" is OK as 300+ miles is good, but my "speed" isn't there because I haven't been putting in the specific speed work.)

I had 2 decent track workouts on back-to-back Fridays. The first Friday of the month was after a 10K so I took it easy, the next 2 were the hard workouts, the next was before a 5K, and the final was resting up after the 5K.

The only stand outs are the bike distance (which was nice!) and the strength time (really high). Just a nice month.

And it didn't have my biggest WEEK of steps (that's still 164K+ from walking in Italy 2 years ago), but I had lots of bigger weeks which ended up making it my biggest overall MONTH of steps ever:

March was my previous biggest month with 633,838, and then I got 665,994 in May.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: June is going to be a really random month with LOTS going on, so my training will take a hit for the next few weeks. I've had a good few months, so I'll be OK backing off a bit! I'll still get in my running, but maybe not the speed work I'd like. My swimming will take a decent hit, but I might be able to squeeze some in here-or-there. But my strength time and biking will nose dive shortly. And who knows what my step count will do. Stay tuned!

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April's Training in Review: Decent, but Not Amazing

Here's a quick look at April's training log:

• SWIM: 11,700 yards
• BIKE: 124.90 miles
• TRAINER TIME: 6 hrs and 23 mins
• RUN: 90.43 miles
• STRENGTH TIME: 54 hrs and 46 mins

Biking is just OK.

Swim distance is average, but should be higher: there were 5 weeks of possible swimming in April based on the start and end of the month, but skipped a swim a few days before the Get in Gear 10K.

Run distance is on the shorter side because of a skipped long run 2 days after the Get in Gear 10K just to make sure I was healed up.

So the best number up there is my strength time, which is definitely on the higher side! (Near a PR, but well behind March's monster numbers that was over 60 hours. And a year ago, I set a monthly PR at under 53 hours, so I've really been hitting the strength work a lot lately!)

The only race in April was the Get in Gear 10K near the end of the month, and I started off the 2025 race season with a lifetime best! I can NOT complain about that!!! Here's to keeping this going for the rest of the year!

(This week could be a good week, and I'm hoping this month is decent too. But then June is going to be a "fit in the training when I can" sort of a month - lots of random family commitments going on.)

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March Training in Review: MONSTER Month!

I had no plans to make March big. But with my family gone for a week and a nice long birthday ride, March's numbers just kept growing. Here's what my training log looked like:

The first 9 days are pretty normal.

Then I had a big week (highlighted in this post) that had a nice long birthday ride and an extra trip to the pool. And notice all the short "commuter" bike miles through the middle and end of the month - lots of random riding! And over 100 outdoor miles in 1 week... IN MARCH!

I also had a little extra time last month, so I ended up doing a lot of big upper body weeks. I noted that once in this post, but have since had a few big weeks as well. So my strength numbers were big too!

All in all, here's what my training numbers looked like for March:

• SWIM: 14,825 yards (only ONE month has been bigger since Covid started!)
• BIKE: 217.50 miles (only 8 months with more miles since Covid... and this was MARCH!)
• BIKE TRAINER: 11 hrs and 33 mins
• RUN: 109.72 miles (tied for biggest month since Covid)
• STRENGTH: 60 hrs and 33 mins (a MASSIVE lifetime monthly PR)

My trainer time is just OK. But everything else is HUGE. (Add in that trainer time at 19 mph and "total bike miles" for the month is 436.95 miles!)

Regarding my strength time, I noted in a post about last May's training that 54 hours was a huge PR month for me, and here I was over 60 hours. Nice.

I got in 3 running speed workouts over these 4 weeks as well (and the last day of February had a speed workout as well, so that's 4 speed workouts over 5 weeks).

A monthly PR for steps with 633,838 (20,446/day on average).


March also had a swim distance PR
(since swimming with a Garmin) when my family was gone.

I've been slowly upping my distance and swimming farther and farther. Recent workouts have been 2800-3100 yards. That 3300 was the longest in a LONG time. I looked back in my training log: pre-Covid, I was swimming 2-3x / week (so overall yardage was way up), but most of those swims were 1800-2200 yards. I started seeing longer swims of 2400-2500 yards occasionally in early 2015 (10 years ago!), but only over the course of a few months before they dropped back down to the 1200-2000 yard range. April 2011 (PRE-KIDS!!) had a 3100 yard swim. I had to look back to Feb of 2011 to find a 1 hour "postal swim" where I covered 3500 yards as the most recent swim that was farther than the 3300 yards I did last month. And because that was a "straight through" swim, it was only 61 mins long, so still shorter (time-wise) than my swim last month - I have to go back to training with Coach Jen before the 2010 TC 10 Mile where my goal was to break 60 mins to find a swim longer than 67 minutes (I found a 70 min swim covering 3600 yards in Sept of 2010).

Longest swim PR, but also note that March 2025 also had my fastest
100 yards (seen farther down in this post) because I don't often do 100s.

(My "meters" PRs aren't special because I hardly ever swim in a 50 meter pool. Normally just a 25 yard pool. It's been maybe a year since I've been in "the big pool!")

The last 2 years started with more RACES, and then they ended up being good years. I haven't raced in a long time, but my training is good. Guess we'll see what happens in my first upcoming races shortly!!

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February in Review

February was a weird month. Here's what my training log looked like:

It's all pretty "normal" except for the Wednesday afternoon through Monday night that I was on the road with the boys. Here were my totals for Feb:

• SWIM: 12,000 yards
• BIKE: 34.08 miles
• TRAINER TIME: 9 hrs 12 mins
• RUN: 94.32 miles
• STRENGTH: 45 hrs 14 mins

I specifically swam 3100 yards on the 25th to hit 12,000 yards for the month. I've only had 7 months bigger than that since the beginning of COVID. (Hoping to make this current month bigger with a big upcoming week as mentioned in Thursday's post.) Everything else was just "fine." Actually, probably considered "not bad" being we were on the road for a chunk of the month.

I ended the month with some good trainer rides as posted about recently. I have no specific goals for this month, but I'm actually hoping to out-do most of these numbers (between having some better workouts and the month having 3 more days). Let's see what happens!....

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November in Review: a "Recovery" Month

... or more of an "injured" month I guess.

November's training log was pretty uneventful:

The FIRST DAY of the month was my only speed work of the month (and then my calf/heel injury flared up), the next day was a hard ride, and the LAST DAY of the month was my only other hard riding. The 4th and the 25th were pretty normal long runs with some "at pace" miles in the middle, but I cut the run on the 8th to just 1 mile because of some leg pain, and then I skipped my long run on the 11th.

November started well with some good training followed by that injury flare up. And then my Garmin told me my fitness was tanking.

SWIM: 11,650 yards (normal-ish)
BIKE: 98.64 miles (least since Feb)
TRAINER TIME: 8 hrs 22 mins (only 2 hrs and 40 mins were harder workouts)
RUN: 78.66 miles (least since July of 2021 - last minor injury slow-down)
STRENGTH TIME: 52 hrs and 57 mins (good)

I'm not out of the injury woods yet, but training is a bit more normal lately!...

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