I\u2019ve got a big race year planned and one of the most challenging triathlons on my list is the Abu Dhabi race this March. What makes this race so different? For one, it\u2019s the only Ironman I\u2019ve ever raced with a full 200km bike section. That\u2019s more biking than I\u2019ve ever done, so it\u2019s going to require a special kind of preparation.<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s the plan. My training program starts this Monday, and it goes all the way to the week before the race. During this time, I plan on gradually increasing my weekly distance on the bike, up to a point, and then leveling off right before the competition. I\u2019ve used a similar approach for other races, so I know it works. It\u2019s simply a matter of seeing what happens.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be keeping the same running and swimming distances each week. I\u2019m only going to change the biking distance. During week one, I\u2019ll be biking 650km, week two will be 850km, then 1000km for week 3, 600km, and finally 500km. The final week will be the most relaxed. I\u2019ve found it\u2019s much better to recover and do the race fresh than to try and push it one week out.<\/p>\n
Week 3 will be the most challenging. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever biked 1000 kilometers in a single week, and just so you know, I\u2019ll be doing that on top of my other training. It\u2019s certainly something I know I can do, but it won\u2019t come easy. I\u2019ll keep all of you posted on how it comes together.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s new gear will certainly help out. I\u2019ve got the 2011 [intlink id=”522″ type=”post”]Canondale Slice[\/intlink], and the [intlink id=”522″ type=”post”]Shimano DI2 [\/intlink]\u00a0electronic gear shifting system. I like the Slice a lot because it reduces the shock from the rear, which basically means I don\u2019t get tired as fast as I used to. And the DI2 makes gear shifting much smoother, another big time saver. I\u2019m looking forward to seeing what they can do for me.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll also be doing some competition preparation out in Lennox head, where my coach lives. We\u2019ve been spending a lot of one-on-one time together, mostly working on swimming. The biking is a big part of the Abu Dhabi race, but you can\u2019t take everything else for granted. You still have to work on the fundamentals.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve signed up for a few more races in the coming months. I\u2019m registered for the Port Macquarie 70.3<\/a>, the Bussleton 70.3<\/a>, and the new Challenge Cairns Ironman<\/a>. After that, I\u2019ll be heading off to the USA to train in Boulder Colorado. As you can expect, I\u2019m definitely going to do Challenge Copenhagen in August, and after that, it\u2019s hard to tell. I haven\u2019t signed up for anything that far out, but I definitely plan to do a few more races.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s it for my training schedule. The most difficult week isn\u2019t that far out, so I\u2019ll let you all know how it goes with the biking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[253],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}