2011 Yearly Totals

This is one of my favorite posts of the year by far because totaling up all the miles and hours is very satisfying and is a nice confidence booster durring the long off season. I learned a lot this year and I definitely feel like I have made great improvements. By the numbers I did not make as much of a jump as I had hoped from last year but on the new schedule that I am hoping to keep up from here on next year should be a good step up. I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

Swim 671,300 yards ~ 381.5 miles
Bike   539.25 hours ~ 8,600 miles
Run   1,479.5 miles

That is a lot of burritos!

12/19 - 12/25/2011

This was a rest week and I traveled to the east coast to spend the holiday with my family at my sisters place. I really did not do much this week. With traveling and sight seeing and holiday celebrations I only got a few workouts in. My body does not like being inactive.

Swim 5,000 yds
Bike 3 hrs
Run 17 mi

Get Low

Being my first season racing as a professional triathlete I had high hopes for great improvements and results and I am happy with the progress I have made toward those goals. The one thing that was really not going my way however was that I had made no improvement and on some courses I even got slower, in some cases much slower. This was totally baffling me as last year I was riding a road bike with makeshift triathlon bars swapped in and this year I was on a TT specific bike with a huge wheel upgrade. I decided to go in and get some fit changes worked out.


I visited Wade at Spokesman Bicycles and almost immediately he recognized that the position I was in was not all that aerodynamic. Without really knowing what I was doing I had picked a bike that was not fit to me that well and it was not allowing me to get into an efficient position. Below are some frame captures from the fit session. On the left I am on my Transition and on the right I am on the Cérvelo that we built to fit my body's geometry and optimize my TT position. The geometrical changes that we made were moving the seat forward 7 cm and dropping the bars 10 cm.


This new position did a lot of things to make me more aerodynamic and was simultaneously more comfortable. By being closer to the bars and with them lower my back became more horizontal making my front profile smaller and also put my arms in a more natural position so that my shoulders can rest in line with my neck and back so my scapulae are no longer flaring up and I no longer have to do any sustained lateral or vertical compensation. With the extra freedom in my shoulders I can also roll them forward to squeeze my forward profile even thinner.





The new position, though a better fit for my physiology, is agressive and stretches my hips and back more than I am used to so over a couple of months I am slowly stepping down the drop in the bars. The other thing we worked on was my foot and knee position. We added varus wedges to my shoes so that my knees would shift slightly outward and sit directly above the center of my foot. My knees had been slightly out of line and my leg muscles compensated so Wade also gave me stretches and exercises to compensate for the imbalances I have developed. In the videos you can see (hopefully) that my knees are moving into a more neutral and  efficient position engaging the proper muscles.





This is still a work in progress and my body is capable of geting into an even lower position which will require a different bike frame because we have almost reached the limit for drop on the Cérvelo. 

12/12 - 12/18/2011

This was one of my last weeks focusing on building my new weekly base structure. I did miss a swim session earlier in the week but I hit my ride and run targets. This was the most running I have done in one week and included the longest run I have done to date. The weather was still great this week and I also got a beautiful ride to Monterey and back in. Finally feeling fit, which is good considering how fast the beginning of the season is going to come!

Swim 18,500 yds
Bike 13.5 hrs
Run 50.5 miles :)

12/5 - 12/11/2011

I was a little hit and miss this week; I was feeling very tired and had a lot of stuff other than training going on. Just the same I got in some great workouts and had a couple of moments where I actually felt fit! The weather got a lot colder this week and I think there is supposed to be some moisture on the way next week :( so we will see if I can keep it up when things are actually tough. The one great thing about winter being here is that I get to have Christmas Carols stuck in my head all the time! LOVE IT!

Swim 14,700 yds
Bike   11.5 hrs
Run    44 mi

11/28 - 12/4/2011

Another good week of base training. I did a bunch of extra activities this week...a night at the climbing gym, a couple of extra hours at the animal shelter walking dogs and a holiday party or two. I am feeling pretty tired and I think it is mostly because of the extra running around. The weather has been beautiful and I am so thankful for that :)

Swim 18,000 yds
Bike   12 hrs
Run    42 mi