Consultation with a trainer

Friday afternoon, I took a late lunch hour and meet with an athletic trainer named Chris at a local Kava House.  I really enjoyed the consultation and am looking forward to working with Chris to get ready for the Ann Arbor Triathlon!

After a little get-to-know-you chit chat, we got down to business.  I told Chris all about my athletic history, races I've done in the past, all the events I'm thinking about doing this summer, what my finishing goals are and how I've been training so far (which hasn't been much!).

It was great to hear an expert perspective on how much time I really need to dedicate to training in order to meet my goals.  He suggested that doing three workouts in each discipline every week is ideal.  That kind of scared me, because I was hoping to do no more than 4 days a week.  But three of each discipline means doing lots of combination workouts and shorter segments just to get my body used to switching from one sport to the next.  The combo workouts will help me keep the number of days that I have to train down to 4 or 5 a week. 

In addition, I told Chris that I want to keep riding with the ladies group on Thursday nights starting in May, so hopefully, he'll just work that into the plan.

We discussed whether using a wetsuit is necessary.  Chris feels that for a short swim, a wetsuit will slow me down in the transition more than it will help me in the swim.  The lake should be warm enough in mid-June that maintaining body temperature won't be a problem either.  If I do want to wear one, he said that a sleeveless, short-legged suit would be best for removing quickly.

We wrapped up our meeting with some discussion of what he thought my training plan will look like.  He's going to write it up, then we'll meet again in a couple weeks to go over it and make any final tweeks before I dive into it.

We also discussed doing a couple more sessions together to take a look at my swimming form and breathing, my running form and how best to consume calories during the race.

I found the consultation very helpful and fun, and it opened up the opportunity to get many of my questions about tri training answered.  I am looking forward to having a personalized training plan in my hands in a couple weeks and someone available to basically serve as a coach when I have a problem!

In the mean time, Chris encouraged me to double the time I've been spending on each sport each week.  That means that I should be doing at least 60 minutes swimming, 120 minutes biking and 80 minutes running.  Fortunately, the meeting motivated me enough to complete half of my workout time for the week over this weekend!

Saturday, February 27, 2010
Swim 30 minutes - 1175 yards
Completed race distance in approximately 22.5 minutes
Succeded in doing the freestyle stroke every other length - quite a bit faster!
Meet local ultra endurance sport celebrity in the pool, as well as a creepy dude in a yellow speedo
Run outside 40 minutes - approx. 4 miles
Easy pace

Sunday, February 28, 2010
Bike on the trainer 60 minutes - 14.4 miles
Rode at an easy pace, then sped up for the last 4 miles or so