The Start - Base Period #1 - Week 1

When constructing my Annual Training Plan I broke my season into the following categories:

1) Transition Period: Off season
2) Preparation Period
3) Base Periods
4) Build Periods
5) Peak/Taper Period
6) Race Period
7) Transition Period: Next Off season

I started my Transition period off season period after racing “Breath of life” Olympic distance triathlon on June 24th 2006.

Two months later, I started my 13 week Preparation period on August 14. I keep my overall volume low and concentrated on easing myself back into structured training. I initially focused on 5 hours of training a week and slowly stretched it to increase my endurance. During this period, I spend one hour in the gym twice a week developing my strength. I spent 4 weeks doing Anatomical Adaptation “A” exercises and 4 weeks doing Anatomical Adaptation “B” exercises. The purpose of these two phases are to strengthen tendons, ligaments and small stabilizer muscles. After the Anatomical phases, I started my 6 week Maximum Strength phase after being sick for 2 weeks.

This phase is used by athletes to build up to a maximum strength is some of the key large muscle groups. These exercised include Squats (legs), Leg Curls, Standing Lat Pull Downs (back), Rows (back), Dumbbell Press for the chest.

This long preparation period allowed me to smoothly transition to my Base 1 period.

I started my 8 week Base 1 period on Monday November 13th. Week (1 of 32) until Ironman CDA.


My first week looked like this:

Week of 11/13: (32 weeks until Ironman CDA) - week #1 (9.5 hrs)

Monday: Workout #1: 5mile easy Run Workout #2: 1500 yard swim
Tuesday: Workout #1: MS –Gym (AM)
Wednesday: Workout #1: 18 mile Bike (PM-Computrainer)
Thursday: Workout #1: 3 mile easy Run (PM)
Friday: Workout #1: MS – Gym (AM) Workout #2: 2000 yard swim
Saturday: Workout #1: 43 mile Bike (Tour de Valley) with 2 mile transition run.
Sunday: Off