New Gear and a New Coach!

Lots of exciting things happening for me!  Ever since I started training for Wildflower, I had been contemplating the idea of getting a coach.  The training plan from my book was serviceable and definitely worked well for my first foray into the sport, but I knew off the bat that I wanted to push myself.  After the results of my first few races, I feel like I have the potential to do pretty well as an age-grouper and I really want to test that limit.

I mentioned before that I had been going to some trainer spin classes at Concept Cyclery in Morgan Hill during the month of March/beginnning of April.  Well, the Tuesday class was run by an awesome tri coach.  Since my book training plan was finished after Wildflower, I talked to him about working with him soon after the race.  I did some research, with a very helpful blog post from Page at twentysixandthensome.com, and set up a meeting with my soon to be coach.  After talking about my goals in the sport and his training philosophy, we agreed to touch base in mid-May to get me started!!!!!  I was pumped and my first training plan came to my inbox last week, on Sunday night.  It's a little different not knowing what my exact workouts will be, week to week, but as long as I let Coach know what's going on in my life (busy work, travel, soreness, sick), my training plan will be specifically to fit me, my life, and my race goals.  So awesome!

So last Sunday was my last free day of training without Coach's plan.  And I made it count...a 52 miler on Mother's Day with my FNS crew.  We started out in Almaden (in San Jose) and worked our way along the familiar back roads of San Jose and Morgan Hill to Gilroy.  This was my view for most of the ride:

The weather was beautiful and I felt great for my longest ride to date.  I can't wait to go longer, as I've completely fallen in love with cycling.  

So on to my new training plan!  So far, I definitely consider cycling to be my biggest weakness.  My swim is not awesome, but it's not too terrible either, and I'm becoming more and more comfortable with running off the bike.  SO I will be logging lots of miles "on the hog" which I couldn't be more excited about...If anyone ever wants to bring me along on a bike ride, I'm game!  The one thing that will be kind of a bummer is that I'll be reducing the number of weight/circuit training sessions I do at FNS :(  I'm not cutting it out completely by any means, just won't be there 7-8x per week!  Coach says we need to invest in building my aerobic engine, and I am absolutely trusting in the process, as I have seen the amazing results he produces.

So week 1 (5/13) went like this:

Mon: Swim & Trainer Drills

Tues: Run, FIT / Core / Flow (circuit training, ab class, yoga/trigger point class at FNS)

Weds: IMPACT (circuit training), Swim, Bike, T-run

Thurs: Run, FIT

Fri: Swim

Sat: Bike, T-Run

Sun: Morgan Hill Sprint Tri - Race Report to come

Total training: 14 hours and 10 min.

Swim: 6,500 yards, 2 hours and 30 min

Bike: 86 miles, 5 hours and 15 min.

Run: 16 miles, 2 hours and 53 min

Strength: 3 hours, 30 min

On other fronts, I joined SVTC and I'm excited to meet some other local triathletes and hopefully expand my training circle.

I got my very first Soas training kit - absolutely in love.  It is the most comfortable thing ever, and I'm pretty sure my training buddy Sean was sick of hearing me talk about it on our Saturday ride.  Seriously, every few minutes I would tell him how amazing it was!  Total Soas fangirl right here.  The fabric is amazing, the cut is perfect, shorts are long enough to prevent rubbing but short enough to be girly and cute.  I cannot wait to buy the matching cycle jersey and a few more kits.  I'm trying to make myself stick to my budget, but patience is not a virtue I am familiar with when it comes to new tri gear!

I went to Tri-Fest at Sports Basement with Sean and Bo, won some new tires, snagged some free gear and made friends with Russ from Zoot, and tried out some new hydration options from Osmo.

My amazing BF got me the complete Trigger Point kit for our 2 year anniversary.  This man clearly knows that the way to my heart is through quality athletic equipment :)  I finally have no excuse not to use my down time to roll out all of my aches and pains!  It hurts so good and I cannot wait to put it to good use.

Anniversary Dinner and Drinks

And lastly, thanks to DCRainmaker for the heads up that the Garmin FR910XT would be on sale for the first time ever, I am now the proud owner of a multisport watch!!!!  I used it on Sat and Sun and it's awesome.  I still have some adjustments to do with the screens and there was definitely first time user error when I used it during my race on Sunday, but those kinks will get worked out soon...guaranteed!

Happy Training!