When I'm not working on a race report, I'm working on my workouts

Right now my MMT report is not a huge priority. Sorry if anyone has been waiting with bated breath to read it. Let out the air cuz it will be awhile. It's coming together in bits and pieces. Think of a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the white. Or in more modern terms, think of a Sudoku puzzle and the instructions are to 'do it' with no numbers given. Yeah. So that's where I stand right now.

I had been fairly exercise free for the three weeks after MMT. It was nice to do nothing and enjoy it. "Doing nothing" consisted of eating. I did a fairly good job of getting my weight down, then proceeded to put on 5 lbs. It may not look it, but damn, if it didn't feel like 15! Everything thing felt looser. Finally I decided to get back into the swing of things and planning for my next big thing.

So that's what I've been doing - getting back into the swing of things and planning my next big thing. I'm slowly getting back into everything, which includes swimming, biking, and running. I started a couple weeks ago and am tweaking my program every day, as well as just opening it up in Google Docs and staring at it. That counts, right?

If I miss a day I don't fret, I call it a recovery day. Since starting back up, my body has been doing a double take and asking me "WFT?!?!" when I do things like get on my tri bike or *gasp* put on a swim suit. It has been over a year since I've been in a pool, and I was surprised to find out how much spandex/lycra shrinks when stashed away in the back of a drawer. Weird. I'm also starting to run again and starting from scratch and focusing on my form, doing drills, working on my cadence, etc.

I took the Run and Endurance Certification through Crossfit Endurance back in May and have running 'homework' to complete that I have yet to start. With as horrible as my feet felt after MMT, which was a week after the cert, I didn't want to rush back into any sort of training to risk having to take off more time if training through aches and pains lead to something worse. I don't want to spend my summer laid up wishing I could be out training.

So training is what I'm now doing. Training for what? you may or may not be asking. I have my sights set on The Ring in September, which is a 71-mile circuit run of the Massanutten trail. I completed it last year in 28:17 and felt miserable the last few miles from Powell's Fort because my feet were so tender. I hope to build off of the success of MMT and my current training regime and knock at least 3 hours off last years time.

I'm also thinking of coming out of semi-retirement from triathlons, hence the addition of the riding and swimming to my training schedule. It has been since July 2007 at Ironman Lake Placid that I donned a wetsuit and went 140.6 miles. I just lost interest in training and racing and dealing with 15-20 hour training weeks. It was too much. I'm going to follow the training principles of Crossfit Endurance toward my endeavour.

"With Progression!!! CrossFit 4-6 times per week. The most successful athletes will be able to follow the main site schedule for 3 on 1 off. Choose ONE sport per day on this site. Single sport athletes should only be following this site 2-3 times a week. Typically, 1 cycle, which is 1 interval, 1 tempo/stamina workout, and 1 more interval workout... This should be spaced accordingly throughout the week. Multisport athletes should train no more than 2 workouts per week per sport on this site. PERIOD! Follow anything else and you are not following this site correctly"

Currently I Crossfit 3x a week and will build to a 2-1-3-1 "on/off" program. My 'off' days will be my tempo or TT days on the bike, in the pool, or on my feet, and that will be my only workout of the day. Why? So I can recover. Recovery is why you get better. I have set days to swim, bike, and run, at least 1x a week and include a second workout per discipline three of the four days left in the week, which varies each week. Two swim workouts, two bike workouts, and two run workouts each week. That is the stripped down basics of my training program for the next three months.

I'm still mulling over what race to do as I have yet to sign up, but I have a couple in mind. I'm still a bit Favre-ian with my retirement, but will stick to this program even if I nix the tri and just go with The Ring. I am in no rush to get back to racing, said as I tweak my program yet again.