The May Challenge

So with April now out of the way, the training is going to move to a new level. Due to the 2.5 week holiday, Aprils training totals were relatively low:

Swim - 14.9km (9.3 miles) - 5 hours 34 mins
Bike - 459km (286.9 miles) - 17 hours 3 mins
Run - 137.2km (85.8 miles) - 11 hours 47 mins

Total - 34 hours 25 minutes

I've had a good week so far, after having a nice rest on holiday, my legs were complaining a bit with the 55km that I ran over the first 3 days of this week but although there is always an element of having tired legs with this sort of training, I'm not feeling too bad.

May was always going to be my biggest training month of the year, as I get to the last couple of weeks of June I will start to reduce the volume to prepare for the race so I decided to set myself a challenge in May. I want to have my biggest month in each sport, based upon the training log that I have which goes back to the start of 2008, the most I have done in each sport is as follows:

Swim - 26.3km (Sept 08)
Bike - 1170.3km (Jan 09)
Run - 265.7km (Oct 08)

When I started working towards this race I spent 3 week blocks concentrating on one particular sport which is why the biggest weeks for each one were some months ago.

My intention is to do this through consistent training rather than mega sessions, although obviously the big weekends that I have planned over the next few weeks will help. I am also taking a day off work next week to do another half ironman simulation so that will help with the numbers.

Have a 5 hour ride followed by a 1 hour run planned for Saturday and then Sunday will be my long run (2.5 hours) with an easy 90 minutes on the bike beforehand. Being a public holiday on Monday I am hoping to get my first open water swim of the season in as I'm reliably informed that the lake is now about 14 degrees so should be just about bearable!