Barry Roubaix 2012 - Training Progress

Update (3/3/2012):

Back on track.  I'm working hard to do all of my "intense" work for each week - bike intervals get the highest priority, with strength training getting 2nd.  I'm putting in about 8 hours per week - the minimum for my workout plan.  I haven't yet hit a 10 hour per week peak...  I'm feeling pretty worn out.  I caught a cold, had a sick day, and am feeling the workload.  

I'm nearly complete with 3 weeks of training (5 weeks to go to the race), and I'm feeling great.  I've been tracking my progress - which is generally a good idea for any endeavor where some form of growth or development is expected.  The chart tells some of the story - I'm not hitting the goals I set.  I'm doing 100% of my on-the-bike intervals, but falling short on the strength training and my "Endurance Miles."

I set out to increase my training volume from 6-8 hours per week - focused on on-the-bike endurance training -  by adding to that 1.5-2 hours per week of strength/balance training.  My perfectly reasonable excuses (future me) are:

• (this one I don't feel guilty about) Healing from my hernia surgery is holding me back from some of the strength training.  Starting at the same time as this training, I started picking up the kids, again, and the combination leaves my stomach sore.  The last thing I want to do is slow that recover, or worse, cause another hernia.  When sore, I back off, and give myself more recovery time.  Push-ups are just now back in the routine, but true core exercises are still out...  
• Basically, I poorly planned the progression, and "super-setting" of leg exercises with my intervals.  As the cycling intervals progressed, I was wiped out after a couple of progressions, and skipped the leg exercises (side lunges, squats) I was "super-setting" with the intervals.  I didn't want to do more than I could recover from, so I skipped a couple.  This is part of learning what kind of program will work.  
• Work has been hectic, and frustrating.  
• Some good people have left the company, and the stress, added to reactionary resume, LinkedIn, etc. updating has disturbed my schedule and focus.  This is something I've never been good at - maintaining overall health when career or family health is impacted.  One takes a hit, and I let the others be impacted...  I'm working on breaking those linkages for a healthier me.
• I've been working late, and bringing work home trying to get ahead of a few things.
• It will just plain take a while to find a good way to establish a training volume close to 10 hours per week.  There's school and work, kid's bedtimes, errands to run, and those few late nights at work.  I'm going to have to consider morning or lunch workouts (I'm lucky to be 5 min from work), or maybe those electrode things that let me just "twitch" my way to great fitness, while writing code.

This week felt great.  Power Intervals (go as hard as you can for 3 min at a time) on Tuesday were a killer.  On Thursday, the same intervals felt great, and I did my Bulgarian Split Squats.  Saturday's Over-Under's felt like a piece of cake, and I did some push-ups and pull-ups.

So, while my chart is trending downward now, I feel the progress, and I think next week's will reverse the trend.