Father of 2

My daughter was born on February 7th 2013, and now I’m father of two wonderful children. Being a father is a really big blessing, and I hope to give them the love and attention they need to grow up, and be happy.

I pretty much didn’t train in February, and therefore, haven’t posted any training summaries. I still don’t know how I am going to manage to find time for training as regularly as I was able to. My triathlon goals are mostly improving on my sprint times, and completing races at longer distances, specially looking forward to my first 70.3 in October.

My first race of the season is now just 4 weeks away, I’m almost sure I’ll be able to knock at least 10 minutes from my only sprint finish time of 1:24; but, hitting a time below 1:10 will be a challenge, which was my initial goal, we’ll see.

Training Week of Jan 28th 2013

Here’s the summary of this week:

  • 2 Runs, 45 minutes
  • 2 Bike rides, 2:55 minutes
  • 1 Swims, 45 minutes

This comes to a total of almost 5 hours. After being down for 1 week due to illness, it was not a bad week, but I think I went too fast too soon, as the cold I got seems to not really have gone away. I still have to listen to my body better, and take it easy when I get back from a break.

Training Week of Jan 21st 2013

Here’s the summary of this week:

  • 2 Bike rides, 1:30 minutes

I did get a bad cold this week and didn’t manage to fit any of the training that I had planned; which is very disappointing. I’m wondering if the previous week of harder workouts had any effect on getting sick, I trained more than I usually do, and had a hard time keeping intensity low. I’ll do my best to stick to low intensity workouts next week.

I had signed up for the half marathon at the ING Miami Marathon, but decided to not run because I felt that I would finish with a really slow time, and would have slowed down my recovery and affected my training even more. I was looking forward to this race, but, at least, I picked up my bib number, just as a souvenir.

ing bib

Training Week of Jan 14th 2013

Here’s the summary of this week:

  • 2 Runs, 2:30 minutes
  • 2 Bike rides, 3:30 minutes
  • 1 Swims, 30 minutes

As per my training plan, this week had a goal of 8 hours of training, and was supposed to be my heaviest week so far. My total was 6:30, which is below my goal, for a couple of reasons: first, I had a day that was too busy with family commitments, and wasn’t able to fit a workout; second, I did feel tired mid week, and needed a small break for recovery. It’s another solid week in the books, I still sacrificed swimming, instead of running and biking; I hope to change that and focus more on my swims because it’s my weakest sport, and I’m starting to really have fun in the swimming pool.

Next week will be a mix of recovery week, and taper for the ING Miami Marathon, I’m running the half marathon, and can’t wait to run in the scenic Miami course.

Training Week of Jan 7th 2013

This was my second week of training of the 2013 season, I managed to find some time for training, and was able to follow through much better than I anticipated. I still didn’t follow my plan 100%, but I’m happy with this week, the adjustments I made made sense based on my schedule; so, I can’t really complain. Here’s the summary of this week:

  • 2 Runs, 1:55 minutes
  • 2 Bike rides, 3:15 minutes
  • 2 Swims, 1:30 minutes

That’s a total of 6:40, not far from my goal of 7 hours for this week; I think it’s the most I trained for a triathlon in a week. I’m definitely feeling more tired than usual, and am looking forward to taking a day off on Monday. The one thing not in the summary above is that I managed to do some weight training once this week, which is also great.

Training Week of Dec 31st 2012

This was my first week of training of the 2013 season; but, I feel like I started a lot slower than I really wanted. I assume that some of the struggle I felt was caused by taking it easy during the month of December. I mostly biked in December, and only went out for 2 runs, and 3 swims. Here’s the summary of this week:

  • 2 Runs, 82 minutes
  • 2 Bike ride, 180 minutes
  • 1 Swim, 40 minutes

That’s a total of just over 5 hours, below my goal of 6 hours for this week; but, it’s a decent amount for a first week. I have to make sure that I spend more time swimming, since it’s my weakest sport; I always feel like running or biking instead of swimming. I hope to closer to my goal of 7 hours for next week.

Racing schedule for 2013

This is still a tentative schedule for the races I want to do in 2013. Due to some family events, I will stick with events in South Florida to avoid spending time away from home, which means that I can race year around. This list is still a work in progress, and will very likely change; but, there are a couple of goals that I want to achieve – which I listed besides the race name:

  • March 30th – Egg Hunt Triathlon
  • May 20th – Tri Miami. This will be my first race at the Olympic distance, but I’m not concerned with the distance at all, and will be looking for an under 3 hours finish time.
  • June 9th, July 21st, August 18th, September 15th – Key Biscayne Triathlon Trilogy. Four sprint triathlons during the summer to keep the racing mojo going. I will probably sign up for two of those events.
  • September 29th – Escape to Miami. This will be my second Olympic distance race, and a good training session one month before the 70.3 race in late October. I’ve heard great things about this event, and am looking forward to it.
  • October 13th – Columbus Day Triathlon. This will be exactly one year after my first sprint triathlon; so, I can’t wait to see how much faster I’ll be by on that race.
  • October 27th – Ironman 70.3 Miami. This is my main race of the season, it will be my first race at the 70.3 distance, and my first goal is to finish it in one piece. My second goal is to finish the race in under 6 hours, I’d be very happy with a finish time that starts with a 5.

Image copied from http://www.flickr.com/photos/34094515@N00/4180631044/