Happy New Year! This is the first week I’ve taken the bike out of the garage and set it up on the trainer so I can ride indoors. I have it set up so I can watch videos on my computer, and as I’ve never seen Band of Brothers all the way through, that’s my current project. 5 episodes down so far!

A real challenge I am having is fitting in my core workouts, and I know I have to do something about this. For some reason, I have an easier time with the “big three,” run/bike/swim – I put them on the schedule, and I get about 90% of them I think that’s the problem right there – I am not committing to a regular schedule of core workouts, and so they are slipping.   No more! I’ll get together with the folks at CORE this weekend and discuss a better strategy – maybe I don’t have to do a full 30 minutes to get the benefit? I can absolutely work in 15 minutes a day for core work.

Last week, I discussed my plan for getting back on the bike – I was going to ease back into it. But that’s not what happened! My bike workouts have gone 45 – 75 minutes each! I guess I expected to need more time to get back to that level of riding. So, that’s a good thing. I haven’t run every day like I planned, and that’s not a good thing.   One thing my coach always did for me was send me a “workout template” for the week, which was exactly what it sounded like – which workouts to do on which days. It made training super easy. As I am trying to do that for myself, I begin to see the value that people are getting from buying a coached program – it sure saves on thinking things through!

Here is my workout log for the week, to give you a sense of where I am, workout wise.

What is missing, to me, is a long run on Sunday the 4^th. If I had managed to get in a 90 minute run on that day (or really, any other day), I’d call it a pretty darn good week of training. As it is, a solid “B.” Next week, I’ll add in the scheduled core work, and I’ll get a long run in on the weekend – I love running in the cold, so this is a great time of year for me, for that. I’ve started tracking calories as well, with a goal of getting down to 165 pounds in the next 10 weeks, about ~1.5 / week. Next week, I’ll talk a little about how I manage nutrition (spoiler: Badly), and some about how to train through vacations.