Too Much Training?

I'm going to take my first stab at a "real" post and talk about training. I've done a bit of reading, not a ton, over the years and my various athletic pursuits and I know enough about the science of exercise and exercise physiology to not get myself into trouble when devising my own training plans, but I'm no expert by any means.

One of the basic premises are cycles and building a proper fitness base. If you want to ride your bike in a race at a 40 kph average, you don't just go out and push it as hard as you can and hope you can hold 40 kph during your training. You need to build up your base fitness and work all the systems involved in getting you to that speed, and you do that work in escalating cycles of stress and rest (relief). You'll have little micro cycles that make up larger macro cycles that will build you up to performing at your goal effort.

So, I've signed-up for Ironman and have been training. I have to admit that at this point I don't have a formal training plan written down on a sheet of paper nor anything entered electronically. What I've done thus far has been based on my own experience and historical knowledge, plus what feels "right" for me to be doing at this point. My partner, who's the consummate list-driven person, has watched this over the recent weeks and asked if I was doing too much too soon.

I have a tendency to get defensive (that could be a whole other blog in itself), but have tried to take some time to think about that and do see her concern. What I'm attempting to do in my training so far is:

1. Focus on my weakness, which is running
2. Build my fitness base, in all three sports, but focusing again on running first, then cycling, and finally the swim
3. Hold on to some of the fitness I achieved over this past triathlon season

The result has been a lot of running, at distances I've usually not run. Part of that is the fact that I'm going to need to run a marathon at the end of all of this, and I've only ever run one in my life so far. Another outcome is that I've felt I needed to add in the cycling early than I have in the past. In previous seasons, I wouldn't get on the rollers until January. This year I've already added them (for the past couple of weeks). Finally, just this past week I managed to get into the pool again, which felt great.

What this has meant is that I'm up almost every morning at 05:00 and out the door or down to the basement to do something by 05:30. I'm already at back-to-back training days, and it's the off-season. I won't add multiple training days until next Spring, but I do feel that I need to get in the "base" miles and saddle time now so that come Spring, I can really put in some work for speed and endurance.

So, that's the "gamble" I'm making right now. I'm hoping I'm not wrong and that I'm going to be burnt out come Spring, or that I'll be risking injury by training as much as I am now. I guess time will tell, so stay tuned. Another side benefit of all this is that I'm hoping I can eat what I want over the holidays and not worry about putting on weight, as I have in the past.  Not really the best motivator, but it's certainly a factor. :)