2011 Final Training Numbers

It was not my finest year to have decent training numbers. There was the pelvic stress fracture at the beginning of March. And I now appear to have osteoarthritis in my left hip. I had a MRI on Tuesday (Jan 3) of this week and the summary of the MRI should be in my hands soon. But the doc gave me the heads-up on Wednesday. More on the OA prognosis later this week.

I suppose one could argue that I train too much, which is leading to these types of setbacks. So, I may take a easier approach in 2012. Notice I said 'may'. German males are a stubborn lot.

I loved my results between August and November, the result of my determination to salvage the back half of the 2011 race season. But oh, those spring months with hardly any training were very tough on me mentally. Let us look at the numbers in comparison to 2010, a relatively healthy year for me.

Swim

The first quarter of 2011 was off from 2010 as I had a duathlon in Texas to train for and I also was working more on having quality over quantity type of workouts. And I was nagged by a shoulder in which the doc figures I have a bad rotator cuff. Not bad enough for surgery, but one that just sort of bits at you and wears one down mentally. So my numbers did drop a bit late summer as result.

My numbers did increase a bit starting early summer and I kept swimming up until my last triathlon on September 11. I started my typical base build for the 2012 season in December. So I anticipate that my swim numbers will be high for 1Q of 2012 as I spend a little more time in the water.

Bike

I had a great month in July, getting in a 500-mile bike month. July is typically my biggest bike training month as I'm all wound up from watching the Tour de France. But overall, I was off of the 2010 totals due to the stress fracture. And I decided to take some time away after my last duathlon of the year on October 2. So I had essentially no time in the saddle from then thru November.

The outlook for 2012 will be low numbers again. I'm guessing that I will require another 2-weeks off for this OA inflammation and hopefully will be back in the saddle soon. Even though the pelvis takes most of the pounding from the run game, too much time in the saddle (90-min or more sessions) also cause it to ache. So, this portion of my training may evolve into quality over quanitity as well.

Run

Such an up-and-down year running for me due to the injury. It really took a lot of time to find my legs but I was certainly back in the game starting in August. Four straight months of some really good mileage. But I learned the hard way that once I get over 170 miles a month, it is probably doing my body more harm than good. So in 2012 I think I will strive to be more consistent with my run mileage and stay in the 120 miles per week zone.