Sometimes in life you need to shake things up. And so I find myself signed up for the Oceanside 70.3 triathalon at the end of March 2015. I am in no where near the shape necessary to complete that race. Between now and then I will get there. And, in the interests of accountability, and inspired by scottp's thread, I am going to blog about it here. I'll plan on weekly updates.

Along the way, I may also talk about other stuff in my life. But I may not. I'm a lawyer, and reasonably high up in my company, so I can't really talk about work. And it may not be that interesting, as I lead a pretty normal life.

Quick Bio:
- 46 year old male
- 5’6”
- 197 lbs
- Divorced
- One son, he's almost 9
- Living in San Diego
- Working as a lawyer
- Airplane Pilot

My "atheletic" (haha) history: sedentary and overweight most of my adult life. Peak weight was about 245. Started running 4-5 years ago, fell in love with it. Lost a bunch of weight, ran a bunch of half-marathons. Have run three marathons and made sub 4-hrs in my last one. Tried triathalons 2-3 years ago with a couple of sprints and then the 2013 Oceanside 70.3. My low weight around that time was 167. Got a promotion and have had to travel a lot the past 18 months, and eating right and running have suffered - a lot. I am determined to reverse this and hence the 2015 Oceanside 70.3 and this blog.

My training plan: I've mashed up a couple of training plans into one designed to start slow and build up, because at my age it's safer injury-wise. There are 30 weeks until the race. The first 14 weeks I will do 2-2-2s, that's 2 bikes, 2 swims, and 2 runs each week. One long and one short each, for time and not for distance. I will take Mondays off as a rest day, do long runs Tuesdays, short swims and (hopefully) short bikes Wednesdays (one am one pm), off or short bike (if I didn't get it in Wednesday) Thursday, long swim Friday, short run Saturday, and long bike Sunday.

Starting 16 weeks out I will switch to 3-3-3s designed to get me to the finish line. That will involve 3 two-a-days a week which I'll discuss when I get there.

Here's my training schedule this week. The workouts themselves should not be too hard so it's all about scheduling.

Mon: Off
Tues: 40 - Run
Wed: 24 - Swim | 48 - Bike
Thurs: Off
Fri: 40 - Swim
Sat: 24 - Run
Sun: 80 - Bike

I'm flying to Japan on Sunday morning so getting the bike in will be challenging.

Welcome to the blog forum.
Looking forward to following your progress.

What is the island off San Diego again? I lived there for like 2 months more than a decade ago.

Catalina? Or Coronado?

Thanks digger! I got my 40 min run in today despite a morning mishap so yay me!

Coronado - I had a serviced apartment there on the bayside of the island. I recall there is a magnificent hotel on the other side of the island. It was a big, old and white building with a history of rich and powerful guests. Alas, my memory is poor.
San Diego is very similar to my hometown of Sydney,in particular, the geography and climate of the two cities.
One lasting impression I had was: when catching a ferry across to the island, turning my eyeline toward the south and seeing a long row of naval ships docked. It was an image that captured for me, in one brief moment, the scope of American military power.

Hi Elliot!

Digger the hotel is the Hotel Del. And teh ships are still very impressive.

Hi bigger!

Week 1 report: great success. All workouts done on the days they were supposed to be done. Tried swimming late Friday (7pm) and it is definitely a viable option. All runs and bikes were indoors which is not ideal but better that then not doing them.

Even at this meager level the swims made me sore since I haven't done that in a while. The runs were nothing. The bikes are challenging but I am not sore afterwards.

As I type I am headed for a week-long trip to Asia, which will make week two a different scheduling challenge.

Week 2 workouts are as follows:

Mon: Off
Tues: 44 - Run
Wed: 26 - Swim | 53 - Bike
Thurs: Off
Fri: 44 - Swim
Sat: 26 - Run
Sun: 88 - Bike

Wednesday and Friday are both travel days but I am determined to get these in.

I'm back. And while I have done a very poor job of updating this blog, I have done a great job of sticking with my training plan. To wit, I have not missed a workout and this morning completed the fourth week of the training plan.

As I was travelling for two of the weeks, this did involve some compromises. Bike workouts while traveling were on lifecycles or similar things in hotel gyms, which were not great. And the hotel pools I swam in did not have long lanes. Hell, one was basically like a goldfish bowl - so small that I must have done 400 laps. But the workouts got done.

Some lessons I've (re-learned) this month:

(1) I'm never sorry I did a workout. Very often I don't want to do them and have to force myself to get out there. But once I do them I feel great.

(2) Momentum matters. Having not missed in 10 days made it easier for me to get myself to continue to not miss. Yes this is all a mind game but the mind game matters.

____

So far I have not dealt with my diet, which is frankly pretty terrible. I am going to try to start to work on that in October. The initial goal will be (a) logging calories at least 6 days a week and (b) keeping under 2000 calories at least five days a week. This is not sufficient to get me to where I want to go but it is better than what I'm starting from and I want to set achievable goals.

The upcoming week:

Mon - Off
Tue - Run 58 mins
Wed - Swim 35 mins, Bike 70 mins
Thu - Off
Fri - Swim 58 mins
Sat - Run 35 mins
Sun - Bike 117 mins

No travel this week, and next week is a cut back week, so I'm really looking forward to completing these workouts.

Ok, so it's Sunday night and I've had a pretty good week. All workouts completed. Ran into a bit of a scheduling issue Wednesday so I did the short bike Thursday morning.

Food wise, I did log starting October 1 and I'm pretty sure I got everything except for maybe Friday night where I went out and so had to estimate a bunch. Results are a bit mixed - I definitely have some bad habits. But logging does make it easier.

Oct 1 - 1522 calories
Oct 2 - 1720
Oct 3 - 2170
Oct 4 - 2166
Oct 5 - 1616 so far, will probably end up at 1716.


So, on the plus side, tracked every day once I started. On the down side, two days over 2000 calories out of 5. That having been said, all days were under target according to myfitnesspal (i.e., taking into account exercise). But I don't know how trustworthy that is and we'll see how it goes if I am able to keep it up for a whole month.

This week is the first "cutback week" in my cobbled-together plan (most plans work on three-week progression/one week cutback cycle). So the workouts are all relatively short, and I am tempted to do more. But I know that sticking with this kind of plan is a better way to avoid injury so I am going to stick to it:

Mon - Off
Tue - Run 35 mins
Wed - Swim 21 mins, Bike 42 mins
Thu - Off
Fri - Swim 35 mins
Sat - Run 21 mins
Sun - Bike 70 mins

Going to to SFO Monday and spending Monday night there; coming back Tuesday. Needless to say that short a trip combined with short workouts should mean no problem hitting the target for the sixth week in a row.

Six weeks down, still haven't missed a workout.

Also kept up logging this week, six days out of seven even though there were two business dinners. That having been said each business dinner itself was over a day's worth of calories. One must have been nearly two day's worth. I definitely need better strategies for those situations.

Calories:

Oct. 6 - 2703 (business dinner!!)
Oct. 7 - 1820
Oct. 8 - 1707
Oct. 9 - did not log dinner, estimate 3600. (!!)
Oct. 10 - 1737
Oct. 11 - 1768
Oct. 12 - 1836

This week I'm headed to China on Wednesday so I decided to move my long run to today and do by swim and (hopefully) bike tomorrow. That will give me off days wed/thurs (travel days) and put me on schedule for Friday and the weekend. I am not looking forward to doing a two hour "bike" ride in a hotel gym!

Mon - Run 58 mins
Tue - Swim 35 mins, Bike 70 mins
Wed - Off
Thu - Off
Fri - Swim 58 mins
Sat - Run 35 mins
Sun - Bike 117 mins

I am interested to hear your thoughts on how durable this exercise model is? Can you see yourslef with this workload in a year or a decade?
If so, why?
If not, what would you change?

So here I am sitting in a "sports bar" at the hyatt at the sfo airport. I'm spending the night here before leaving for Korea in the morning. Because when you are traveling halfway around the world for one meeting, you really can't take a chance on missing your flight.

I'm having a chicken club (hold the mayo) for dinner. And a beer. Only 16oz tho! Good thing this was my long bike day.

Weekly recap: although the schedule was pretty messed up by the travel, I did do all the workouts. The part that didn't go according to plan was that I did not get home in time to swim Friday night. So I swam Saturday morning and Ran Saturday afternoon. Not ideal, but better than skipping a workout.

Foodwise, I failed to log on Thursday and Friday. I tried to make better choices -- and generally succeeded -- but just lost track of dinner in the lounge and then "snacks" on the plane after I slept (I skipped the plane dinner). All other days were under 2k calories though so I feel ok about the week.

I am indeed losing weight - down around seven pounds since mid-September. I'm not going to get excited about it unless it keeps up through November, though.

Digger, to answer your questions on sustainability: this current schedule is pretty sustainable. It's basically two off days, two days of about two hour work outs, and three days of an hour work out per week. That is not that hard to fit I to a schedule, and since I'm doing three different activities I feel like the injury risk is far less than it was when I was just running. So a year from now I can easily see myself still doing the 2-2-2 schedule. Even a decade from now I see 7 hours a week as very sustainable, although the activities may have to change.

I don't think that the schedule I'll be on when it goes to 3-3-3 would be sustainable for me. My son is too young and my schedule it too unpredictable. That type of schedule, to be sustainable, requires a pretty set routine. So to make it sustainable I'd either cut it back or change jobs to something more predictable or both.

Oh, this week is same as last week except all times go up by 10pct. And I'm traveling Mon-Wed. So I may try to run tomorrow or will do so as soon as I get into Seoul, depending on how my legs feel in the morning after today's 2-hour bike ride.

This was my most challenging week yet in terms of getting the workouts in. I couldn't swim in Korea and my Thursday was slammed so I ended up doing the short swim on Friday and the long swim on Saturday (along with the short run). Not ideal but the work got done. I may be looking at something similar this week as I will be in Washington dc Friday and will likely not be able to swim. I may run there and then do long swim on Saturday again.

Food wise things were much better -- I logged pretty well except for Wednesday (estimating there) and stayed under 2000 calories every day. I can see some changes on the scale and in what I can do - I averaged 17 mph on my 2 hour ride today and finished stronger than I did last week.

Calorie counts:

Mon 1723
Tue 1817
Wed 1582
Thu 1786
Fri 1951
Sat 1634
Sun 1459+ (Likely one snack later)

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My workouts this coming week:

Mon - Off
Tue - Run 70 mins
Wed - Swim 42 mins, bike 85 mins
Thu - off [fly to Washington DC]
Fri - Swim 70 mins (will likely switch with Sat) [Return from Washington DC]
Sat - Run 42 mins (will likely switch with Fri)
Sun - Bike 128 mins

This week my hiccup was Friday - I got up too late to get a run in before my meeting I. Washington DC. So I did a run (42 minutes) then swim (70 minutes) on Saturday. Unfortunately, I neglected to hydrate properly and in the pool I don't get the same cues from my body that I need water that I get while running or biking. The result - terrible calf cramps about 45 minutes in to the swim. In retrospect I should have just stopped but I pushed through. Now my calf is pretty sore, so I'm glad today is a rest day and that this week is a cutback week.

Food wise it was a pretty solid week except for Thursday and I feel like I'm in a pretty decent groove in terms of consistency. That having been said it takes a lot of mental overhead still do I can't really say I've made eating less a habit yet. Thursday I had a ridiculous business dinner in Washington at a steakhouse. I made the mistake of skipping lunch and really overdid it to the tune of over 3k calories for the day. Ugh. I don't mind splurging for the good food but too many of the calories were bread and butter and an appetizer that I could have and should have easily changed into a salad.

Now that another month has gone by I can look back and see good progress. I'm down more than 10 pounds, and I am much stronger on the bike. Too many of my runs are treadmill runs but I am not too worried about it right now. Consistency is more important than speed at this stage.

Calorie counts:

Mon 1966
Tue 1669
Wed 2215
Thu 3470
Fri 1659
Sat 1684
Sun 1985

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My workouts this coming week:

Mon - Off
Tue - Run 42 mins
Wed - Swim 25 mins, bike 51 mins
Thu - off
Fri - Swim 42 mins
Sat - Run 25 mins
Sun - Bike 85 mins

I'll be traveling all week but home Wednesday morning, so this is a good week for a cutback week.

Traveling all week made this past week a challenge even though it was a cutback week. I didn't make it home in time to swim Friday so once again did the short run and long swim together on Saturday.

I continue to see progress on the bike, where I can now average over 17mph on my 25-30 mile rides. If I can build my stamina such that I can hit that pace over the full 56 miles on race day AND still have enough left for the run it will be amazing.

These are the last few weeks of the 2-2-2 schedule. I'm taking a vacation thanksgiving week so I will use that as my next cutback week then do a last "long" week before switching to the 3-3-3 schedule.

Food wise I feel like I'm in a pretty good groove but this week was definitely a strain. I ate too much on Thursday at a cocktail party instead of having a real dinner, and couldn't really log it. Otherwise, it was ok. Weight is still coming off so I can't beat myself up too much.

Calorie counts:

Mon 1815
Tue 1764
Wed 2387
Thu 2800 (estimated)
Fri 1876
Sat 1727
Sun 1948

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My workouts this coming week:

Mon - Off
Tue - Run 70 mins
Wed - Swim 42 mins, bike 85 mins
Thu - off
Fri - Swim 70 mins
Sat - Run 42 mins
Sun - Bike 141 mins

Only travel is a day trip on Thursday. The challenge is two long workouts Wednesday.