Smell that? It's a fresh training plan!

I just love opening new-in-box training plans. It's like opening a can of Pringles. I start out all gung-ho and then by the end I feel sick.

Today starts a 10 week training plan from BeginnerTriathlete.com that I will use for my first "A" race of the year, the XTERRA West championships in Las Vegason May 2nd. Yes, the season will be barely underway when this "championship" race hits. I didn't come up with the idea. XTERRA did. Shows you how crazy they are.

Anyways, back to the training. I should be able to handle 10 weeks and stay on track. 20 weeks is too long and results in me burning out. 10 should be doable. I just can't slack as slacking would severely impact my readiness for this race. The plan is an intermediate Olympic plan that I am modifying by adding mountain biking and trail running.

So it's back to the pool for me this week. It's the last week in February, and I didn't pay for Master's swimming, so I'll have to wait until next week to join back up with them. It's probably best I don't swim with them for a week until I can get back in the swing of things. Meaning, embarass yourself in front of strangers at the city pools while you learn to swim again before heading back to swim practice where you will see the same people over and over again.

For my trail run this week, I would like to try one of the Sabino Canyon trails. I've run the road in the dark every Wednesday morning at 5:20 AM with Julie since December, so it would be nice to try something new. I'm hoping on a Friday it wouldn't be too busy on the trails. Everyone should be at the rodeo, right?

Saturday I am planning on a long mountain bike ride. Right now the tentative plan is to roll out the front door of the house, ride the 15 miles up Mt. Lemmon to Mile 12 where the Bug Springs trail starts, and ride Bugs down to the Prison Camp trail. We'll either take the road back down when we hit the campground at Molino, or if we are feeling spry, take Milagrosa. Or take the AZ Trail to Reddington. I'm not sure. Right now I'm planning on weenieing out on the road for this first attempt.