It’s great to see triathlon return to Hawaii in full force. Sunday’s Na Wahine is the latest in what I hope will be a long string of events. I wish all of the participants good luck, and remember to keep it fun. And, if you want help preparing for your next race, drop me a line.

My dear wife just forwarded me an advertisement for Form swim goggles, the ones that display metrics like time and distance in a heads up display. When she does this I take it as permission to buy. Not bad, since these goggles cost plenty. The only reason I don't already have them is they do not offer corrective lenses. Now that I swim exclusively open water their value would be questionable because they get pace data from the Garmin watch, and stroke by stroke pace data is wildly inaccurate.

As I was writing this I realized I did not want it to be a “woe is me” story. I confess I do slip into that mindset occasionally. Who wouldn’t? Then I decided not to make it an advice piece about rising above adversity. There is already plenty of that out there. So, my focus here is more like plain, unembellished news. You can blame me if you fall asleep reading this.

In my previous post I wrote in general about my goal of raising my FTP. Here I will lay out in more detail what my plan to do this looks like, and why.

First I must apologize for the length of this post. As it is, I tried to simplify what is not a simple process. I will further justify my verbosity by pointing out that this is the same level of planning that I, as a coach, will put into any of my athletes’ training plans. It starts with a framework. Then the fun begins as we tailor it to fit real life.

My first A race of the year is done, and my second does not take place until November. How to train in a gap like this can be tricky. More than anything it results in a coach’s favorite expression – it depends. But what does it depend on?

First and foremost, how to train during such a long inter-race gap depends on the athlete. Does their aerobic engine need more development? Does their muscular endurance need improvement? Are they at risk of burning out after that last build period? 

My heart just wasn’t in it, literally and figuratively. If you have been following this blog since last December, you know that the first half of this year has been an exploration into what is going on with my heart. What I know so far is that I have a type of arrhythmia known as Premature Atrial Contractions (PACs). The good news is that this type of arrhythmia is not dangerous. I can continue to be active and not worry about having a heart attack. There are other types of arrhythmias that can trigger a fatal heart attack or cause blood clots which go on to cause serious or fatal results.

The last big training weekend is behind me. In a way it was a reflection of how the season has been going. Good weather, a strong, successful workout, accompanied by my wife Pattie. We even celebrated with lunch at Haleiwa Joe’s and picked up a half dozen Snow Puffies to take home. All in all a very satisfying day. 

I cannot recall when I started to get ads for the Frontier X heart rate monitor. For some reason they looked like just another far-fetched gadget promising to make you faster while in the end just separating age groupers from their cash. Plenty of that in my news feed every day. It was after I finally got a diagnosis for my arrhythmia that I began to look past the hunky, buff, bare chested dude in the photo and dig into more detail.

Sunday’s Honolulu Triathlon went well, and it had its challenges. Before getting into the details, let’s take a step back and get some perspective. 

Do you ever get the feeling you have turned a corner in your training? For a while things seem so-so, then all of a sudden things get serious? For me that turning point was last Sunday’s Honolulu Metric Century Ride.