My job is getting in the way of my hobby

I've been traveling a lot lately and as a result, my training has really suffered. I've only been able to complete about 6 workouts in the past 2 weeks and have decided to pull the plug on next weeks sprint tri at Lake Murray. I'm kind of bummed about it as it will be my first opportunity to swim in my new wetsuit but there will be plenty of other opportunities. My left hamstring / hip flexor is still pretty sore so going all out in the 5k is probably not a good idea.

I put away the indoor trainer and am transitioning to my tri bike as I move into the next phase of my training. The next 2 weeks are supposed to be off or transition weeks but I find it hard to do this knowing I pretty much transitioned the past two weeks.

Thinking about getting my position critiqued by ttbikefit.com

Why not Bike, Swim, & Run or Run, Swim, and Bike?

Freestyle swimming has humbled me. Growing up, I was a pretty decent breaststroker and have a box full of county meet ribbons to prove it. Freestyle was my next best stroke but that's all changed. Fast forward 30+ years and while I can still breaststroke fairly well, I can't freestyle for the life of me. For some reason I sink no matter how low I keep my head and regardless if I have a pull buoy between my legs. Breathing while swimming freestyle, forget about it. How could something so simple be so difficult in the water? Give me a snorkel and I'll swim circles around you.

I'm been swimming on average 2X per week since December and I'm no further along. I was making great strides in early February but then we headed to Disney for a few days and I came down with the flu and I've been pretty much useless in the water since that time.

Maybe a Master's class would help or private lessons. Or maybe they could change the order of the disciplines and move the swim to the middle and that way I could use my strength biking or running to get a time gap on all of the swimmers. Or maybe I could wear a snorkel and be so fast out of the water that I wouldn't hear the comments like - where's your spear gun? I'm not sure I'm up for all the ridicule of wearing a snorkel as the blogs are still talking about fin man from IMFL.

I tried making peace with the water as Bree Wee suggested in her blog. It didn't work. We're still at odds with one another.

Rising FTP

My 12' to 20' FTP efforts have been getting easier so I keep increasing my FTP in small increments. All of the VO2 work has allowed me to turn up the watts by 15 to 25 in the last 3' to 5' of the interval. Did a hill interval on Saturday while visiting family in the North GA mountains with an average grade of 6.5% that took me 20' to cover 3.7 miles with a Pavg of 300W. I'm thinking my FTP is at or above 280W which would put me at or above 4W/Kg.

Still undecided about the May 3rd sprint at Lake Murray just because it is my youngest daughter's birthday and I'm not sure what she has planned for the weekend.

More 2 x 20's, 3 x 10', and 3 x 2.5' intervals this week on the bike along with some MP, HMP, and TP run workouts. As far as the swimming goes, I'm trying to put in 3 workouts a week but due to my travel schedule, I've been hitting 1 or 2 at best.

Waterproof Garmin Forerunner 310XT

Finally, a waterproof Garmin for the multi-sport athlete. Available Summer 2009. See link below.

Link