After almost 5 months of not training... I'm Back!!! Between work, MBA and holidays my training was put on hold until now.  Now that my MBA is complete and the holidays are over, its definitely time to start training for Ironman Lake Placid in July 2008.

I setup a new training plan from Endurance Nation which really is an updated site from the Crucible Fitness team.

My first 6 mile run was a real shock to the system.  I wanted to update my bike threshold wattage score to see how many watts my score had dropped.  Prior to my training hiatus my score was around 220.  Not great, by not bad given my lack of training time.

Getting ready for the FTT (Functional Threshold Test) I ran into an unexpected problem.  Computrainer didn’t seem to run well under my updated computer running the Vista OS.  The program kept crashing.  Rather than spending all night hoping to resolve the issues I decided to setup a spare computer (running Windows XP) as a dedicated Computrainer computer.

It turned out to a be  real workout in order to utilize the new machine as I had to re-configure the treadmill and bike trainer locations.  Landice treadmills are great with their lifetime warranty. However it comes at a price – they are very solid and heavy.  After spending an hour moving everything around I was finally able to start the real workout the FTT test.  After the workout I calculated my new score and it was a low 177. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have expected much more given it was my first time of the bike in close to 5 months.  Maybe the low score could be attributed to the workout before the FTT  but I have my suspicions that it was simply my lack of fitness.

After the FTT, I put in another hour using the Compex Sport (electronic muscle stimulation) endurance and recovery programs on my quads.  I am hoping to make better use of the Compex endurance program.   I haven’t taken advantage of it nearly enough.  I think that it would be a valuable addition to the training plan and only further improve my overall performance.   The recovery program has been great. I have used this after long rides in the past and even after a 5 or 6 hour ride my legs felt great the next day.

After 2 1/2  years without a semester break I finally completed my MBA from NCSU.  On Dec 19 I crossed the podium and accepted my MBA in Innovation Managment.   Some classes took as little as 5 hours a week addtional time outside the classroom - others took as much as 15-20 additional hours.  Now that the holidays are over I am finally able to spend some more time with the family and tackle some of the projects that were sidelined due to lack of time.

I kicked around the idea of a doctorate but quickly came ot my senses and figured I needed some downtime before even considering a significant undertaking.