It's Honu time!

Next week marks the start of my twelve week base training plan for Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, a.k.a. Honu. I have yet to finish up my marathon review, but I thought it best to get the new training underway without delay.

I am once again following a Joe Friel plan, one specifically tailored for older athletes. Last time -- two years ago -- I did a lot of shuffling to get it to fit my life schedule. This time it looks like a better fit. If you are an older athlete you owe it to yourself to read Joe's book, "Fast After 50."

One area  I will modify is the swim workouts. Joe's swim workouts follow well accepted practice. I'm no expert, but I don't see anything wrong with them. The issue is, I am an ardent follower of Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion method, where every workout is designed to focus on a specific aspect of technique. Terry's philosophy is that swimming strength comes from practicing technique. To this I add Joe's argument that as we age we must work extra hard to maintain muscle tone. For  that I plan on continued reliance on strength training with Dorian Cuccia. As for the swim workouts, I plan get them from this great little book by three of Terry's students, "Fresh Freestyle," by Celest StPierre, Dinah Mistilis, and Suzanne Atkinson, MD. The book includes 99 practices, many with color photos. No more confusion about what to do at the pool for TI swimmers.

In his book "The Triathletes's Training Bible," Joe Friel talks a lot about identifying and working on limiters. A training plan provides a balanced approach to all three disciplines -- swim, bike, and run -- with no idea what specific limiter a particular athlete needs to improve. It is up to me to identify my limiters and adjust the plan accordingly.

The two areas I intended to focus on right way are run efficiency and bike threshold power. Some of that bike FTP improvement will transfer over to the run, but not unless I get my legs moving faster and smoother. To that end I expect to see more tempo runs and track drill sessions than called for in the plan.