Planning... And This Week's Workouts

This week was the first trial run of using my new planning system. I've been trying to figure out how to adjest to the world of training for 3 different sports-- running, biking, and swimming. It was a bit easier when I was focusing on running, and adding in the other things as cross-training. But there's a bit of a shift when you start thinking about the "other things" as activities you'd like to get better and faster and stronger at, as well as the running. It takes some more creative balancing of workouts. Most importantly, it takes making sure that you're getting plenty of workouts in, without over-doing it.

At the least I need to do 2 workouts each of swimming, biking, and running each week. One shoudl be easy, the other hard. No two hard workouts should occur on the same day. I need one rest day per week. And it would be great to get some strength training worked in there, too. That's essential the formula given in any basic triathlon training plan.

Beyond that, I have some of my own wishes/wants/needs/sideboards:

1. I want to swim 3 times a week. I've found that I seem to maintain a better level of comfort in the water if I swim more frequently. The workouts don't have to be long-- just 15 minutes or so is enough to keep the feel. So I'm trying to schedule in one hard, one easy, and one super-easy/short swim per week.
2. I want at least one weekend day off. I mean, jeez, what else are weekends for?!
3. I want to work on my speed with running. I'm doing my first race of the season the first week of April, and I'd like to see how darn fast I can run a 5k. So I need to get in one good Interval or Tempo workout each week.
4. I'd like to keep up my running endurance. Right now a 1-hr run is no big deal, and I'd like to keep it that way. And slowly add a little more time every few weeks. The Missoula 1/2 Marathon is still many months off, but keeping my current level of endurance will help build a super solid base upon which to add extra miles. Plus that endurance base will help with the triathlon.
5. I need to work around my triathlon class schedule. Our basic plan is to do a harder 40-45 minute bike on Wednesdays, and a longer run (~30 min). Then on Thursdays we mix it up a bit but generally do a shorter, easier bike, some easy running, and then some running drills.
6. I like my Friday morning Power Pump class with Rose and want to include that in my workout schedule. I'm additionally trying to work in at least one other strength session per week, be it weights or a Power Yoga workout.

Whew! So how do I schedule in all of these workouts, and still stay sane and keep my day job? Lucky for me, I'm a Type A Planner. I love making lists, schedules, charts, etc. So here's what I did this week-- I made an Excel sheet with each day in columns, each exercise in rows. Then I used color-coding to help me make sure I wasn't over-loading the hard workouts and that I was getting in all of the workouts I wanted.

I'll keep the same template for the next several weeks and see how it works, and how my workout schedule seems to work for me. One change, though, I'll do a long swim on Tuesdays and skip the one on Thursdays.

(Note: it looks a little fuzzy here, but just click on the schedule and it'll pop up in a window and look much clearer)