Today marks the start of the Build Phase of my training. Typically, this stage consists of three, three week periods. But, due to my knee injury back in January, I had to make some adjustments and cut this stage down to a single, four week period. Details on the change can be found here.

I’ve been in the Base Phase up until this point. Base Phase was done mostly in my aerobic training zone (zone 2), building my endurance. Now things will start shifting into preparing for an actual race. Volume won’t be as high, but intensity will increase. I will be doing more intervals and tempo rides/runs while maintaining the endurance that I established during the Base Phase.

I’ve been running and riding at a pace that corresponded to a target heart rate up to this point. Now most of my workouts will be done at “race pace”, keeping an eye not only on my heart rate, but what my actual running/riding pace is. Lots more time in zone 3 than before…this should get interesting!!

Some pictures from Saturday’s Papa John’s 10 Miler (thanks Mom!):