One of Kelly’s season goals was to raise his FTP and really develop his power on the bike. After months of base building and endurance miles, it was time to ratchet up the bike focus and dive into more intense bike sessions to help him meet this goal. We began a block of high intensity bike work to boost his FTP. Since training for Ironman is still his priority, we’ve been careful in how we go about doing this.

While he works from home, Kelly still works a fairly typical 9-5 job and needs to be near his computer or phone during that timeframe. So his weekly training load is set up like most athletes, where shorter workouts happen during the week and the weekends are made for the long ride and the long run.

According to Training Peaks, I entered my Peak Phase last week. So in this post I'm going to share with you what my training has looked like the last week and a half. Peak Phase of training follows the Build Phases and is sometimes referred to as the taper period or taper phase. Volume decreases while intensity remains relatively high as the body is sharpened/fine tuned for race day. The key during this phase is to allow the body to rest and recover, but not too much! It's a fine line to assure the body is ready to go on race morning.

The morning of the race started out like any other for me. I checked the weather forecast. The 74% chance of thunderstorms had been replaced with partly sunny skies, 95% humidity, and high of 85 degrees. Of course, that is the only forecast that is acceptable at Chattanooga! I ate my breakfast, drank my cup of coffee, and then kitted up to head to transition. Once at transition, the ritual of pumping tires, making sure my area was set up just so began, and then it was off to board the busses that would take athletes to the swim start.