Three weeks in

In the first few weeks of training you, Coach Brian Walton seeks to accomplish several things: Get you into the rythem of training, keep you free of injury, and last but not least, get you hooked on it. "It's like a drug," Walton says. "I'm like a dealer who gives out the first few samples for free. Then once I've got you hooked, you're all mine."

Indeed, the training thus far has been manageable if not easy. This past week I logged 7.5 hours of training, most of it relaxed and aerobic. Of course, I say easy because lodged in my brain are the hard training weeks I was able to accomplish (a long time ago) when I was actually fit and deep in preparations for a race. My experience in the three weeks of being coached has been like having my bell rung: Why the hell didn't I get a coach a long time ago? I know what I would have done if I'd been left to my old devices and started this up self-coached. I would have clicked off a four hour ride, thrashed myself with a junky 2 hour run, and generally flailed away like that with sporadic bursts of overtraining until I hurt myself.

Duh.

And then I would have stopped training altogether and a year would have flown by.