A few days before I did my first triathlon, I told my personal trainer at LA|FITNESS that was going to stop training with him and begin training with Breakaway Training. I decided to go with Breakaway for the following reasons:

1. I had reached a level of fitness with my second personal trainer at the gym and needed to be challenged.
2. I decided to compete in triathlons.
3. I reached a plateau in my cycling and running; I needed to find a new way to take it to another level.

In the last two months that I’ve trained with Breakaway, I’ve seen tremendous gains in my performance. Specifically, my race pace for running has increased from 7.5 mph to anywhere from 8 to 8.5 mph. With enough rest I hope to run at 9 mph in my next half marathon in August. I’ve made a huge improvement in my cycling speed as well. I’ve experienced two successful rides with the “B” group of San Diego Bicycle Club. Prior to Breakaway, I could not keep up with that group.

Breakaway provides me with a customized training plan each month with specific durations and activities for training: weightlifting, running, cycling, and swimming. I also have a customized swim workout that I do once a week. There are three weekly group coached sessions available as well:

• Tuesday night Brick – Turbo spin class + run
• Thursday night Track – usually running torturous intervals in circles
• Sunday morning – mixed workout

I’ve recently added two un-coached group sessions:

• Friday night Cove swim – half-mile or one-mile ocean swim at La Jolla Cove with dozens of other triathletes
• Saturday morning cycling – 60-mile course with hills that make the “B” ride at SDBC look really tame

I still don’t like swimming very much, but I’ve seen improvements in my ocean swimming, like increased speed and increased comfortability being in the water. This is a huge improvement for me considering that during my first ocean swim with Breakaway, I was terrified and practically hyperventilating.

I went on the bike course for the first time this past Saturday, and got dropped on the hills. It’s a pretty tough course. I intend to keep doing it until I’m good at it because I think it will be perfect preparation for me to do a tough half Ironman (70.3).

Oh yeah, and my coach has a cool name, Luke Walton. No, not the lame one from the Los Angeles Lakers and the University of Arizona.