The May HIM Training thread!
Many of us are training for a May HIM, so let's hear it how your training is going! What did you do today, how's the fitness evolving? Things you want to share or has your mojo gone missing and you could use a little encouragement? Post it here!
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Alright, I'll get started! Training for IM 70.3 SG with a training day at IM 70.3 California in two weeks.
Training has gone well but I'm learning an early season HIM is not as straight forward when living in Cleveland vs living near Los Angeles! Trainer bound almost all the time, so far only been able to do 2 outdoor rides which is impacting my adjustment to riding in aero a bit. I need a few weeks to adjust on the road, but on the trainer riding in aero seems to be much harder also. But it is what it is.
R & P thought I could use some extra training and made me work hard today! Started with the 30' run on the treadmil incl 1 mile at z3 (IF 0.98) which went well. Legs a bit tired from last Thursday's run but got better as I got warmed up.
Then got on the bike (on the trainer): 30' z1 --> IF 0.67 ; 8' at IF 0.99, 10' IF 0.99, 12' IF 1.00, 12' IF 0.98, 10' IF 0.99 so did great on all FTP intervals. Then 12' IF 0.84, 12' IF 0.82, 12' IF 0.82 and 12' IF 0.84. By then there was only 18' left in the 3h block and I was toast, so took it easy, sat in aero for some easy spinning.
Great training day, very happy. Already looking at next week which has me doing a race rehearsal. Hopefully roads will be clear so I don't have to do that indoors.
I'm building towards St. George in May followed by CDA in June. I suffered a broken hip last december and these 2 races were in serious doubt as i started 2013. I got off crutches end of January and was able to finish the NOS minus any running and at a much lower FTP. Coach Rich put me in the Bike Focus plan, and now i'm finishing up the last few weeks of the GF plan before going into the IM plan. Bouncing from plan to plan was a way to keep run volume low while i recovered. I have been steadily building my run and while i'm not completely back to my pre-injury 50 VDOT I am getting closer. This past week i did 3 x 1mile repeats at an average pace of 6:45. While that's pretty much in line with TP for my target VDOT, I don't think i could sustain a 6:20-6:35 pace over 5k. We'll see in a few weeks when i retest. Regardless where i test i feel real good with the progress i have made and I even put myself in a half marathon on April 7th to get a true gauge of my run fitness.
Bike-wise i am way ahead of where i was last year at this time although this being my first year with EN and with power, i can't compare quantitatively. All i know is i wasn't working nearly as hard on my bike last year.
Prior to joining EN, i was one of those guys who just went to the pool and swam a straight 2000-3000 yards. As i came out of the OS and started swimming more seriously, i have been incorporating more speed work and drills along with doing coached swim workouts on Sunday mornings with my local tri club. I haven't retested but i'm feeling pretty good where i am swim-wise.
Additionally, the other change i have made this year is to embrace my rest days and take recovery much more seriously. I hit my workouts hard and try to recover with the same intensity so i am ready to go for my next workout. Overall, i'm very thankful for where i am at this point in the season and just grateful that i'm even going to have a season. Everything from here is a bonus!
@ Mark -- congrats on your recovery, seems like it is coming along well. soon you'll have some of the endurance back in your run.
I'm doing the American Triple on May 17-19. It is 4 triathlon events over one weekend (sprint on Friday afternoon, Oly on Sat am, another Oly on Sat pm, culminating with a HIM on Sunday am). So I guess I'm training for a HIM with lots of warm up. So far things are going well. I'm in the JAN OS now. I'm running a 10k next Sunday as my run test and hope to break 44 minutes (ran a 10k in early Feb in 45:10). I will switch to the HIM plan per coach R after the 10k. I've been adding some volume to the Sat bike workouts plus adding in a 4th bike ride each week on Sunday. Averaging about 120 miles/week on the bike and about 18 miles/week running. For swimming, I've been getting at least 3 swims/week avging 1500 to 2000m per swim. Mostly doing drills and 100 or 200 meter intervals. Got 4 swims in this week. Priority is to stay injury free and slowly keep building my fitness. Given the unique format of the TTT, I've been focusing on frequency of workouts & speed. April will be about adding in more volume.
Good luck to everyone racing in May.
Today's ride for me was a 2h ABP it said... but I only made it to the end of the warmup. Legs were like jello, zero power and the warmup felt like I was pushing at a power I wasn't even gonna be able to keep up for an hour. Ended up calling it a day after a total of approx 40 mins, better to keep it short and consider it more of a recovery ride than drag it out for 2 hours at 50% FTP I figured.
Correct Al, yesterday was run and bike on the treadmill and trainer. I think you are right about the fatigue, I know these workouts seem much more doable when done outdoors. I really hope to be able to ride more outdoors soon, this current weather does seem to require some adjustment in the training but it's not something I'm used to.
New week, more opportunity to gain some fitness! Didn't make it to my swim this morning because of work commitments, so only did the run tonight. Tired legs told me to have a bit of a longer warmup so stretched it out to 20 mins instead of 15.
2 x 1.5 mile z4, interval 1 at IF 1.00 and interval 2 at IF 1.01. Felt better as the run progressed, and even though it felt like hard work the legs weren't complaining too hard today. Looking forward to swimming tomorrow, that's always good for the leg recovery.
I already did that race last year finishing with a very astonishing 4:39:59 ... but this year I'm already up to 2 levels above where I was last year (thx to EN!!).
Actually I'm in the GetFaster Adv. Plan week 6 so there's quiet a lot of WORK todo and as there is no rest day any more the very first week really kicked my ass badly.
Also going from almost no swimming to 3 times per week was quite hard for me as a very bad swimmer but I actually feel that it's getting better.
This week will be very hard as I'm having a HM on Saturday so I moved my long bike WKO to Friday ... this means I'll have the hard Z4 running repeats (3x1 + 2x0.5) on Wednesday, followed by another 12min VO2 bike workout on Thursday and of course the critical key-session on the bike with 2x20'@100% + Vo2 + >1h of ABP on Friday ...
I keep my fingers crossed to be able to run somewhere around 1:30 on Saturday (PB is 1:23 from last November).
PS: I really LOVE the half-iron distance as this is something you can really RACE
@Stefan - I hear ya man! I'm also in week 6 of the Get Faster Plan with last week being my first week in GF and it is one tough workout after another. It's all good and i can't wait to test in a couple weeks because i feel like i'm making good progress, but the plan itself is very intense. Hopefully, all the hard work will pay dividends.
Best of luck in your in half marathon. Breaking 1:30 would be crazy good following the FTP/VO2/ABP ride the day before!
Still debating how to handle the next few days. Tomorrow I've got a masters swim, but I will drop tomorrow's run. Then got to decide what to do Friday / Saturday / Sunday. Plan calls for a race rehearsal on Saturday and rest on Sunday but I'm considering moving things around a bit. Given how I missed the ride last Sunday (fatigue) and today (fatigue) I want to get some good quality riding in this weekend, which means I need to be rested, train hard and not be so trashed after Saturday I'm too tired on Sunday. So maybe dropping the intensity a notch and doing extra volume.
So Thursday --> swim
Friday --> rest
Saturday --> 3h bike, ABP
Sunday --> 2h bike, ABP
Then again, weather is calling for more snow and my head is not ready for more hours on the trainer...
Will do a 70min VO2 bike workout today and also try to get my lost swim workout from yesterday in
My plan was for this weekend was to skip the race rehearsal, ride the bike and let the legs select the power rather than the training plan or the head. Lots of snow outside but roads were dry and clear so took the road bike and ended up with a great 3h ride at 286 watts NP for the entire ride. Legs felt powerful and consistent, definitely wasn't trashed and had more of the same in me so it was a bit of a nice surprise!
Plan for tomorrow is to catch up on the 2h run I missed on Thursday, should be able to run outside again with will really help with the mojo. Then may have to rearrange workouts a bit for next week before flying to LA on THursday for IM Cali.
I planned to go slightly below 1:30 but as soon as the starting pistol has been fired I just tried to run at a consistent and moderate pace. At the turning point I realized that I was WAY too fast in terms of my own set goal for this race but I decided to just keep going like that.
At km 15 I had luck and caught up to another guy and we both pushed each other pretty well to the finish line! The course was quite challenging in the end because it was slightly uphill the whole second half of the race.
I finished with a new PR of 1:23:25 but I must admit that the course was about 200m too short (20.92km)
As we have slight snowfall today I will skip my low-priority strides run and looking to have a nice swim-session in the afternoon.
1h23' that is ridiculously fast!!! Well done!
All intervals went great, legs feeling strong, good 'spring' , never felt trashed after each interval or every hill. Loved it! THis was a great training weekend that once again turned the week around, when halfway through the week my mojo was totally gone yet after a short break the weekend workouts went very well. 6 days to go till IM California!
@Ben - Glad to hear this weekends workouts went well and you are back in a good space. Goes to show you, don't get too high or too low. Good skill next week in IM Cali!
This morning I started with masters swimming - overall it was pretty normal, just ran out of energy the last 15 mins. Doing some more biking tonight, but haven't decided what. Plan calls for a run but with that bruised toe I'm not ready to run yet, holding off on that till the weekend.
Did my FTP test today as the last workout in the GetFaster plan. Looks like I've reached the top-level of fitness and need to work on holding that power-level but work on body composition ... just checkout the values and you will see what I'm talking about
But anyhow I'm really proud of hitting that magic 400W for 5 minutes!!
Dropping into the IM plan next week so let's see where this will take me
As I felt some light fatigue from yesterdays FTP test I just did an easy run with one of my work buddies and dropped into the pool after work.
I really "feel" that my swimming is getting better almost every single session I'm in the water and I'm pretty sure I've never been that "fast" ever before ... it really makes a difference if you are swimming just 1-2x per week or 3 times!
Arms are a little jelly right now so I'm a little bit afraid of tomorrows swim WKO
Do you also feel that these 100m repeats are pretty fun seem to fly by?