IMTX March 18th-24th thread...

tim cronk

Some discussion as to what week we are in?  I think we have 9 weeks left until IMTX.

Today was a swim only day.   I think my snorkel, ankleband, short V02 intervals , are starting to pay off , as I start to add far ontop of fast.  Some break through numbers for me today.  4000yds , 500wu ,  MS 3 x 500(1-2min)  @ 7:23 , 7:10, 7:14 , the rest snorkel , fins , easy.... Very happy since I have never done a sub 7:30 500yd TT before.  I actually though I miscounted the first  500 .  Very excited!  Goal is 1000TT in 15min flat! ... Looks in reach.

new2703

Nice work Tim. Couldn't drag my lazy ass out of bed this am to swim. Calves are still to sore to run maybe a trainer ride tonight

gamcok

Congrats Tim and nice work!

We are on week 11; 9 weeks out. RnP said the tech team is working on it. Going to swim at lunch and hope I don't yak in the pool...way too much Guinness last night.

Joseph Lombardi

Great work Tim....can't wait to try the swimbands....as I noted in the wrong thread....today was to be a swim only day....but my mental checklist halfway to the pool went something like this....Fins, Goggles, Nose Clip, Cap..CHECK...change of clothes for work...CHECK...Bathing Suit....Bathing Suit...Buehler!?....aaahhh....So I guess this is a rest day.

tim cronk

@Joe....LOL been there... yep I've driven to go biking only to find out NO SHOES , gone rock climbing only to find out NO ROPE... Enjoy your rest day....

ezellrh

Nice work Tim. Solid swim

I got 2500yds in this morning with MS of 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 hundreds on TP. This is the first year i've decided to swim 'hard/fast' (for me) in an effort to see some swim gains. Bottom line, i don't think i can go much slower, so anything should help.

I'm not testing this week, so i'll dial up a pretty standard week for wkos. Good luck everyone!

Joseph Lombardi

I guess because I'm taking a rest day...this quote appealed to me....so thought I would share;

“You’ve got to have the mental toughness and confidence in yourself where you believe that you can take those days off and you can recover and you can run great,” Salazar said. “A lot of what we see in athletes that just train all the time and never give themselves adequate recovery is often portrayed as toughness. What I’ve realized over the years is it really is a weakness. It’s an insecurity that you’re not good enough to recover like other athletes: I’m not good enough to do that; I need to keep training; I can’t take time off; I can’t take easy days.” 



Another QOTD from Alberto Salazar via The Washington Post, vs LetsRun via Reid Coolsaet's blog (which has some interesting posts from his camp in Iten Kenya.

gamcok

Looking for some advice here. I've got an Olympic on Sunday...don't really want to gear down my training but also want to do well. Suggestions? I'm on the Intermediate plan

tim cronk

@Dwight IMTX is your focus and A race. That doesnt mean you cant race well at your OLY. The plans are kinda screwed up so I dont know what your really supposed to be doing, I did load an INT plan and it looks like a test week? I'd keep your week standard, shorten your long run , go easy or rest on Saturday , race hard and have fun on Sunday, go easy or rest on Monday, resume standard training Tues. So you may miss out on a longbike and a shorter longrun but you will gain a lot from that race. Racing an OLY is better training!

FWIW I juggled the same thing around in my head. I have a HM race this weekend.... I have hacked my plan to have longbike on saturday and longrun on sunday.... Just gonna keep it as is and see how I do on Sunday.

gamcok

@Tim- You're correct...it's a testing week and I'm going to hack my plan as you suggested. Actually looking forward to racing again...haven't done one sine I ran through the chute in NYC last year.

Thanks for the input!

Joseph Lombardi

@Dwight ...JMTC....while I am not good at taking my own advice....read the quote I posted below....taking proper rest before or right after to prepare, abosrb, and adapt to hard training effort is important....your not gearing down your training.....for a Sunday race...typically it is normal plan through Thursday....easy or light bike/run on friday...swim if you want ....off on  Saturday....Race Sunday...Off Monday...bavck to plan on Tuesday but okay to go lighter on the intensity (75-80%) if tired... then back to Normal on Wednesday...no harm no foul.

Pretty much what Tim recommended....

Have fun and good luck to both of you!

gamcok

thanks @Joseph and agree. I love that quote too..i think we all suck at rest and recovery LOL.

Jay Lakamp

Yeah, week 9 (60 day and 15 hours+)...good I'll test next week for the Inter. plan bike test. Recovering after the 15K Shamrock run on Sunday and it would be nice to have the legs back for the bike test that's to occur on Tuesday.

jendat

Hey Texas folks! How long did IM Texas take to fill this year? I am considering it for next year, but would like to wait and see how I feel after IM CDA.

Sarah Gardner

I signed up in late October, but when I checked in January for a friend, the regular slots were full. They still had the $$$$ donor slots open.

Jay Lakamp

Politics were the delay this time with The Woodlands I heard so this might be a poor year to judge the time it took to fill. It doesn't fill up like Arizona, Florida, nor Wisconsin if I remember right. "But he who hesitates is lost". It's always tough sometimes when to pull the trigger. Yeehaw.

Joseph Lombardi

Good Morning ...and Happy St. Josephs Day!....get your Zeppolle On!

After first full rest day in quite a while it felt good to be back on the Carbon Horse this morning....knocked out 90min. of TrainerRoad Winchel 187NP/.90IF 

http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/261040

now quickly packing to head off for two day biz trip....run tommorrow on the hotel TM back for normal Thursday!...lookin for good weather for big day Saturday.

new2703

do you guys know when the race rehersals are scheduled?

Easiest day at the pool so far this year. Lacked the motivation to push hard today. Have to try to fit in some bike workouts this week. Leaving for Disney on Friday and will be gone til following Sunday.

tim cronk

JK--- showing week 15 and week 18... I'm going to do a big day (1hr/5hr/1hr) next friday the 29th , after that I'll be doing 5hr rides with bricks every saturday , planning another bigday on 4/27.... Thats the plan anyway... As I said before , not sure you caught it, but I'm not doing the back to back rides on the weekends , I doing long ride , long run. With the brick added to that Saturday ride every week will be a RR ... Enjoy your VAca to Disney!

JL--- way to get some work done before your trip! do what you can the clock is ticking....

Todays bike was TR - Pinnacle for the second week in a row... It was not any easier today than it was last tuesday... Just a beast... Dialed the last interval down to .95.
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/261123

Oh did I mention we have about a foot of snow in the driveway again! WTF

imsherlock

@Tim - Don't you love the snow? I'm going to miss it.  

@John - Enjoy the vacation and relax. Based on your picture, I'm sure your kids will keep you running around!

Bike test done this morning and I'm off to Austin today. Definitely looking forward to the warmer weather. Given that I won't be able to swim tomorrow I'm thinking about pulling up the long run instead; especially while the weather is nice.

I've noticed a lot of EN peeps using TrainerRoad. I took a quick look at the webpage and it looks pretty cool, but costly. What's the word? Is it worth the investment and are there any problems?

tim cronk

Ryan, The cost of TR is $10 per month and can be turned on and off monthly quite easily. They will even save your data for you. Best money for training you will ever spend, with of course the exception of EN..... IMO the data and visuals create an experience that makes the trainer almost fun and higher quality training.... You dont even know you want it yet , until you try it.....

gamcok

@Tim speaks the truth and since he turned me onto it I almost (almost) look forward to the trainer sessions! 

 Just got done with the short run today (45min) and look forward to my Trainer Road power test tonight

 D

Joseph Lombardi

@Ryan.....ditto to the TrainerRoad comments....really a great return on training investment ($10/month) + Garmin ANT stick ($30?)....I actually do look forward to the Trainer rides....

new2703

For you guys that use Trainer road, how many already have a power meter? If have why do you like or need Trainer road. Looking for something to break up boredom of rides. Do they have 3-5 hour rides

tim cronk

JK.... Yes I have a power meter and a computrainer...... you certainly dont need trainerroad but you want it!!!!! I guess the best way to describe it.... would be a highly enhanced training experience , through the visual graphing of your power and heartrate realtime. Upper left corner displays your power and your target power, middle displays your interval time and your total time, top right displays HR and Cadence , the picture or the graph is exactly what you see us post. Large numbers on the screen , and there is something about the visual graph that makes you just stick to that target! They do have a few rides over 3 hours and I think the longest is 4:10 called Disaster which is an amazing ride that will destroy you, they have some free rides up to 4 hours (blank if you will where you can ride whatever you want which defeats the purpose IMO). I build my own , you can click on any of my links that I have posted and then click on my username knorcmit and then scroll down thru all my rides and see what I have built. I'm building my long rides with intervals of .85 and .75 and above , while you build a ride you can see the proposed TSS and IF as you go, so you know ahead of time what you have before you even ride it. Trying to make all mine come out at .75... of course you have to ride it as you built it..... TRY it.... when you stop riding inside , you cancel , save some money and start back up whenever you want... I'm gonna keep mine active year round its cheap!

tim cronk

JK, Forgot to mention.

1. Lots of really cool prebuilt rides. You can sort and look thru them based on time, intesity, etc.
2. TR plans to choose from for something different. My girlfriend is in week 6 of a 9 week plan, she has done 2 different 6 week plans , showing huges gains , loves it, does a different ride every training day. Just follows it. She isnt used to pushing herself but the picture graph with goals she just refuses to let up.. Half the time I look at what she is doing and I'm jealous. They arent easy either she is averaging around .90 for 1-1.5hr rides.
3. Amazing support. The guys running it are hard working , smart and very helpful.
4. When your done your ride. It logs itself. resides on the TR cloud. You can view on the web or in the app.
5. Sufferfest and other videos ( I have not done any of these yet you do need the video)
6. you can minimize data (but still big enough to see) and watch netflix etc on same screen, I just use laptop for TR and Ipad for NFLX.
7. Downside????

new2703

Tim, thanks for the input. May have to invest because I can only take so much of the spinervals Wko

ezellrh

Snuck away from the board to get in 5 miles in 36:xx with 3x1 mile at TP hot. I upped the intensity because I was crunched for time and didn't get my usual mileage to/from the track. Hoping to get a shortened bike in at stupid thirty tomorrow morning and a swim late evening.

I may be the only person in the Haus that doesn't understand TR for those that already have a power meter. All the power/cycling metrics referenced above are displayed on my Garmin and the only additional value add is the pretty lines on the computer/TV screen. As my screen has either music videos or a movie/tv shown on it while I jam on the trainer, personally I wouldn't get anything out of the service. But I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on this one.

Anywho, keep on it everyone!

new2703

Tim, thanks for the input. May have to invest because I can only take so much of the spinervals Wko l

ezellrh

Some mornings the knight in shiny armor with the sharp sword wins. This was not one of those mornings. The black oily dragon hung a new carcass outside his cave. 0400 came early and with it big plans for a quick 45 minute FTP bike with 2x15 sets of work. Neither the body nor the mind were willing. Ended up with 40 minutes and a total of ~21 minutes of FTP split into 4 intervals of 4-6 minutes each. Something is better than nothing, but I definitely didn't bring the game today. Here's to a good pool workout tonight!

Joseph Lombardi

Big steak dinner last evening (and 3 G&T's) fueled my workout this morning...2mile warmup with strides...3x1mi. (6:55's) with 3:00/400 jog recovery...plus cooldown....felt good especially for a biz trip workout on the hotel TM.

@Roy...tough morning...enjoyed the description....black dragon has hung my carcass enough times.