That sounds perfect. My only advice is that you don’t need to put the keys in the long run is power on the long rides. You are still emerging from the race. So we need to be smart.
Ideally you will be recovered enough by mid September to put in a couple really good race sim sessions.
Now is the time to work on your nutrition!
Please let us know if you need any help with lodging or Logistics.
Actually, I do need some suggestions/advice on lodging locations and areas to avoid. I've been looking at VRBO/Home Away listings because I don't want to eat out every day. Also, anything I should watch out for concerning rental cars. Currently, I have a reservation through CarRentals.com with National for a Jeep or equivalent.
I finalized travel/airline plans. I'm arriving around noon on Oct 7, my wife is arriving Oct 11 and we're returning Oct 16.
Hey @Coach Patrick !! I hope you had a great time in Mallorca. I wish I was able to be there, the new rides looked awesome.
Yes, I'm well overdue for a check in. The short version is all is going well, my two A races are 70.3 Eagleman and IM Maryland. I'll submit an Annual Plan update shortly.
Longer version: After Kona I took off about 3 weeks then eased back into S/B/R. During the holidays, I took time to do an evaluation of my year, captured a few changes and set a couple goals for 2019. I used your Year End Report template to recap my year. Please view that attached document. I started OS-like workouts in Jan and concluded with a 10 mile race (1:06/ 6:40 pace) April 7th and then 4 days of cycling in the Shenandoah Valley area plus the EN C and C ride Sunday. 945 TSS/310 miles for the week. It was a nice fitness boost and now I'm jumping into the HIM Advance Plan for Eagleman.
Things to improve/Goals:
Do consistent core work throughout season (still working to implement)
Get more sleep (making progress)
Update bike fit to open up hip angle to reduce hip flexor strain/soreness (done, installed shorter cranks, went from 175 to 165, plus other minor adjustments. So far so good.)
Do more OWS races/events (scheduled for 1.7 mile and 5 mile OWS in May)
Swim video analysis (done)
IM swim goal - sub 1:10; HIM swim goal - 32:00
Start back doing regular run interval and tempo workouts. (done during OS and continuing but not every week)
IM Run goal - 3:30
Improve Tri bike FTP to 275W. (in progress, went from 250W last season to 264W in March
Lastly, here my PMC showing the last 6 months. Of course you can see these and more on my Training Peaks.
Please let me know your thoughts and any recommendations. Thanks.
Thanks for this. I am grateful you put the overall review together as it really Gives us a chance to see what was behind your big year. Honestly, I think the "run maintenance" + "bike volume" really played a large role in what worked.
I agree that this year should be more run focused, but we don't want to lose the bike. Here is what I recommend for you with regards to your Roadmap, including a run focus blog post Eagleman.
On 4/8/2019 Load the EN Half Bike Focused to end on 6/9/2019
On 6/10/2019 Load the Run Focus Block to end on 7/21/2019
On 7/8/2019 Load the -- EN*Full Bike Focused to end on 9/29/2019
On 9/30/2019 Load the -- Post Ironman Transition Plan, All Levels (4wks) to end on 10/27/2019
On 10/28/2019 Load the -- Run Durability for Triathletes 1 (9 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 11/24/2019
IM Swim Goal:
That means being able to do repeat 100 yds on 1:35...so you'll want to work that into your progression. You can start with 10 x 100 on the 1:50, for example, so you can get rest...then we cut to on the 1:45 and eventually on the 1:40. When you can do that...we can bump to 15 x 100 back on the 1:50....and so forth. Goal is to get to 20 x 100. Then we can move to 200s...make sense?
IM Run Goal
This means training for a 3:15 marathon time...that's 7:30 pace...so targets are:
This is great! Just what I was needing to see/hear. I like the run focus block post Eagleman.
Swimming: Currently, I'm able to do 10x100 yds on 1:40 intervals, touching at 1:28 - 1:30. To determine where I am in the progression, I'll see if I can hold 15x100 on 1:40 and if so continue to 20x100. I'll note where I start missing the interval and use that as my starting point.
Running: I'm on target now with the training paces you listed above. My mile interval workouts are between 6:40 and 6:35 pace; long runs are between 7:50 and 8:05; TRP between 7:30 and 7:45. Based on my 10 mile race time two weeks ago, race predictors say I can do a 3:05 - :07 marathon. I'm being conscious of alternating between easy and hard run days to avoid an injury.
Also, I FTP tested (TT bike on the trainer) this morning and got a 6 watt bump to 270. All time high for my Tri Bike, but I wasn't aero the entire time...but still. Next test will be outside in aero position.
Today's plan was 20x100 on 1:40 Interval...ended up doing 24. My times were between 1:32 and 1:35. Results are below. Next, step should be 10x200 on 3:25, then 3:20 interval?? Thanks.
Let’s get through the 10 x 200s at least twice before you bump it up! You might be fit enough but we still want that incremental build. Is there any sport you do not dominate? 💪
I've been slide-lined going on two weeks and wanted to give you a quick update and see if you had any thoughts.
After recovering from Eagleman and a week into the Run Focus block, I came down with Pleurisy. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pleurisy/symptoms-causes/syc-20351863 The doctors don't know the exact cause but through x-rays and blood tests they ruled out all the bad stuff and concluded it was a virus. I had sharp stabbing pain every time I breathed which became very painful at times. It started on June 24, went to the ER on the 25th, then the sharp stabbing pain subsided on Jun 30. The treatment plan was rest and anti-inflammatory/pain medication. For the past few days, I've had a dull pain when taking deep breathes. I have a second follow up doctors's appointment Tuesday.
Other than a couple "trial" workouts, I haven't worked out since June 23. My IM Race Prep plan for IMMD starts July 8. I know (I think) I haven't lost much fitness in two weeks and there's plenty of time to be ready to crush IMMD, right? I'm hoping this will be resolved by Monday and I can get back to work. The good part to all of this downtime is I've been collecting a lot of SAUs. LOL.
@Derrek Sanks Holy cow that’s some serious stuff. I’m super glad he went to the ER and got a diagnosis. From the muscular perspective you’ve lost very little, but aerobically you will need to do some rebuilding. Basically after about five days of complete an activity or blood volume stores to decrease and we move into a compensation. And eventually in to do training. It’s not the end of the world, rest is always best, but it’s important to also be realistic about what returning to activity will mean.
Returning to activity will be difficult but we have to be as intentional as possible. I would not go right to swimming because of the nature of the breathing. Instead I would do if you run walk workouts, starting off for just 30 minutes in the first two or three sessions. You can also do a 30 to 45 minutes of easy spinning on Zwift as well. I want you to do some light aerobic activity in spaces where you can easily regulate your breathing and see what, if anything, aggravate the situation. The last thing I want to do is to short-circuit the good work you’ve done already with this recovery.
Best case scenario, we get you back to baseline activity with no pain, and we can put in a few bigger weeks in late August to reactivate the fitness you already have as a baseline. But first, we have to take baby steps! Please keep me posted.
@Coach Patrick - Great news! The pain subsided on Monday. It feels great to breath without pain. Follow up with doctor on Tuesday and he said there should be no long term damage/affects to the lunge. I resumed training Tuesday, keeping the effort easy and no high volume, which is hard because my legs feel great, but my cardio feels weak. Swimming is the hardest and again I'm keeping the sessions short and intensity low and I use the pull buoy for longer intervals. I'm just trying to get the feel of the water back. I'm noticing that my HR is unusually high during workouts and throughout the day. I'm guessing it's due to reduce blood volume (as you mentioned) and not having acclimated to humidity yet. I'm thinking the HR will be back to normal ranges in a couple weeks as my blood volume increases. I'm planning to do the ride this Saturday but will lower the intensity and/or reduced the time based on how I feel, but I hope to do at least a Z1 to Z2 long ride. Thanks for your advice.
Great!!! If possible he deafly want to get an along low intensity ride. Like zone one for four hours. That will do a lot to boost your blood volume even though the intensity is low and it will give you a chance to adapt to the heat!
@Coach Patrick - Well, I got in a week of training (July 8-15) then the pain came back 😨 This time it was on the lower left side and same sharp pain. Doctor ordered a CT Scan and referral to a Pulmonologist. Last Friday, the CT Scan revealed pneumonia and they prescribed a 5 day antibiotic treatment (he's assuming it's bacterial and not viral). The weird thing was I had no other symptoms of pneumonia...no cough, no fever, no cold, pulse ox was 100% and 2 xrays didn't detect it. Maybe it was in the early stages.
I'm on day 5 of the medication and have been feeling better each day but not back to 100 or 90% yet. I hope to start some low intensity rides/TM run/walks later this week.
Now, I'm concerned about IMMD in 10 weeks. Basically, between race recovery and this illness, I haven't put in any solid, consistent training since Eagleman 6 weeks ago. I know I can be ready to "complete" IMMD but I don't know if I'll be able to "race" it to my expectations.
My choices, as I see it:
Do all I can (without over doing it) to be ready for IMMD and try my best to lower my expectations.
Defer to 2020, least favorable choice
Transfer to IMFL. I have until Aug 12 to defer or transfer to another race
What are your thoughts? Am I missing anything? Is this something I should put in the forums?
I know the decision is mine, just want to make an informed decision.
Thanks for the update, and I’m sorry to hear the news. I assume they are going with viral since bacterial would’ve had the symptoms of her usual case of pneumonia. I definitely want to get a follow up x-ray once your five day round of anabiotics is done so we can see the before and after shot of the effect. If that’s not an appropriate time, because I’m not a doctor, then talking with your physician about when that after x-rays should be taken is important. You demand a lot from your body in training and will do so again on race day — as such, I want to make sure we have full confidence in your health.
In terms of moving forward, You’re basically have 2 1/2 weeks until your deadline for a transfer. That should be enough time for you to emerge from this round of anabiotic’s and then see how your training is going. I guess a lot of it comes down to how confident you are that your body will be able to do the training you want to be successful on race day. I know you are familiar with the course in Maryland, and the differing to later in the year would mean more time which would mean more fatigue and stress.
If we can get that x-ray that effectively clears you, I will be a lot more confident with that information as well as one or two weeks of decent work as you re-enter the training. Deferring until later is the safe play but doesn’t change the short term work required to get you healthy first.
Let me know what you think about the information you get from your doctor.
@Coach Patrick - Actually, they are thinking it's bacterial as that's the more common cause. I'll definitely request follow up CT Scan, hopefully I can get it this week. Knowing that it's cleared up will help mentally too. I'll keep you updated.
The doctor said it will take 6-8 weeks for the symptoms to completely go away. He said the best time to do another CT Scan is 6 weeks after the first scan as any sooner would not provide relevant information. I didn't really understand that logic but went with it. Today, I have very mild side pain only when taking very deep breaths but it's not pain, just a mild tightness. It comes and goes but each day it's less and less and hasn't prevented me from training the past 3 weeks. I've put in a good 3 weeks of training, gradually increasing intensity and volume. My RPE/pace/HR is becoming more and more aligned each day. My main limiter seems to be cardio/respiratory related vice muscular as I get winded and HR gets too high when trying to hit Z3 and Z4 pace and power. Swim fitness is coming back slowly too. I've reduced my threshold numbers and am working to build everything back up. I think the additional 4 weeks that IMFL gives me will be well worth it.
Unless you think otherwise, I was planning to jump in IM training at week 9, which starts today.
@Derrek Sanks moving into the next plan with an eye towards Florida sounds great. My only concern is making sure that the workload doesn’t stress you too much. If required, we could certainly keep the intensity fairly low for two or three more weeks as you continue to build endurance and then add it back in again as part of the build process. I want to be mindful of what your body is experiencing. To that end, when is the follow-up scan? It will be nice to know when we get a complete understanding of your recovery from a technology standpoint as well. As you look at that basic week, is there any type of modification you want to make?
@Coach Patrick - From the way I'm feeling, I'm not experiencing any health related limits while working out. It just feels like I'm somewhat out of shape (by my standards). I've had to reduce intensity as needed while building up volume/endurance. I'm good with short hard efforts in S/B/R (VO2 type wkos), but longer med-hard efforts (Z3-Z4 efforts) are more challenging, so I reduce my target intensity. Reduced intensity meant lowering my FTP from 270 to 260, TRP from 7:45 to ~8:20 and with swimming I slow down enough to complete the intervals and take longer rest intervals. My running mpw has been 13, 23, 31, 29 miles. I've been doing 2-3 swims/week and plan to do 4 next week. Bike time has been around 5 hrs/week but last week was almost 10 hrs (5 rides).
The training plan modifications that I think are needed is to continue with reduced target FTP/paces, but keep the format/duration/volume of each session. I hope to see my FTP/paces come back up as my endurance improves.
What do you think about doing an FTP test in the next week or two or should I wait another 4-6 weeks? This next test will be 100% in the aero bars. As mentioned, now I'm using an estimated FTP but haven't changed it in FS or TP or Zwift.
The follow up scan should be the first or second week of Sept. The doctor also agreed for me to take the lung functional tests at that time too.
Thanks for the bump! I am slowly working my way through all of this thread and was thinking about you just the other day.
I think your work needs to be a balance of the endurance and the hard intensity. Contextually speaking it’s important to remember that you started out with a very high level of fitness, and high standards. Evolving back to where you are now is just as mentally difficult as it is physically to get restarted. Rest assured your fitness is there we just need to reactivate it.
My suggestion is that you affectively divide your week into two types of sessions: intensity/recovery and endurance. Your midweek sessions can have the short intensity on the bike and in the swim. I will keep the run fairly steady and I would try to have those be just one hard session A day or a quality bike run. Ideally 24 hours between sessions.
The weekends would be the longer easier stuff without the intensity. A good weekend would be 4 to 5 hours on Saturday on the bike with a short easy run and then 2 to 3 hours Sunday on the bike with another short brick. Those weekend sessions should not be difficult at all, they are just the foundation upon which we can put race intensity later. This is a format that I would follow for most of September.
As we think about those harder weekday workouts, they could be something that you build off of each week. For example video to bike workouts could be 30 seconds on 30 seconds off this week, 45 seconds on 45 seconds off next week, then a minute on the minute off, finally 90 seconds on 90 seconds off.
I would expect the same type of progression in your swim where you can move from 50s up to 200s by that for the week. You can keep the total volume the same of work, just adjust the interval. So you could do one day of quality swimming in this hard session. The first week will be 20 x 50 hard with 50 easy. The second week will be 10 x 100 hard, the third week would be 6 x 150 hard, and the last week would be five by 200.
I know this is a little outside of the box in terms of what we normally do, so if you need help sketching it out here in the forms I’m happy to help. Ultimately our goal is to reactivate your strength through quality sessions that build progressively. And balance that with the stimulation of the endurance work which will effectively help you recover from the week and get you mentally and physically ready for the quality sessions to come.
That’s perfect! Right now we’re still looking for consistency. Not the baseline that we started off when you were recovering, but the Endurance kind that we associate with Iron Man training.
Once you feel comfortable with those weeks, we can talk about getting a little more specific perhaps one or two items to see if that can have an impact on your race performance. Please keep me posted!
Comments
Now is the time to work on your nutrition!
Hey @Coach Patrick !! I hope you had a great time in Mallorca. I wish I was able to be there, the new rides looked awesome.
Yes, I'm well overdue for a check in. The short version is all is going well, my two A races are 70.3 Eagleman and IM Maryland. I'll submit an Annual Plan update shortly.
Longer version: After Kona I took off about 3 weeks then eased back into S/B/R. During the holidays, I took time to do an evaluation of my year, captured a few changes and set a couple goals for 2019. I used your Year End Report template to recap my year. Please view that attached document. I started OS-like workouts in Jan and concluded with a 10 mile race (1:06/ 6:40 pace) April 7th and then 4 days of cycling in the Shenandoah Valley area plus the EN C and C ride Sunday. 945 TSS/310 miles for the week. It was a nice fitness boost and now I'm jumping into the HIM Advance Plan for Eagleman.
Things to improve/Goals:
Lastly, here my PMC showing the last 6 months. Of course you can see these and more on my Training Peaks.
Please let me know your thoughts and any recommendations. Thanks.
@Derrek Sanks I am on this, please stay tuned for a Reply tomorrow. I just want to make sure I have enough time to do it right.
@Coach Patrick - Thanks...no rush!
@Derrek Sanks -
Thanks for this. I am grateful you put the overall review together as it really Gives us a chance to see what was behind your big year. Honestly, I think the "run maintenance" + "bike volume" really played a large role in what worked.
I agree that this year should be more run focused, but we don't want to lose the bike. Here is what I recommend for you with regards to your Roadmap, including a run focus blog post Eagleman.
Season Roadmap
Recommended Plans
IM Swim Goal:
That means being able to do repeat 100 yds on 1:35...so you'll want to work that into your progression. You can start with 10 x 100 on the 1:50, for example, so you can get rest...then we cut to on the 1:45 and eventually on the 1:40. When you can do that...we can bump to 15 x 100 back on the 1:50....and so forth. Goal is to get to 20 x 100. Then we can move to 200s...make sense?
IM Run Goal
This means training for a 3:15 marathon time...that's 7:30 pace...so targets are:
Race Results
Training Paces
What say you?
~ Coach P
@Coach Patrick
This is great! Just what I was needing to see/hear. I like the run focus block post Eagleman.
Swimming: Currently, I'm able to do 10x100 yds on 1:40 intervals, touching at 1:28 - 1:30. To determine where I am in the progression, I'll see if I can hold 15x100 on 1:40 and if so continue to 20x100. I'll note where I start missing the interval and use that as my starting point.
Running: I'm on target now with the training paces you listed above. My mile interval workouts are between 6:40 and 6:35 pace; long runs are between 7:50 and 8:05; TRP between 7:30 and 7:45. Based on my 10 mile race time two weeks ago, race predictors say I can do a 3:05 - :07 marathon. I'm being conscious of alternating between easy and hard run days to avoid an injury.
Also, I FTP tested (TT bike on the trainer) this morning and got a 6 watt bump to 270. All time high for my Tri Bike, but I wasn't aero the entire time...but still. Next test will be outside in aero position.
I'll keep you posted on the swim progression.
Thanks!
@Coach Patrick
Today's plan was 20x100 on 1:40 Interval...ended up doing 24. My times were between 1:32 and 1:35. Results are below. Next, step should be 10x200 on 3:25, then 3:20 interval?? Thanks.
@Derrek Sanks that is exactly right! Nice work there in the pool, I am super jealous. 👍
@Coach Patrick
Quick swimming update. Today's 1,000 yd time trial, 15:52...1:35 pace.
I haven't done the 10x200 yds yet but based on above time trial, I think it's manageable.
I'm going to start weekly pink/red mist workouts with my new T-pace.
Anything else I should be doing? 15 or 20x 200s?
Thanks
Let’s get through the 10 x 200s at least twice before you bump it up! You might be fit enough but we still want that incremental build. Is there any sport you do not dominate? 💪
@Coach Patrick
Ha ha!
Got it. Will do. Thanks
Not super worried about your swim just yet...your swim-fu is wicked strong right now!
~ Coach P
@Coach Patrick - Hey Coach P.
I've been slide-lined going on two weeks and wanted to give you a quick update and see if you had any thoughts.
After recovering from Eagleman and a week into the Run Focus block, I came down with Pleurisy. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pleurisy/symptoms-causes/syc-20351863 The doctors don't know the exact cause but through x-rays and blood tests they ruled out all the bad stuff and concluded it was a virus. I had sharp stabbing pain every time I breathed which became very painful at times. It started on June 24, went to the ER on the 25th, then the sharp stabbing pain subsided on Jun 30. The treatment plan was rest and anti-inflammatory/pain medication. For the past few days, I've had a dull pain when taking deep breathes. I have a second follow up doctors's appointment Tuesday.
Other than a couple "trial" workouts, I haven't worked out since June 23. My IM Race Prep plan for IMMD starts July 8. I know (I think) I haven't lost much fitness in two weeks and there's plenty of time to be ready to crush IMMD, right? I'm hoping this will be resolved by Monday and I can get back to work. The good part to all of this downtime is I've been collecting a lot of SAUs. LOL.
@Derrek Sanks Holy cow that’s some serious stuff. I’m super glad he went to the ER and got a diagnosis. From the muscular perspective you’ve lost very little, but aerobically you will need to do some rebuilding. Basically after about five days of complete an activity or blood volume stores to decrease and we move into a compensation. And eventually in to do training. It’s not the end of the world, rest is always best, but it’s important to also be realistic about what returning to activity will mean.
Returning to activity will be difficult but we have to be as intentional as possible. I would not go right to swimming because of the nature of the breathing. Instead I would do if you run walk workouts, starting off for just 30 minutes in the first two or three sessions. You can also do a 30 to 45 minutes of easy spinning on Zwift as well. I want you to do some light aerobic activity in spaces where you can easily regulate your breathing and see what, if anything, aggravate the situation. The last thing I want to do is to short-circuit the good work you’ve done already with this recovery.
Best case scenario, we get you back to baseline activity with no pain, and we can put in a few bigger weeks in late August to reactivate the fitness you already have as a baseline. But first, we have to take baby steps! Please keep me posted.
@Coach Patrick - Great news! The pain subsided on Monday. It feels great to breath without pain. Follow up with doctor on Tuesday and he said there should be no long term damage/affects to the lunge. I resumed training Tuesday, keeping the effort easy and no high volume, which is hard because my legs feel great, but my cardio feels weak. Swimming is the hardest and again I'm keeping the sessions short and intensity low and I use the pull buoy for longer intervals. I'm just trying to get the feel of the water back. I'm noticing that my HR is unusually high during workouts and throughout the day. I'm guessing it's due to reduce blood volume (as you mentioned) and not having acclimated to humidity yet. I'm thinking the HR will be back to normal ranges in a couple weeks as my blood volume increases. I'm planning to do the ride this Saturday but will lower the intensity and/or reduced the time based on how I feel, but I hope to do at least a Z1 to Z2 long ride. Thanks for your advice.
Great!!! If possible he deafly want to get an along low intensity ride. Like zone one for four hours. That will do a lot to boost your blood volume even though the intensity is low and it will give you a chance to adapt to the heat!
@Coach Patrick - Well, I got in a week of training (July 8-15) then the pain came back 😨 This time it was on the lower left side and same sharp pain. Doctor ordered a CT Scan and referral to a Pulmonologist. Last Friday, the CT Scan revealed pneumonia and they prescribed a 5 day antibiotic treatment (he's assuming it's bacterial and not viral). The weird thing was I had no other symptoms of pneumonia...no cough, no fever, no cold, pulse ox was 100% and 2 xrays didn't detect it. Maybe it was in the early stages.
I'm on day 5 of the medication and have been feeling better each day but not back to 100 or 90% yet. I hope to start some low intensity rides/TM run/walks later this week.
Now, I'm concerned about IMMD in 10 weeks. Basically, between race recovery and this illness, I haven't put in any solid, consistent training since Eagleman 6 weeks ago. I know I can be ready to "complete" IMMD but I don't know if I'll be able to "race" it to my expectations.
My choices, as I see it:
What are your thoughts? Am I missing anything? Is this something I should put in the forums?
I know the decision is mine, just want to make an informed decision.
Thanks!
Thanks for the update, and I’m sorry to hear the news. I assume they are going with viral since bacterial would’ve had the symptoms of her usual case of pneumonia. I definitely want to get a follow up x-ray once your five day round of anabiotics is done so we can see the before and after shot of the effect. If that’s not an appropriate time, because I’m not a doctor, then talking with your physician about when that after x-rays should be taken is important. You demand a lot from your body in training and will do so again on race day — as such, I want to make sure we have full confidence in your health.
In terms of moving forward, You’re basically have 2 1/2 weeks until your deadline for a transfer. That should be enough time for you to emerge from this round of anabiotic’s and then see how your training is going. I guess a lot of it comes down to how confident you are that your body will be able to do the training you want to be successful on race day. I know you are familiar with the course in Maryland, and the differing to later in the year would mean more time which would mean more fatigue and stress.
If we can get that x-ray that effectively clears you, I will be a lot more confident with that information as well as one or two weeks of decent work as you re-enter the training. Deferring until later is the safe play but doesn’t change the short term work required to get you healthy first.
Let me know what you think about the information you get from your doctor.
@Coach Patrick - Actually, they are thinking it's bacterial as that's the more common cause. I'll definitely request follow up CT Scan, hopefully I can get it this week. Knowing that it's cleared up will help mentally too. I'll keep you updated.
Thanks!
Thank you for clearing that up. I think I just got them mixed up. I’m standing by for your update!
@Coach Patrick - I decided to transfer to IM Florida.
The doctor said it will take 6-8 weeks for the symptoms to completely go away. He said the best time to do another CT Scan is 6 weeks after the first scan as any sooner would not provide relevant information. I didn't really understand that logic but went with it. Today, I have very mild side pain only when taking very deep breaths but it's not pain, just a mild tightness. It comes and goes but each day it's less and less and hasn't prevented me from training the past 3 weeks. I've put in a good 3 weeks of training, gradually increasing intensity and volume. My RPE/pace/HR is becoming more and more aligned each day. My main limiter seems to be cardio/respiratory related vice muscular as I get winded and HR gets too high when trying to hit Z3 and Z4 pace and power. Swim fitness is coming back slowly too. I've reduced my threshold numbers and am working to build everything back up. I think the additional 4 weeks that IMFL gives me will be well worth it.
Unless you think otherwise, I was planning to jump in IM training at week 9, which starts today.
Thanks!
@Derrek Sanks moving into the next plan with an eye towards Florida sounds great. My only concern is making sure that the workload doesn’t stress you too much. If required, we could certainly keep the intensity fairly low for two or three more weeks as you continue to build endurance and then add it back in again as part of the build process. I want to be mindful of what your body is experiencing. To that end, when is the follow-up scan? It will be nice to know when we get a complete understanding of your recovery from a technology standpoint as well. As you look at that basic week, is there any type of modification you want to make?
@Coach Patrick - From the way I'm feeling, I'm not experiencing any health related limits while working out. It just feels like I'm somewhat out of shape (by my standards). I've had to reduce intensity as needed while building up volume/endurance. I'm good with short hard efforts in S/B/R (VO2 type wkos), but longer med-hard efforts (Z3-Z4 efforts) are more challenging, so I reduce my target intensity. Reduced intensity meant lowering my FTP from 270 to 260, TRP from 7:45 to ~8:20 and with swimming I slow down enough to complete the intervals and take longer rest intervals. My running mpw has been 13, 23, 31, 29 miles. I've been doing 2-3 swims/week and plan to do 4 next week. Bike time has been around 5 hrs/week but last week was almost 10 hrs (5 rides).
The training plan modifications that I think are needed is to continue with reduced target FTP/paces, but keep the format/duration/volume of each session. I hope to see my FTP/paces come back up as my endurance improves.
What do you think about doing an FTP test in the next week or two or should I wait another 4-6 weeks? This next test will be 100% in the aero bars. As mentioned, now I'm using an estimated FTP but haven't changed it in FS or TP or Zwift.
The follow up scan should be the first or second week of Sept. The doctor also agreed for me to take the lung functional tests at that time too.
As always, thanks for your guidance!
@Coach Patrick just bumping this again in case you didn't see it.
Thanks!
Thanks for the bump! I am slowly working my way through all of this thread and was thinking about you just the other day.
I think your work needs to be a balance of the endurance and the hard intensity. Contextually speaking it’s important to remember that you started out with a very high level of fitness, and high standards. Evolving back to where you are now is just as mentally difficult as it is physically to get restarted. Rest assured your fitness is there we just need to reactivate it.
My suggestion is that you affectively divide your week into two types of sessions: intensity/recovery and endurance. Your midweek sessions can have the short intensity on the bike and in the swim. I will keep the run fairly steady and I would try to have those be just one hard session A day or a quality bike run. Ideally 24 hours between sessions.
The weekends would be the longer easier stuff without the intensity. A good weekend would be 4 to 5 hours on Saturday on the bike with a short easy run and then 2 to 3 hours Sunday on the bike with another short brick. Those weekend sessions should not be difficult at all, they are just the foundation upon which we can put race intensity later. This is a format that I would follow for most of September.
As we think about those harder weekday workouts, they could be something that you build off of each week. For example video to bike workouts could be 30 seconds on 30 seconds off this week, 45 seconds on 45 seconds off next week, then a minute on the minute off, finally 90 seconds on 90 seconds off.
I would expect the same type of progression in your swim where you can move from 50s up to 200s by that for the week. You can keep the total volume the same of work, just adjust the interval. So you could do one day of quality swimming in this hard session. The first week will be 20 x 50 hard with 50 easy. The second week will be 10 x 100 hard, the third week would be 6 x 150 hard, and the last week would be five by 200.
I know this is a little outside of the box in terms of what we normally do, so if you need help sketching it out here in the forms I’m happy to help. Ultimately our goal is to reactivate your strength through quality sessions that build progressively. And balance that with the stimulation of the endurance work which will effectively help you recover from the week and get you mentally and physically ready for the quality sessions to come.
@Coach Patrick - This makes sense...I think I understand. My next few weeks would like something like
Monday - Easy Run, Swim or Off
Tuesday - VO2 Bike/Easy Run
Wednesday - Swim & Interval Run (1 Ks)
Thursday - Long run
Friday - 1 Hr Zone 2-ish Bike & Red Mist Swim
Saturday - 4-5 hr Bike, Run before or after
Sunday - 2-3 Hr Bike & Swim
How does this look?
Thanks!
That’s perfect! Right now we’re still looking for consistency. Not the baseline that we started off when you were recovering, but the Endurance kind that we associate with Iron Man training.
Once you feel comfortable with those weeks, we can talk about getting a little more specific perhaps one or two items to see if that can have an impact on your race performance. Please keep me posted!
Thanks @Coach Patrick . Will do!