Weekly Mileage Guidance
Hindsight is 20/20 and I have realized that my weekly mileage in training for previous HIMs and my 1 IM were too low. (Primarily re: run but I'd like guidance for the bike as well). Mostly because I'm slow, and also because I didn't know any better. As a non-runner prior to starting tris, I didn't know the importance (although less in tris) of weekly mileage because of focusing on quality vs. quantity with EN.
I know the plans have been tweaked for lower vdots this year, but I'm still concerned about getting enough consistent mileage. (See Coach P's thread about the plan updates here http://members.endurancenation.us/F...fault.aspx)
I had a super crappy run at the Rev3 Half in Maine last year, my first ever non-PR leg of any tri. I just couldn't run. Leading up, it looks like my high weekly mileage was around 16mi. I think that was a big part of it. In training, I typically did MS only, which could have just been 3 miles during the weekday WKOs and then the long run, which got up to 10 miles (most likely due to my slowness and the prescribed runs being dictated by time)
So, long story short, to avoid history repeating itself, some guidance on minimum weekly run mileage targets would be helpful. (For June 1 HIM) My weekly bike mileage looked better, around 90/week closer to the race, but guidance on that would be helpful too!
Comments
Kim... the WSM & coaches will have some good advice for you, but here is my $.02. For a successful HIM, I suggest you get your weekly run mileage up to 20-23 mile range, with 11-12 of that being in the long run. This will get you about 40% more total mileage than the 16 you did last year, but won't kill you in terms of wear & tear or time. At 22 miles per week, that is about 69% more than the 13.1 miles of the race itself. I suggest adding 1 or 2 miles to each of the runs you are already doing. Hope this helps.
In terms of bike mileage, I think you need to have a minimum of 2 x the race distance. So for a HIM, that would be about 110 miles. Seems like you are pretty close to that, but a little extra in Z1-Z2 will really help you come off the bike feeling more ready to run.
Just doing the MS part of the run workouts could be drastically reducing the training effect of that days scheduled activities. Doing the warm up and cool down gives you some more "easy" miles in the legs that are not damaging anything.....and (in my opinion) most importantly help the interval workout runs. In the big picture 15 minutes of easy running at the start and end of those workouts my add another 1/2 hour, but can help reduce the risk of injury.
I 100% agree with you than she needs more volume but she needs to be careful how that's accomplished. Doing 50-60% (11-12 miles) of her weekly volume in one run is probably not a good idea, especially for someone used to running 16 miles per week or less. Volume and frequency trump any long run. She'd be better of running 4-6 times per week to increase volume than doing a typical three runs per week with one accounting for 50% of the volume. Using the 3-2-1 BarryP methodology or some tweak of that kind of methodology. Using 25 miles as an example would yield six runs of 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 5, 5, 7.5. For five runs I would do something like 3,3,6,6,8 for 26 miles total.
Run more, run better.
Once she accustomed to the volume she can throw in an occasional long run every few weeks. I might be committing heresy by saying this but the long run is the single most overrated component of long course triathlon training.
What I think hinders a lot of people is the thought that I need to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles in a race so how is it that I can get by without doing a really long run. Once you get your head wrapped around the concept that the volume is the important component it will all come together.
+1 for frequency
In the fall (before the holiday eating festival that began at halloween), I modified the BarryP plan from slow twitch, where x is your shortest run (by time). No intensity targets. So it would go x, x, 1.5x, x, x, 2x, Rest. Thus, it would be 2 mi, 2 mi, 3 mi, 2mi, 2mi, 4mi, Rest. Almost all easy, conversational pace (assuming roughly 10 min miles). Coming off the summer's worth of training was huge, but I PR'd a 10mi after about 3 weeks of this and being 8 lbs over midsummer (pre-injury) weight. Longest run @ 7 miles (70 min). I followed the 10 percent per week rule. Rest days as needed. Maybe follow this as a minimum (forget time), and then once you hit the min base mileage in the time allotted, then worry about increasing time up to 90 minutes, or decreasing frequency?
So @ vdot of 32, I'd put that @ roughly 11 min miles, so 1.8 for starters. The OS follows a similar pattern, but the frequency's @ 4x, not six. Mileage can vary, and you can certainly add rest days after 1.5, but you get the idea. But is now really the time to worry about it? If that VDOT goes to 38, or 42, then getting the mileage in won't be a problem.