Week 13 … 8 To Go
As usual, I did Monday's swim yesterday, and Wed's bike intervals today. I did a total of 45' of FTP intervals as 10', 15', 10', 10' (3') and felt better than I have all year. My biking seems to be rounding into form earlier than usual in an Ironman prep, so I'm hoping to be able to take full advantage of the altitude and climbs when I go to Colorado from May 15-June 13.
I also did 60' of run intervals on the treadmill yesterday (Tuesday's 2 x 1 mi), as it rained non-stop all weekend, and I'm tired of running hard while wet. This was in lieu of a 5K run test, which I bagged d/t the rain - it;s kinda hard to run fast on slippery pavement. Again this week, it looks like Wed & Thurs will be the best days for long bike rides - I'm looking forward to the 5 hour ride with 7 x 25' @ race pace plus. That's a new wrinkle in EN for this year, and its acting as a confidence builder for me in that it feels like work, AND I'm getting it all done.
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The swim this morning was the longest swim of my entire life, 4000 yards! I did the run right after and it felt great. However, the rest of the week is a little daunting to me. It seems like this is the week where everything "gets real". The Wednesday FTP session is really bumped up in intensity, I am really hoping I am able to do the bonus 3x5' @ 110%. The run is sure gonna be tough as well. I am excited that I should be able to ride outside this weekend. This past weekend of trainer rides sure took a toll on me!
I see the "optional" stuff, which is new this year, as being for those who meet two criteria: you've got a few *successful* IMs under your belt AND you are in the top 2-5% of your AG, with podium placement (1-5) as a realistic goal. The plans are plenty hard without this extra work.
Myself, I'm doing about 50-70% of the extra swimming, and I did one extra 5 min interval on the bike. The idea is to not feel TOTALLY exhasted after the Mon-Wed wkos. The Thurs long run and Sat long ride are where the real IM preperation takes place. Hitting the numbers on those two is the no. 1 priority each of the next 4-5 weeks, IMO.
Reflecting back on the ride I think I may know what happened. Within a quarter mile of my house I have to ride on a semi-busy street for about 1/4 mile uphill to get to the nice wide trail that I can ride forever on. I hate this street and try to get off of it as quickly as possible and I'm wondering if I hammered down too quickly - not warmed up...and up a hill. I'm wondering if I strained it or tweaked it just a bit. Not sure...but trying to back into what was different that could have caused the pain.
I've gotten both swims in this week with no problems - hitting my times and getting the distances done. I followed up today's swim with a 2 mile, flat, no intensity run - with again no pain in the calf. The knee felt fine as well.
I'm headed to an MAT guy who has been highly recommended today to get some solid exercises to get the left hand side of my body back in line and strengthened as that is clearly the side that's causing the problems. I'm not sure where in the chain I need to focus so hopefully I'll get some clarity today.
I'm just hoping i can get in some solid biking this coming weekend with no technical issues. Last Saturday I bent my chain 2 hours into the ride & Sunday I flatted twice.... ran out of tubes and CO2 and called it a day. The only good thing out of the weekend was a Sunday 3 hour ride in the mountains of North Georgia with fellow EN'er Chris Hardbeck.
@Steve - in this week's ADV plan, I see SIX runs. Two of them are rated "LOW" priority, 2 are medium, and 2 are high (easy to guess which two are high!)
Rather than drop your training VDOT so much - thats down in my territory, and I KNOW you are faster than that - consider bagging one or both of the LOW priority runs completely. You;ve had problems in the past injuring yourself with too much run volume; I bet you'd be better served by getting 4 good run workouts a week @ a VDOT of 48+, rather than trying to make all the runs happen at a lower pace.
@Al- Thanks for input. I am in the Intermediate Plan so there are 5 runs this week and only one is low priority (fridays after the swim) this is typically the one I will drop if the Thursday long run tore me up.
Do you think intensity is more important than volume at this point in the season? I have worked on my "fast" all winter and spring, now I am more in the "far" camp. The paces at 47 Vdot are pretty easy to hit across the board, so after this week I will re-evaluate and will likely bump that to 48 Vdot.
The work I have put in all year will get me where I want to be at CdA, now I just need to stay healthy. No tweaked muscles or strained PF's.
After IM Maryland I am going into a run only mode for a year to get to a 3:00:00 Marathon. I will bring that back to Ironman in 2016.
Thanks for the great updates all. Very motivating!
Nothing particularly notable on my front other than to chime in that there has been NFW I’m hitting the 110% work after the MS on the bike! I have parsed that part off into a separate workout with some success and will continue to do so as long as the legs cooperate but it’s the first thing getting dropped once I start to get fatigued.
@ Steve: Please do stay healthy AND upright!
@ Peter: The photo on Strava of your z4 w/ kiddo is PRICELESS!
@ Al: Sage advice as always Obi-Wan Kenobi!
This is me: http://www.strava.com/athletes/pnoyes
Now that St. George is in the books, I can focus on CDA. Sunday, I had a 4 hour drive home. Monday I did an easy shake out ride to loosen up my legs then did my regular swim workout. My shoulder were a little sore but felt fine when I swam. Today was the only day I had to get in my 5 hour bike. It would have been ideal to do it latter in the week after I had more time to recovery but it is what it is and I needed to get it done. It was a struggle towards the end but I got it done. Didn't even attempt running after the bike today. Luckily I didn't have much to do the rest of the day until I had to pick up the kids from school. I'll definitely sleep well tonight.
Looking forward to the next 8 weeks!
My legs felt really heavy today.
Jason & Peter ... It is good to *start* dreaming a bit about possible bike split times for CDA. But dont start to lock yourself in yet in your thinking. The time for that analysis is AFTER the second race rehearsal with 2 weeks to go. If you nail that one, meaning you dont bonk on the bike and you run without real difficulty @ your LRP for six miles, then you can think about a good estimate. A good rule of thumb for guys with your w/kg would be your "should" IM bike split will be 10 minutes faster than your 2nd RR bike time (assuming you did that at the proper IF) Consider the effect of a closed course, catered nutrition, aero enhancements, mild draft effect, taper, etc.
Also for planning purposes, I've noticed people can expect a swim split of based on a pace @ 93% of their swim T Pace. Eg, 100 yds @ 1:40 = 1:50 for 100 meters, divided by 0.93 equates to IM pace of 1:58.xx in the IM, or one hour 15 minutes. YMMV, some folks can go a bit faster, others not quite so fast. But 0.93 gives you the mid range target.
But in any event, the most important things are to first of all, be realiatic by planning goal times based on what you actually do in training, and second, dont drive your goals into the Wall on race day if circumstances, like the weather, or flats, or a penalty, change on race day.
I was going to do the bike intervals this morning, but instead I slept for 10 hours! I think my body just had some catching up to do. I will do the intervals after work, but I will definitely not attempt the 3x5' @ 110% because I will do the 2 hour run tomorrow morning.
I've never used watts per kilo...so I was intrigued by the question.
Totally agree the race rehearsals cannot be skipped as they greatly informed my race plan, validated my effort levels, tested my nutrition plan, etc....
Peeked ahead and saw we have a camp week with a big Fri-San-Sun planned in week 15. I'm in Paris for work that week so I may swap week 14 & 15 to get those 3 big days in. Biked and ran today---felt good so I think I'm ready or close to ready to drop back into IM plan after Wildflower last weekend.
I'm hoping my powermeter gets in and can get installed in the next week or so. For me, trying to bike using HR / RPE is a disaster...excited about taking a lot of the subjectivity out of the equation. Of course...that means I'll have to redo my bike test - which always hurts!
Did the bike WO this morning completed all the intervals although wasn't 100% on the intensity, closer to 95%. Then immediately got the run in, but didn't even try to hit the zone 2 and zone 3 as it called for. Had to save something for the long run tomorrow. That said, I felt good at sub 8 pace for 5 hilly miles which is shy of zone 2 but faster than my IM run. I have adjusted my Vdot to 48, I would rather get all the runs of the schedule completed a little slower than have to skip a run or two because I pushed it too hard earlier in the week.
Today, once again Wednesday is the best day of the week, sunny, lower 60s. So I cranked up the five hour Saturday ride. OOF! It was a learning experience, or maybe a reminder of what I keep learning over and over, and simply forgetting to execute.
The plan was for 7 x 25' @ race pace +; my Ifs for the intervals were: 7 x 25' @ RPP: 0.743, 0.740, 0.771, 0.760, 0.74, 0.73, 0.767. But that last one lasted only 7 minutes, and then I popped. Eventually, I had to stop for about 5-10 minutes to take in my emergency fuel of almonds and peanuts, along with extra fluids. Looking back, I realise I took in nothing at all for the first hour - no calories, no fluids. This is a chronic bad habit if mine. I feel so good at the start of the ride, I;m in the flow, it's such a hassle to drink or eat, I just don;t do it. A ride of four hours or less, I can get away with this, so, like I said, it;s become an unconscious habit. Then, every year when I do my first long rides, I have to get hit over the head all over again. OK, OK, next time, 30 minutes in, I'll be good and actually start taking in fluid and calories, looking to overload a bit the first 2.5-3 hours.
Highly recommended … the week's Coach Chat from Rich. In 30 minutes, he covers ALL our questions about how to think about and modify the race prep phase of IM training plan, the six weeks we are currently in now:
Last night I did the 2x20' @ Z4 workout on the bike and to my surprise nailed it. In the morning I never am able to quite hit the power targets, maybe I will make the move to the evening permanent! The last 5 minutes a war was waging in my head about whether or not to attempt the Z5 bonus intervals. I am glad I decided not to because I nailed the long run this morning as well! I did 17 miles in 2:00 at a 7:05 pace! I am pretty spent now so I am looking forward to a light day tomorrow to prepare for the long ride.
For the long run I ended up doing 5+ laps around the rose bowl again. Don't tell coach rich because he might punch me in the junk. Oh, and a junk punch would be extra bad because I am experiencing severe chafing at the moment
I switched it up today and did the long run before work but felt sluggish running zone1 to start out. I run a hilly out and back course so I'm just happy to get close to zone 2 for the last hour and negative split the darn thing. Ended up getting in 13.5 in just shy of 2 hours.
Peter - strong work! The long runs are as much about building mental focus and confidence as about gaining run endurance and durability.
An impending rain storm pushed me out the door in the morning for the run - usually, I like to run in the PM. The numbers: 60' @ LRP: 10:27, 9:05, 8:20, 8:31, 8:52, 9:05, 8:31; 40' @ MP: 7:57, 7:27, 7:35, 7:36, 7:36; 20' @ best pace: 7:19, 8:24; Overall, 13.7 mi/1:54, @ a pace 10-15 sec/mi faster than I did similar runs at similar race prep times the previous two years, so I can feel good about that.
Oh my gosh, just say NO to chafe! My current issue isn’t “junk” chafe (obviously) but now that we are able to take our jackets off I’m realizing that my camelback rubs my neck. NOT cool!
@ Teri – Congrats on St. George!!!
@ David – Wouldn’t try so much to sell you on Strava if it’s just not for you. What I like about it is you are actually posting your workout and get somewhat objective feedback. For example here I may have posted “did my long run last night, felt great” whereas on Strava I just uploaded it. From there I got feedback about my negative split, saw that I had my second fastest times on a couple of segments, saw that my local tri team member I saw mid run was out on his tempo run, etc. I was also able to give kudos to folks I see “in the flesh” from my local team and also folks I will see from EN from around the country. It’s just a different kind of mojo but if it’s not for you, it’s not for you! BTW – cannot wait ‘till you get your power meter to hear your impressions. It’s like seeing a fourth dimension, IMO!
@ Jason planning a big tri week in Paris would be challenge for sure!
@Jenn -- Agreed. Have to settle for running the champs elysees.
Regarding Strava---I used tapiriik to autosynch to strava which them autosyncs to jawbone and then to my corporate wellness program where I get points for exercising. My concern with Strava is that I'm too competitive and I'd end up striving to beat times vs respecting the intensity and pacing of the workout I'm suppose to be doing. Especially on the hills where folks go for king of mountain and I'm supposed to be flattenging the hills.