Matt Aaronson micro thread

MattAaronson

Hey coaches. For family reasons I only just yesterday confirmed my last two races of the tri season. They are around the corner:

- Racine on July 20 (next week!)

- Steelhead on Aug 10

I want to perform well in both and believe I can. I have been following the HIM plan pretty well targeting Steelhead so am in "week #16". My quick-taper plan for Racine was:

- This week: cut the long run down to 90 minutes this week and plan to ride ABP 180' this Sunday instead of the 2 rides in week #16. I have to ride on Sunday because my wife is running on Saturday morning now.

- Next week: follow "week 20" of the HIM plan

QUESTIONS:

1. Does my taper plan for Racine make sense? Should I add more biking this weekend because Steelhead is still a month out? I could do a trainer ride tomorrow (Saturday). Should I follow the normal HIM taper plan for next week or should I add something?

2. What should the time between Racine and Steelhead look like?

One other complication. I am planning to do the Chicago Marathon on October 12. I know you will spank me for this but I need to get a BQ time for 2016 since I cannot include Boston in my 2015 season and really want to do it once in my life. So assuming a recovery week after Steelhead, that leaves me 8 weeks until the marathon. So my lead-up to Steelhead will need to incorporate some run volume I think. For the past month since Grand Rapids HIM I've been doing about 35-40 miles/week running with 120' long runs (~17 miles) so I have a good base.

Thanks

Coach Patrick

Matt - holy six-part question. I am at camp and will need to come back to finish (plse bump this thread) but for this weekend only a 2 hour ride with a 30' brick run. Last hour of bike and first 15' of run at target race paces. Normal taper is good, so week 20 is fine. Let's reconnect on the rest next week!

MattAaronson

Coach P - bumping this per your instructions...

Coach Patrick

Thanks for the breather. so...what you do between events is directly related to how your race in Racine goes. If you are all in and rip up the run, you'll need more time than if you blow and walk some, etc. So much of week 1 is TBD.

That said your goal of that week is to absorb the race...probably take you until the weekend to feel "good," so don't force any workouts. Is plan on lots of swimming and yoga, etc. That weekend is RR time but I'd get in at least one nice steady ride outside...2.5-3 hours on cruise mode.

The next week is week 19 so now it's time to get back to work. I'd like a regular week here with only real taper starting in the final seven days as you'll have rested as you recovered from Racine. So in week 19 you are all in and swim as much as you can.

Week 20 is week 20. Use the taper time to review Racine performance and find areas for improvement and increase focus (what HR is happy HR? When does it all go bad, etc?).

As for Boston, if you want to race in 2016 then you technically have 13 months to run that time, not 8 weeks post your double HIM period. I am to assume there is some rationale for this? I'd rather have you bike hard / run well now; we can always add more running / harder running when you have a single sport focus. Even with 8 weeks you'll have four really solid weeks to train!!

MattAaronson

Hi Coach P. Post-Racine now. In the spirit of "there's no such thing as a B-race", I raced hard. That said, 24 hours later and I'm not as sore as I expected. Perhaps there will be some delayed-onset but things are looking good at the moment. This week is a bit of a writeoff due to business travel, but perhaps that sort of 'enforced recovery' will be good for me.

I passed on a Tremblant rolldown at Racine so Steelhead will be my final triathlon race of the season. My goal is to go all-out and see if I can get a PR. If conditions are bad then I'll still go all-out and see if I can do better in my AG compared with Racine where I'd have needed a 4:30 to crack the top-10.

After Steelhead will be the Chicago Marathon where I am interested to see if I can do in the ballpark of last year's performance despite not doing a run-focus for 18 weeks.

SO…thinking "micro" about my training from here to Steelhead, I want to (a) maintain all my bike/run fitness, (b) ensure my run volume is not incompatible with the marathon ~10 weeks out, and (c) ensure my taper sets me up for a good Steelhead performance. I am a bit concerned those 3 things may be mututally-exclusive, hence your guidance on how to balance them all and translate them into 3 weeks of workouts is much appreciated.

My initial gameplan for your feedback is:

This week
- recover
- no workouts Monday-Wednesday, unless I can find a pool and swim somewhere
- Thursday-Sunday do 3 runs: 2x ~45 EP, 1x ~90' EP
- Weekend do a long bike ~4 hours followed by a medium ~2.5 hour ABP (probably will have to be Friday/Sunday based on family schedule). The idea here is one final volume injection ~14 days from race day
- If I cannot find a pool on the road, swim 2x 2800-300yd, both "endurance sets" (e.g. 5x500, etc)
- ~26 miles on the week total running volume

Next week
- Monday swim per week 19 plan
- Tuesday run 60' with 4x mile repeats / 800 recovery (I do this workout regularly when the plan calls for 2x mile repeats)
- Tuesday swim
- Wednesday bike 90' ABP (trainer)
- Thursday long run ~90' with 45' MP
- Friday swim
- Saturday bike 120' ABP
- Sunday run 5 miles
- total run volume ~28-30 miles

Race week
- Generally follow week 20 of the plan
- run volume will be ~25 miles including the race

After that I take a week of recovery (say ~25 miles running volume all back-loaded that week) and after the recovery week I have 8 weeks (including race week) to train for the marathon. One concern I have about the above is that although run volume of 26/28/25/25 is not a disaster so far out from the marathon, I'm not planning any runs over 90' (~13 miles). My logic for that is that the physiological cost of those is high very close to the Steelhead race.

Your thoughts on the above are most appreciated...many thanks!

MattAaronson

Bump and adding an update since it's Friday already. I am executing the below-outlined plan except now plan to ride Sat/Sun. I did a long run today (Friday) which was 90' with 65' at MP/HMP. I didn't expect to hit the paces given the half-iron 5 days ago but managed to do the run averaging 3 sec/mi faster than my goal MP incl. warmup and 10 sec/mi faster than VDOT-implied MP. So recovery from the race seems to be very much on track (should have raced harder??).

Please advise as to my below-outlined gameplan when you have a moment.

Coach Patrick

Matt, sorry in Lake Placid with the Team, etc. Thanks for your patience. No such thing as should have raced harder, b/c you weren't holding back. That's just hindsight talking, an exercise that 99.9% of athletes engage in. If you have recovered that well it means you are FIT MOFO and DOING REALLY WELL for the remainder of your year. Nuff said.

I think your plan is pretty good. I am not worried about lack of run specific training as your current fitness levels are high, I assume body comp is good, and you are biking a lot. Don't underestimate total fitness and the value of not being "run tired" as you hit the critical final 8 weeks to race day. We can hack that run all day long.

Between now and race day, your plan looks good. For Week 19 I would keep the FTP ride for Wed and I would extend the Sunday run to an hour, last 2 miles at goal race pace.

Race Week you can swim all you want...really focus on nutrition and use your last two races to draw up the mega race plan and execute it like Dave Tallo would. Always speed to be found there!!!

Once you are through and recovered (minimum of five days), we can start strategizing the run!

MattAaronson

Coach P, need help planning the next 2-3 days. I had a rough week at work and was unable to execute the above plan exactly as I wanted. My week so far:
- Monday swim 3000yd
- Tuesday no workouts
- Wednesday swim 3000yd
- Thursday "catch-up day" -- morning run 60' with 4x7'(4')@z4, ran it hard on fresh legs so intervals were very fast and overall pace was for the 60' was close to HMP. Then afternoon bike 60' with 4x8'(2')@z4, again fresh legs so ended up with IF 1.02, 1.04, 1.06, 1.11 for the intervals and 0.95 for the 60' ride
- today ran 45' with 35'@MP and a hard finish

NOTE I was not able to get in the 90' long run I planned. I think at this point it is too risky to run 90' with the half-iron next Sunday but let me know if you think differently and I can knock it out tomorrow (Saturday). Otherwise I'll plan a 120' ABP ride tomorrow with 30' run and 60' run on Sunday. Plus a weekend swim hopefully. Monday will be swim only.

The above would give me the target weekly mileage but would be 4 consecutive run days before the taper week. Plus no long run over 60' this whole week. Do you think that is okay? Am I being too volume focused on run mileage and maybe should just cut the 30' brick which is junk miles?

Coach Patrick

You can run the 4 days, but Monday swim only and Tuesday bike only. You can run Wed (intervals) and Thursday (steady effort no Z3 up to 75'). Friday off...Sat something easy then Sunday race.

Be mindful of race nutrition, you might have to start earlier
Given your recent racing!!