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William's long term athletic development

William JenksWilliam Jenks
in Coaching Forum 🧢

Hey Rich-

Again, thanks for all your sage advice and help on race weekend at Wisconsin.  It turned out to be a really excellent experience.  I know this was a once-in-a-lifetime season (God I hope...), but the race was very rewarding in the end.

I still want to be in this for the long run...or at least for the foreseeable future...and I don't want to burn out myself or my family.  Until now, WI was the only possible IM race because of time frame (and I liked not having to go that far from home), but in a couple of years, my daughter will be old enough that I will have a lot more flexibility.

I'm not trying to make any firm plans this shortly after my race, but it went well, and I'm thinking in general terms.  I don't want to do my next IM casually - I want to really do the best I can in it.  If I did another IM in 2015, I probably would end up not doing one in 2016...but I tend to think that maybe taking a year doing halfs again next year and an IM in 2 years is a better experience overall.  It might also give me another cycle to try to develop my biking.  I haven't looked to see how fast you have to be to get to 70.3 championships in my new age group, but if I get my bike back up to where it was a couple years ago, I might have a shot at making that again if I get lucky.

So, I'm just asking for your thoughts...what do you think is the best plan for the compromise that is sustainability with some level of potential excellence for me?  If I assume that I could still do WI, but I could also consider other IM races in the future, do you think WI is the style race I should do? Or should I look at another type of course?

Just kicking some things around, but I want to make wise choices.  Thanks.

Comments

  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    Hey William,

    Sorry I missed this. 

    In my experience, the keys to long term success are:

    • Stay in HIM / semi-HIM shape pretty much all year round, with the obvious exception of ~Nov-Feb when you just don't need / it sucks to do a 2.5-3hr long ride on the trainer. By HIM shape I mean a consistent weekly 1:15-30 run and 2-3hr very hard bike. 
    • Develop a social component with your training, especially on the bike. Group dynamics are great for allowing to crush yourself without much mental cost. 

    With regards to what races would suit you, I like to see strong, smart runners on a course with difficult terrain in the last ~6 miles, where the cost/reward of failure/success is very high. IMLP really fits this description and I think we'll find next weekend that miles 20-24 of IMChatt will have a similar reputation and therefore a good opportunity. 

    IMWI is obviously a great bike course for the smart EN athlete. But the run is bit too meh for you to really rely on your running strength. IMChatt has a similar bike execution style, though as we discussed on terrain that isn't so dramatic, but it does have key terrain on critical areas of the course that IMWI does not have. LP is easier than WI to figure out, but similar/a tick more gain = rewards a high w/kg, and the last 4-5 miles of the run are no joke = plays to your strength. 

  • William JenksWilliam Jenks
    Yup, this advice makes sense.

    With the kids aging, I hope to be able to do some more group training than before. For the last 10 years or more, I've basically trained alone all the time because of my kids' various schedules. Now that OJ is in high school and gets rides to most of her stuff and I'm no longer coaching her, that really opens up more flexible time.

    Maybe I'll even have an excuse to upgrade my ~25 year old Trek 1400 road bike. :-)

    Thanks for the pointers about Chattanooga and LP. I will look into them. Of course, it wouldn't hurt for me to actually get better on the bike again. Aside from the need for a mental break just generally (hard to describe how all-consuming getting through this summer has been), the more I think about it, the more appealing the idea of just trying to get decent again without the pressure of the ultra long ride grind for a year sounds nice.

    Considering some other 70.3 type races... St. George sounds gorgeous, but May 2 means doing a lot of March long-ish rides on the trainer (depending on the weather). Do you think that's nuts? The bike course looks like it still has lots of climbs. Looks like the run is about half gradual uphill, but I can't make much of the meaning of the elevation profile. One thought I had was to do two Half distance races next year...one early like St George and maybe the later one on one of the flatter/faster courses to try to get a fast time and feel speedy...or at least one of the later summer midwestern ones that wouldn't require more than driving.
  • Coach RichCoach Rich
    If you could be outside on the weekends for the rides in April, I think you'd be fine for SG.
    The run is legit. The IMSG full run (the original course) was off the charts harder than any other NA IM run. IMSG is half of that but still pretty tough. Only about 100m of flat on the whole run.
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