The Open House "How does/will EN work for me, given that I'm already into my season, I have q's abou

Coach Rich

Open Haus'ers,

We're sure that you have many questions about how EN works, how we will get you started, is EN a good fit for me, etc for the coaches. Please ask here.

Please review this Wiki post: Who We Are, How We Work

If you decide to join, this is what's going to happen:

1. After you register we are going to point you to an online survey, where you'll indicate your five biggest races of the season.
2. Based on this I'll load up the plan you need to get you started.
3. I'll send you an email that will tell you lots of things, including my notes for you season: I see you're doing this, might want to think about how this race works with that race, look for SoAndSo in the forum cuz they are also doing your race, stuff like that.
4. The email will also point you to your Training Plan Central, where you'll be able to see your training plan, etc.
5. We'll also point you to a Season Planning Toolkit we HIGHLY recommend you use to plan out your season. Specifically, we show you how to stack our training plans across your season. This season plan then becomes a guide for you to move from plan to race to plan to race across your season.

If at any time you become stuck or need help, your go to resources are:

• The Macro Thread: monitored and answered by Patrick and I only, this is where you can ask big picture questions about your season, how this races fits with that, I'm injured, how do I make big changes to my season, etc.
• The Micro Thread: I have questions about THIS week. My training plan says X, Y, Z, I have to travel and can't do Y, what is your recommendation.

As I said, PnI monitor these threads daily. No else posts to these threads, just you and us. Consider this to be exactly the same as you paying $$$$/mo for the priveledge of emailing your high dollar, one-on-one coach --- except you post it to the forum and we get back to you very quickly. You may find it helpful to browse these threads to get a feel for the conversations, how we work, etc.

Anyway, I'm sure you have many questions. Please ask away!

carpej30

Guess I'll start on this thread,
IM already scheduled for
Wildflower 5/1
IM France 6/27
IM LV 8/29ish
Chicago marathon for fun 101010
So since I've already been training, and wildflower is fairly close, would I just go pick a plan based off of France? Like IM OS 12 or 20 week? Sorry I just signed up the other day and not sure if the coach assigns a plan and we can adjust it from there or just go grab one that seems about right and tweak as necessary
Still poking around EN, so please be patient with me if this is a dumb question

Coach Rich

Jason,

I posted the thread without writing anything (doh!), just fixed it. I think I answered your questions for you. I'll send you the link to that survey shortly. Turnaround for me getting  you set up is a couple days but might be longer, as we expect many people to join this week. That's a good thing, but makes for a busy weekend for me back here behind the curtain.

carpej30

Thank you for the explanation..You answered everything for me!

kmepham

Should we introduce ourselves in the existing New Member Welcome Thread that was started for the December athletes, or is there going to be a new one for the April athletes?

Coach Rich

Posted By Kevin Mepham on 15 Apr 2010 11:49 AM

Should we introduce ourselves in the existing New Member Welcome Thread that was started for the December athletes, or is there going to be a new one for the April athletes?

Kevin,

go here

, until I figure out how to move this thead out of the Women's Forum. Thanks.

Lo_Daddy

I'm one of the open house noob's poking my head around ya'lls place. I like what I see thus far. I have a HIM (TryCharleston Half) coming up on 5/1/2010. After that I have 5 or 6 sprint mixed w/ Olympic races over the summer. I will finish my season off w/ HIM on Oct. 2 (Half-Max National Championship in Myrtle Beach). The two HIMs are my A races. Obviously the training for 5/1/2010 is in the bag. However, I did learn a lot on this site about race rehearsal. I've actually changed my planned schedule to incorporate a RR this Saturday. My question would be how would I pick a plan for the October half. Obviously I would need a 70.3 plan, but when to start would be my question. The sprints and olympic races aren't my A races, but I don't want to suck the monkey on these races. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Brad

Coach Rich

Brad,

Please see my note in the first post in this thread. Basically:

1. You tell us what you're racing
2. We do the smart-guy thing to set you up with what you need. We'll also give you our notes on your season or anything else we see.
3. We point you to some tools to help you plan out your season with our guidance
4. Once you've done that you'll be able manage the switching of plans yourself.
5. If you get stuck or need help with the above, you just ask us and we help you fix it yourself whenever possible. We are big on self-adminstratifying here.

TerryO

@ ;Brad

I'll see you in Myrtle Beach.  My brother and I are both in da haus and we'll be representing in our EN kits!  If you get joined up with us, maybe we can hook up there.

Terry

KGage

I'm new to Tri's, about 10 months training only 1 tri to date (stupid Alaska-7 months of the year are too cold for Tris). I'll be doing a couple sprints and an oly this year, and am thinking about a HIM in October. I'm definitely down with the EN training concept.
My question is the training time... For a beginner HIM plan, how many hours/week? And how long are weekends?
I know there's no shortcut to HIM training, but need to know what the commitment would be, so that I can try to get the OK from my wife.
Thanks
Kelly (don't let the name fool you, I'm not a woman) Gage

Jim Daley

Hello everyone,

I posted this in a different thread, but thought i would try it here for answers to my questions below.

I'm Jim, from the Albany, NY area.  I'm 45 (46 in one week), married, with an 11 year old daughter.  In my past I've played football and ran track in high school (not fast - pole vault and shot put, some longer distance events), played rugby in college and for many years after graduation, and have ran and lifted wieghts for general fitness for most of my adult life.  As time went on, I found it harder and harder to do that just for the heck of it, with no goal in mind.  Then, while watching the Lake Placid Ironman in the rain a couple of years ago, I found a new goal.  Last year I got started triathlon and am totaly hooked on it.  Last year I did two sprints and an olympic distance race.  This year I have a few short races, with the A race being the Timberman 70.3 in New Hampshire at the end of August.  My primary goal at the moment is the Lake Placid Ironman in 2011.  I am already signed up as a volunteer this year to register for next year's race.  I've been following EN for a while now, and have taken advantage of the free stuff you guys make available.  It's great!  I am planning on signing onto EN, if I can get in, sometime this fall to do start with the outseason plan and train with EN through Placid.  I have two main questions:

1.  This year I think I really benefited from several months of wieght training and plyometrics.  I just seem to be faster and stronger than I was last year.  After Timberman this year in late August, I'm thinking a week or two off, then a few months of weights and maintaining fitness, then the outseason plan, then the Ironman prep plan.  Unfortunately, there are not enough weeks in a year for all of that!  What if I did 16 weeks of the outseason plan, then after an easy week or two went to the 12 week ironman prep plan.  Does that work?  Or should I pass on the weight training block until after placid and do the full outseason and ironman plans?

2.  My current bike is a Jamis Ventura road bike.  Entry level for sure.  However I had it professionally fitted and have aerobars on it.  I like the bike!  If funds were not unlimited, would it be best to invest in a tri-bike, or plan on using my current bike and put on a powermeter?  Also, what bike specs would be best for an Ironman course like Lake Placid?

Thanks everyone!  Can't wait to join you guys!

Jim

Coach Rich

@Kelley (notachick), welcome!

We don't really pay attention to volume here, we don't really think about it. Instead:

• Long rides in the HIM plans sort out to about 3hrs on Saturday, 2hrs on Sunday
• Long run volume sorts out to about 2hrs on Thursday
• The volume of your other sessions are more dicatated by life, not the plan. That is, life says you can run 45' on Wednesday...so that's what you run. All we care about is that you do the Main Set of the workout. Lots of folks were only doing 30' trainer rides in the winter, as 2' warmup, 26' of intervals, 2' cool down. Again, all we care about is the hard stuff in the workout.

Coach Rich

@Jim, welcome. Notes:

1. We are not big, at all, on strength training. Our experience with this team (zero weight training prescribed in our workouts) is that while you probably feel stronger in your workouts because of the strength training you did, you most certainly would have gotten just as strong, and likely much stronger as a runner and cyclist, if you had applied that time to actually riding a bike or running. For us, it's all about ROI (Return on Investment, the time we spend training) and that points to specificity. If you want to get faster on the bike, ride the bike fast. Same with the run. That said, some people here do inform strength training for personal reason. I was/am sorta doing a very heavily modified P90X deal, which basically means I do core work, pushups and pullups.  But I don't do anything that touches my legs or impacts my ability to ride or run. Short answer is that you absolutely do not want (or need to be very, very careful) with adding any weight training to our plans, especially anything that hits your legs. Also, our OS plan is no joke. We've had three seasons of new folks adding this, trying to maintain that...only to be crushed and 100% on the program by about Week 5. In other words, there is very, very little room for doing anything other than what's on the plan, certainly no room for funky plyometic, Crossfit stuff that hits your legs.
2. Bike: LP = tri bike all the way. I think most people here will tell you to keep your bike and buy a PM vs a new bike. A PM will be a much more valuable tool than a new bike and you can always put it on the new bike if/when the time comes.

Jim Daley

Thanks for the feedback Rich. After the 20 week outseason plan, do most people move on to the longest duration Ironman plan, or move to the shorter 12 week plan? I will have the time to do it either way - just wondering when I would kick off the whole thing. Again - shooting for IM Lake Placid in 2011.

One other question that I've gotten mixed responses too. Do people generally do most of their training on a tri bike if they have one? Or save that for occasional rides and racing? Wondering on what bike I would put the PM on.

Thanks again!

Coach Rich

@Jim, our thoughts on transition from OS to A race plan here

We recommend that for most of the year you ride whatever bike makes you want to ride the bike a lot, and hard. For me, that's a road bike. My tri bike = business suit and for me I need to keep the training fun and motivating. My tri bike is not that, it's all business, all work. However, ~16wks out from your race you'll want to transition 100% over to your tri bike.

KGage

Based on the thread about transitioning from outseason to A race, it looks like if I joined, I'd go into an outseason program until the last 8 weeks or so before my HIM, right?  If that's true, and assuming weekends for outseason are 1 to 1 1/2 hours each day, then I should be able to get the wife's blessing and join (if I'm not too late).

Let me know if I've got the "plan" right.

Thanks

Kelly (stillnotachick)

Coach Patrick

Kelly, that's right! The OS is our preferred protocol, then we add far on top of it...hope you get permission!!!

Patrick

KGage

 So, I'm ready to join!  Only I can't figure out where to go to sign up  

Doesn't seem to be under my settings, my account, or store.  I click "join" on the front page and says team is full...  

 

ETA:  Never mind!  Found it on my E-mail invite.  I'm now the newest member of the Haus!  Registered for Longhorn 70.3.  Now time for rest so I can start training the EN way.

Jim Daley

Congratulations Kelly. And thanks RnP for the open house. I plan on joining in November 2010, to start an OS plan for IM Lake Placid in 2011. Having a chance to look around convinced me that this is what I need to do. Hopefully there will be openings at that time. If there is a waitlist for people who want to start in the fall, I would love to get on it.

Thanks again.

dan_forbes

 Good luck Jim.  If you want to keep in touch, you can email me @ cohibaforbes@hotmail.com and maybe we can connect up for a ride or something during the summer.  Also, if I'm still a member in November (which I better be), members can recommend others to give them a better chance of joining (as I have read, I'm new too!).  Have a great race season.

Dan

Jim Daley

Thanks Dan, and good luck with your season.  Hopefully I 'll be back in Nov.  My email is jgdaley2@gmail.com, if you ever went to check out one of those Tuesday night training sessions.

Jim

kmepham

RnP,
I assume you guys are still getting caught up on setting up all of the new team members from the open house. Since I'm only racing sprint tri's this year, I went ahead and loaded the Beginner OS plan, which conveniently ends on Aug 29, my last race of the season. I'm dropping my swim drill sessions into the days off. I think that's what you had in mind for me and if so, no rush, take care of the new members who are in the middle of IM/HIM training. I'm just glad to actually have a plan!

Coach Patrick

Posted By Kevin Mepham on 21 Apr 2010 05:19 AM

RnP,

I assume you guys are still getting caught up on setting up all of the new team members from the open house. Since I'm only racing sprint tri's this year, I went ahead and loaded the Beginner OS plan, which conveniently ends on Aug 29, my last race of the season. I'm dropping my swim drill sessions into the days off. I think that's what you had in mind for me and if so, no rush, take care of the new members who are in the middle of IM/HIM training. I'm just glad to actually have a plan!

kevin -

you done the right thing...now just use the micro / macro threads if you want feedback or input!

P