Week 11 Training Thread
Welcome to Big Tri Day week! This week is all about getting ready for Saturday's S/B/R workout. The rest of the weeks workouts pretty much carry over from last week, and once we're done with the big day, Sunday is a rest day. I strongly encourage everyone to attack that rest day as aggressively as you do your big tri day. Also, this week is not the time to overshoot any of your workouts. I encourage everyone to check out Coach P.'s video about big tri day goals. A couple key points: It's not about fitness. It's about understanding how your body reacts to race like intensities over a long duration. Nutrition, hydration, positional fitness, are all things to observe and make note of as you work toward fine tuning things in prep for race day. Good luck everyone, and if you have any questions just ask.
Comments
Well, just thought I would post about my WO's this week. See if we can get some more chatter going.
Did the Monday and Tuesday swims, both felt good. Added the optional set for Monday but ran out of time for that today. Also got in today's run, felt good but the Z4 miles followed by Z2 are always hard and take real work...
Good luck this week everyone!
Getting excited for Saturday's Big Day!
Erik
Nice work, Ed and Erik!
Ed, keep us posted on your experience with the Jesse's team at Core Diet. I follow his protocol, but have not gone so far as to buy into a fueling plan.
Erik, I always get in my Z4 intervals but will oftentimes differ to Z1 if Z2 feeling like i'm overreaching.
I had one of those days that just didn't go my way. I did my run this morning and wanted to swim this evening, but both my local pools closed because of lightening and my indoor pool is under maintenance for the next couple weeks. So after 3 days of 200+ TSS points, today became practically a rest day. Sometimes you just need to accept what life hands you and not stress over it.
Tomorrow i will try to do today's swim in the morning and then bike/run after work. Also, it's looking like i will need to move my Big day to Sunday, move next monday's workout to saturday and then take next monday as a rest day. Let the juggling begin
@Mark, sorry to hear it wasn't your day.. Good luck with the juggling :-)!
Did my bike this morning on the trainer and then bricked the run. Run only about 30mins... All went pretty uneventfully...
Rock on!
Erik
Today went much better.....maybe too much better. I swam 2800M in the am, did a 40min tempo run at lunch and then finished with a trainer ride doing intervals of 10' and 15' @ FTP. I feel Ok now, but i'll see tomorrow morning if there are any lingering effects on my thursday long run.
Did my Thursday long run this morning. I've been trying to do it during the day instead of early morning so I get the heat of the day as I expect it to be hot in Boulder. Work schedule did not cooperate on that today so I did it at 6am today...
Question, when I do the Z1 part of the run I don't usually stay as slow as Z1, I'm usually at a high Z1 but not quite at Z2. What do you guys do? Do you think it's important to slow myself down on these long runs to train myself to run that slow? My Z1 pace just seems so slow... (I'm not a fast runner Z1=10:35, i'm usually at 9:35 for the Z1 parts of the run) Thoughts?
Thanks! Hope you all had a great training day!
Erik
Ps... Look at my profile picture to the left... that was at IMTX two weeks ago. I can assure you the guy grimacing there wasn't worried about any time he gave away in miles 1-6...lol
@Erik - Good inputs from Dan and Ed. The only thing i would add is that the secret sauce on your thursday long run is the Z2 work - not because that is the pace you are going to run in your IM marathon, but rather because pushing at Z2 after and hour at Z1 is a somewhat close proxy to the suffering you will experience on the back half of the IM marathon. Those Z2 miles are as much mental as they are physical. Hope that helps, but for sure keep the questions coming!
Thanks for the advice guys! Much appreciated. I've been pretty good about hitting my Z2, but not perfect. I'm going to work to slow down and get the Z1. This weekend'd Big Day will be a good time to practice that too....
Did my run this AM with the strides. Always have to push myself to get the Z2 after the strides, especially on the hills in my neighborhood...
FYI, DC released a video for IM Boulder spectators and the event schedule is up as well... Started to get really excited!
Thanks and have a great Big Day this weekend!
Erik
Thought I would write up a report of my Big Day 2 to help me remember what went well and what did not. First, I have to say Iw as looking forward to this all week... I think that mean I'm a little nuts. :-)
Breakfast:
I had breakfast about 2 hours before I started the swim. It was my son's birthday so we had a nice breakfast as a family... I had an everything bagel toasted with a little peanut butter on it. I sipped a little H20 but did not drink a lot, I didn't want the water sitting in my stomach. Maybe next time i'll have some Gatorade? I get tired of the sweat taste of it so I didn't want to be starting with it first thing in the day. I need to count the calories, perhaps I need to eat more. I know many folks say no to a bagel and PB but it's always worked for me so long as I have an hour or 2 for it to work through me...
Swim + T1:
Did the swim at the neighborhood pool. I drove over since I dropped my son off somewhere before the swim. Swim went well, performed the sets as prescribed, took me about an hour and fifteen minutes. There was a little more rest in some place than I would have liked (there was a friend at the pool chatting with me sometimes). Finished the swim and drove back to the house. I sipped on some Gatorade but did not drink the entire bottle. I decided I could drink on the bike and not spend my time doing it now. I think that worked well.... Got my gear on for the bike, probably spent 10-15 mins in transition by the time I drove back and everything...
Bike:
Overall the bike went well. My drinking was pretty much spot on. 2 X 24oz Gatorade bottles per hour. I brought powder and stopped at a convenience store and refilled my bottles at one point. I peed twice which seemed ok... I think I held my intervals pretty well. I need to continue to work on holding steady power, getting better though. I also ate 1 power bar on the bike, ( i had it broken into pieces in a bag in my jersey pocket). I also had 1 salt pill each hour, I may have had one extra somewhere. I need track this better next time. I had a flat on the way back to the house about 3.5 hrs in to the ride. A bit of a pain but no big deal. I'm not exactly fast but I suppose that's not the point. 60 miles in 4 hours. That does include stops at lights and stop signs... (I did stop my watch at the convenience store and when I changed the flat)
Finished the bike and felt pretty good. I think I stayed aero most of the time too.
T2:
Uneventful really. Changes shoes and picked up my fuel belt (Nathan Hydration belt actually)...
Run:
I was very careful to hold my T1 pace for the first 30mins. I was very close to it, usually I'm not so good about keeping it slow. I was feeling good though I was gassy a bit... I sipped on some gatorade but didn't drink too much. First 30mins went well and I felt good. I picked up the pace to my Z2 after 30 mins (about 3 miles). This is when I started having some issues. The pace was tuff but doable. The real issue seemed to be that I had a lot of indigestion. I wish I could burp on command. :-) Anyway, I pushed through and got it done. I did not drink much or eat any gels on the run. My thinking was I wanted to let me stomach settle without food or drink. In hindsight I think maybe the gel would have helped me to get something in my stomach. Anyone have thoughts on that? If i had kept the pace slow it might have been better but I need to find a solution to this.
Overall:
The day went much better than last time! I feel like i'm getting things worked out. Just some more tweaking on the nutrition. Maybe the thing is to follow my run plan nutrition better. I didn't do what I always do on long runs (gel every half hour). Well writing this up will helpfully remind me what to do next time. Quick note on the whether, it turned out to be a nice day despite the forecast of thunderstorms...
Thanks for all the continued support everyone!
Hope everyone else had a great Big Day out there...
Erik
Erik - Congrats on your big day. It's hard enough to get these done, much less with a flat tire. Tough to say what caused your stomach problem on the run. I know for me, when i start to get that feeling, less, not more food is what i need. I can't really tolerate gels or solid food too much on the run. How was the weather? If it was hot, maybe it was a hydration problem. The good news is you still have 2 more race rehearsals and a handful of ling runs to get this dialed in. Again - great job getting your big day done!
I had to break up my big day into 2. On Saturday i did about a 2 mile open water swim and then a 9 mile run, all in between heats at my daughters swim meet. Other than being dog slow on my swim, everything went well despite the logistical hurdles. On sunday, my plan was to ride the boulder IM course and follow it up with a brick run. I was up early, drove to boulder, and was riding shortly after 7. I did two loops and the little mini loop before the heading to the finish in downtown boulder, though i ad libbed and did the mini loop in between loop 1 and 2. Overall i had a great ride. I pushed a little bit above race pace to see if i could holds watts throughout and I was fine. I rode with an 52/36 and an 11/25 and was fine. I was in my small gears a couple times, but never felt like i needed more gears. The wind really picked up toward the end and i was glad to be off the bike when i was. There's a couple climbs, but by and large it's pretty fast and open and nothing that i would consider technical. For this ride i went through about 4 bottles of gatorade endurance and 3 powerbars.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/790411735
After i finished the ride i went a 6 mile out and back run. The first 3 miles were OK, but when i flipped it i was uphill and into the wind and it was tough for a bit. I had to take a couple walk breaks and was OK by the last mile. I didn't bring any liquid with on the run and by this time it was starting to get hot so i think next time i'll remember to take my fuel belt. I'm taking Monday as my rest day and then plan to start back up tomorrow.
Thanks for the support as usual!
Nice job getting your Big Day done with all family commitments! Sounds like a great ride!
Have a great week everyone!