Coaches/Teammates ... thoughts on (slightly tweaked) 5 week build between IMs?
I did IM Canada a few weeks ago (lifetime-best fitness and preparation; lifetime-worst outcome), and I'm signed on for IM Muskoka at the end of August. It's an aggressively hilly course on both bike and run. My objective in the 5-week intervening period is to focus on fast / strong.
Long runs would be capped at 90' with most work at hmp. I'll try to be on a hilly course on the tribike for every ride.
I was in the 20-22h-plus week neighborhood during the Canada build-up, finished around ctl 130tss/d and have about 20x5hour rides in my legs this season.
Observations on the pattern below? (Rest is top priority throughout, achieved across multiple fronts).
- Week 1: total rest (done, feel good, no weight gained, lots of fruits, veggies, water and clean livin').
- Week 2: key sessions are 3x 3h 'ish hard bikes, 2 x 1.5h runs w lots of HMP. Total about 19 hours/week.
- Week 3: Key sessions are 2 x 5 weekend rides (planning work as kind of like bbw), on course, and 1 x 1.5 run. Total about 18 hours/week. I also want to include a full rest day.
- Week 4: Mostly plan as written. Emphasis on frequency w 2 complete rest days. Significant drop in volume to 8 hours /week.
- Week 5: Race Week. Plan as written. Arrive at race and register Friday.
The standout here is the big bike volume at three weeks out.
- On one hand, it's really just the addition of an extra 5h bike to what is on the written plan. And that extra ride would be literally the only time I could be on the course, with time as direct prep and intel, until check-in day. My thinking on volume is to try to mitigate this bigger weekend with a more "exponential" taper in the final weeks 4 and 5 through really dropping the volume. And I like to think that I have a pretty good fitness bandwidth from the last IM to absorb this extraordinary work.
- On the other hand, it's a 18h week, three weeks out from an IM.
Thoughts?
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Sharing my thinking as I enter second half of my season, which will consist of a ten week build from IM LP to Hawaii, then five weeks to get ready for AZ. For running I'm focusing on increased frequency and 8/4, 10/5split runs, with two longer runs of 15/3 and 17. Biking, like you, I am heading towards more volume @ IM pace &race pace plus - 5-6.5 hour rides, with a one week volume pop starting 3weeks after my preceding IM.
I'm not sure about the value of an HMP emphasis in running. If that worked for you in the past, go for it. But if it's new, I'm not sure this cram session is the place to do it. I tend to favor MP + a little TP work, but that may be my 6.6 decades speaking to me.
My thoughts on above plan , I see no purpose in back to back 5hr rides inside of 4-5weeks , 2 x 1.5hr run with lots of HMP seems a little much , 18hr week 3 weeks out is fine , 8hr week 2 weeks out seems light .... Focus on race specificity , nutrition , drive/learn/study the course and then do one solid ride of the course...
Any reflections or lesssons learned from your training could also apply. I am 10 weeks from kona in my 8th month of training this year and I have maybe 10 rides over 5 hours with most of them on my road bike. TSS/d is only a number...how did you really feel? What did the final key workouts look like?
And please point me to your RR!
The fear I have is losing fitness. I put on 12 pounds when I weighed myself 8 days after the race (this Monday). Probably crazy water weight since I have already pealed 5 off this week. I gotta focus on that as move out of the aero bars and back to climbing mountains. Kudos to you for playing offense and trying to build fitness. You have my respect.
One question - no swimming or just plain-jane-not-worth-mentioning?
Cheers to you!
Al - Race day in Canada was characterized entirely by environmental factors. And my body's reaction to sustained cold and wet. We'll probably not see a race report, unless people want to read something composed entirely of expletives and incomplete numbers (my garmin flooded and died). I normally write the RR as much for a learning experience and growth opportunity as for interesting team reading, but I have nothin' this time around. Learned what I could, did my best, ego bruised around the edges but intact, move on.
I like your Hawaii plan - what are 'split runs?' Can't best the sustained rides in aero for Hawaii. Anything that will contribute to keeping low on the return has huge roi.
Also, thanks for the volume confirmation. We have a familiar dance in my 'requests to the team:' For about 10 years running, I put something outrageous out there, and you and other WSMs patiently reign me in and tell me "less volume and intensity." Because I'm NOT seeing that here, I'm taking it as a green light.
Interesting point about the HMP. Let me think about it and rejig. I had initially strayed away from putting much more TP work in, if only because the pace had become sticky for the last few months, and I didn't think there would be gains found. Moreover, it's part of an overarching approach of flattening the peaks and shallowing (sp) the valleys: I felt like the TP work had been putting in a bit more of a recovery dent in the subsequent days, and I really wanted to try to lessen the peaks of intensity fatigue. Last, it's just a change of stimuli ... I've been at the TP since December. (then again, it might have been fruitful to think about even faster v02 Interval PAce stuff, but that would undermine the recovery above). With HMP, on the other hand, I feel like it gives the best race specific-preparation ... and more particularly, late-race-specific preparation. Plus, I have used it in other back-to-backs based on Patrick's "you've done the volume, now it's time to work hard" advice.
(I'm actually taking a bit of a lesson away from this shorter IM -> IM period in run planning: Where I would normally plot out time at certain paces based on percentages of total mileage (ie, no more than 8% of total mileage as TP, etc) a la Daniels, this time around I think I could actually take a "all sizzle and no steak" approach ... having banked a lot of ~45/50 mile, 6-day-a-week weeks, I feel like the run durability and fitness is there to actually drop almost all (except wu) of easy pace running, and just get into things.
Looking forward to reading your Placid RR and hearing more about your Hawaii build-up.
Tim - yep, it's very similar to the Kona -> AZ turnaround I did a few years ago. Main difference is how close I planned a bigger week to race day.
Based on the above, I've spiked one of the two 5h rides in the big weekend, and will just do a full double loop of the course on the Sat and a single loop (then a drive around for sh*ts and giggles) the next day. I'll also reign in some of the HMP pace in these 90' runs and do a progressive build of pace, being midful of your and Al's advice.
Nutrition is actually an interesting point - in a normal IM build, I normally just eat well and monitor body composition until it reaches a desired point. However, I'm actually below race weight today, and I made a decision to use LoseIt to actually force myself to take in the full calories that I'm spending. (I'll weigh in daily to monitor if it creeps up). It's quite remarkable: In normal training, I THOUGHT I had been taking in adequate fuel. But when I'm actually seeing the numbers and trying to meet a quote, I'm amazed just how much I have to eat every day. Takeaway is I've probably been running a very (performance) damaging caloric deficit for most race builds over the years.
Keep well, my friend
Yep ... the 'something that wasn't right' was the weather (and my ability to deal with it!). See my comments to Al about the RR ... or do a forum search for "f-word!"
The reflections and lessons from training are actually good ones ... You know me, and I'm normally pretty tough on myself, but this season buildup and training were spot-on. I don't say that lightly. So, keeping it humming along (and setting disappointment aside and taking a forward-looking stance) are where I'm at.
And time on the course. Amen.
Last, I'm feeling good. You're right about tdd/d (and I really never monitored it until I wanted to do a comparison to last year's figures). Alos, I would LOVE to get on my road bike for the last weekend bikes, and particularly on the shorter punchier stuff in the hills this weekend, but I feel like I could benefit from getting on a comparably hilly course and concentrating on where I can / should / should not be aero in climbs, descents, hill crests, and everything else that seems to characterize Muskoka.
Dino - your approach is probably much smarter than mine! Funny you should mention the weight gain ... I raced at 148, and three days after the race, weighed in at 162. And today, I'm back to race weight. Climb away!
Yep, there's swimming in there. My pool is nearby, so I'm mainly hitting it for frequency this week, and will get 3 x sessions as written next week. After that, it's sharpening as ~4 weekly shorter sessions, and I'll try to get those done in a 50 instead of my regular 25. Although the swim is a big limiter for me, I just can't see finding more speed in this short time without putting in the work.