IMCHOO Training Wk 8/17 - 8/23 2015
Week 15 - Knowledge burst
I'm going to say very little in the introduction as I believe every person on this team has a great deal of value to add after this past week. Race rehearsals at home or at camp brought you tons of knowledge and insight into your race and the Chattanooga course specifically.
We had a great time at camp and everyone who couldn't make it YOU WERE GREATLY MISSED! It was an honor to help SAG this weekend and watch you all train and dedicate yourself to this journey. I will need lots of tissues at the finish line in September that is for sure!
Coach Rich will be posting the audio from his presentations this past weekend and other information soon. If you have questions, remember to send him a message in the MACRO forum.
Here are two blog post recaps from the weekend: Day One & Two Recap and Day Three & Four Recap
So now I turn it over to the fantastic CHOOCREW - I want to hear all about your training weekend and what you learned.
Comments
1. Check your gearing. Although many of the climbs do not look all that bad, they will catch up to you at the end of 116 miles. I will have a 12/28 cassette on race day. My VI both days was 1.04 and I'm convinced it wasn't in the sweet spot because of some of the watt spikes I had when I ran out of gears on the few stinker hills.
2. For the next 6 weeks I plan to ride at just over my target numbers for race day. For me, it means NP high 140's low 150's and race at around 142.
3. Put your last mile HR as a data field on watch in the run. Use that as an indicator of splits, not pace. After mile 18, it's game on. Plan for some very dark places at mile 24. Major climb back up to the finish, but rewarded with a downhill and flats to the line.
My goals this week in addition to training are to start typing out my race plan, adding up the calories, tracking fluid intake/weight loss after training.
Camp weekend was a success. My legs are trashed. I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 7:30 last night. And I'm so hungry.
I saw a lot of awesome work on the Strava board this weekend for those at CHOO camp. Kim, John, Mike, Ann, Rich great work down there!
Anybody else have anything they want to share from camp? Was the course tougher/easier than you thought? Faster/slower? Road conditions? Anything about the run course? I realize Coach Rich will be preparing a podcast(s) which I'm sure will have loads of information so don't feel obligated to share. Just wondering what ya'll thought about CHOO. (Wishing I was there!)
Took a much needed easy day yesterday as my legs were crushed. Today I felt much better and got in a short run before work and then a great pool swim. I did a bunch of 200's and some 100's at higher intensity and my arms were toasted by the end! Keep up the great work everyone!
The temperature has moderated here in Shanghai, its only in the 90's with a tinge of brown in the air!
Another good week last week, no travel makes it a little easier to accomplish the task.I was able to hit all my assigned workouts with a decent 100 mile ride on Saturday. The only issue I see is I am in the flattest terrain in the world. TSS last week of north of 1300 so I'm happy with that.
Can someone share a Strava link of last weeks camp ride and runs. I would like to try and duplicate the terrain next weekend on my back to back 112 mule rides. I'm back in the States for 10 days, clean air, good food and I hope some good training.
Keep up the good work!!
Doug, the course was pretty much as advertised. I watched the podcast from last year and Coach Rich pretty much had it nailed back then. Semi crappy roads in and out of town on the bike and sneaky hills on the loops of the bike course that will catch up to those not paying attention. The run was mostly flat / non eventful on the south side of the river with the one big hill on the north side of the river. Road conditions were pretty good compared to what I am used to.
Pat, I would argue my training rides are at least as flat as yours. I had to teach myself how to shift often on the bike. Day 2 went better for me just from getting the hang of the frequent shifting. I have a 12x28 cassette sitting on wheel at my house, but was too busy (OK lazy) to put in on my bike before Chattanooga camp. It will be there before the race. I don't do/have a Strava, but I could send you Garmin links (or export files from Garmin) if that would help you any.
I also have to get a better handle on my long run heart rate. I know heart rate is individual, but mine seems high compared to everyone I speak with. For the Chatt run, my avg HR was 158 and I just kept a slow and steady pace throughout the run. The last 13.2 race I did was in January (no heat stress) and my avg HR for that one was 178. I have several spirited century rides/races with average heart rates of 160 - 170 for 5-6 hours. Not sure what to make of this, but I'll get it figured out in the next few weeks.
I think the rolling nature of the hills on the bike were challenging but able to be conquered. The main things that I took away from camp on the bike were:
- Be humble and downshift when you need to. This means for me a lot of riding in the small ring and a whole lot of shifting.
- Stay aero on the climbs to keep yourself from doing something stupid. I really liked this and it really worked for me on this course.
- Smile a little bit to yourself every time someone hammers past you up a hill. Smile a little more when you catch them later on the course or on the downhill when they sit up and you slide past them.
I enjoyed my rest day yesterday very much. Planned to swim today but got to the pool a little late and it was full of kids swim team. I had to bail. Looking forward to hitting the intervals on the bike tomorrow and getting a nice brick run in.
Keep up the hard work everyone. Less than 40 days to go!!!!
Basically, Ron will be in Chattanooga with parts specific to his clients bikes/needs for sag and any wrenching needed before the race and will deliver your bike to your hotel on race day if its within walking distance of transition. Last year he was at IMMT and supported 20 athletes helping with tires, power meters and cranks. He is top notch and makes race week sooooo smooth in the bike department! If you have any questions, just call the number in the link and ask for Ron.
http://www.fraserbicycle.com/about/2015-ironman-chattanooga-service-course-pg182.htm
I feel OK, just stuffy. Will see how I'm feeling tonight to do the sweat test re-do....
1. I found out that course is harder for me than I expected 4000ft of elevation to be. Now I KNOW. Lots of little climbs of 5-12 % grade and all those false flat sections makes for slow going for me. I will adjust my expectations of how long I will be on the bike and my food intake/caffine , and make SURE the bike course doesn't take any of my legs for the run.
2. The run is always so scary in my head! I have been training on a rolling park road with about 8 miles of flats (very similar to Choo lay out) my last several long runs and I feel like I can survive the hills in the back half of the course. Lap two will hurt, bad. It is the same as the bike...not so much the overall elevation, but how the course is laid out. I believe that EN's patience and discipline mantra is spot on for this race!!!
3. I will like EB start to craft my race plan while the weekend is fresh, and push hard these last four weeks to gain fitness before taper. I am doing as Coach Rich suggested, and having another camp-ish type week with volume. I'm sure I won't get quite as much in, but more than prescribed. I will continue to recover HARD and this weekend, eat more veggies lol!!! Recovery tights are my besties!
4. Ain't nothing like camp weekend to learn the course, meet great people and have a blast being part of a great team!
Vitamin C and Zinc woman!!!! Feel better soon!
Vitamin C and Zinc woman!!!! Feel better soon!
Kane, Brandon, Trish, thank you for your take on camp!
Well...I feel like I'm waist deep in IM training. I cannot get enough sleep and I am hungry all the time! Otherwise, the last couple days of training have gone well. Interval run on Tuesday morning was good. Tuesday night swim was shortened a little bit due to the assault I put on my arms the night before. Yesterday morning I ran 10k just a bit slower than MP. In the afternoon I got in a 2 hour ride including 30' of FTP. I rode out and back and probably made the ride longer than it should have been. The last 30 minutes I didn't have much and was cursing myself. I was able to get 8.5 hours of sleep last night so I'm feeling pretty good today (so far), although the long run is looming...
Hope you all have recovered from camp and are starting to feel that fitness boost you will be getting!
Thanks for those that gave their perspective on the course from camp. Did anyone from camp do the practice swim? Any thoughts? Was the current flowing? Is it likely to be wetsuit legal!
Race rehearsal bike and 6 mile run tomorrow! Yippeee!
Tom- sorry you weren't happy with your swim but def expect some time from the current. It was def flowing for the practice swim and they said it was comparable to last years race and expect the same for this year. For someone at your speed (ie fast, in my eyes at least) you might expect 5 mins faster. I was about 15 mins faster than IMFL 2012 which was a rough swim. The water was pretty smooth, but a little brown, as evidenced by the formerly white spots on the suit I was wearing....
I worked from home yesterday to help recover from the cold. I know you can still train if it is just a head cold but I just couldn't. Worked 1/2 day today and feeling better but couldn't fathom a swim. I'll be back at it tomorrow though,.,,
@tom congrats on the RR!
My boys went back to school this week. 'Little bit' only had half days so it messed with my training planning. After last weekend, I think I should be ok ; ). Sadly, I re-injured my knee during our run on Sunday. It's not as bad as it was when I initially did it, but not fun having to deal with it again 5 weeks out. I'm hoping a bit of rest, and no speed work will help it recover. I moved my long run to today, and my knees were so sore, I decided to pull the plug at 8 miles. Plan is to attempt a back to back 100 tomorrow and Sunday, but now the knee is the Coach so we will see...
In the course of 8 days I have done my longest ride ever (at the Choo camp), my longest run ever twice (the Choo camp then 2.5 hours Thursday morning before work,) and my longest swim ever this morning (only 3800 meters, but to me it is long). I'm not sure how I got myself into this insanity. I did look ahead in the training plans and there's only 2 long (OK, only 2 crazy stupid long) runs left so there's that to look forward to.
I'll do a long ride tomorrow with a run after trying to follow the heart rate advice Coach gave at the camp, but it will be crazy hot getting off the bike, so we'll see how it goes.
Good job everyone - only 3 "real" training weeks left then that taper thing I keep hearing about. Looking forward to it.
But - the transition has started! Did a gentle Century this morning that served as recovery and first CHOO ride. It was just what the Dr ordered. Running to commence tomorrow.
Mentally the switch has happened and I am pumped for CHOO!!
Tough day at the office today. Had 3 days off for a cold but def not 100% yet. (Jut a stupid little cold, what gives??) Power meter not working, tipped over at a stop (unclip with right and leaning left is not a good combo). But 100 miles done with 3200ft/gain. HR was in-line with last weekends rides so I guess I was in the ballpark even though there was some drafting involved. Feels like the cold might be moving to my chest so I may push the run from Sun to Mon. (I was fairly OK with the biking but cant imagine running....) Off to the Cape for a couple of days with the wife so might get in some easy miles on the Seashore trail there.
Today's ride my butt bones were feeling last weeks rides. Good t-run!
Kim hope you are feeling better!
Camp was great - I think everyone covered what I would add. I like the run course, at least the first lap.
I think this is just part of what we go through. We are stressing our bodies more and more week over week. At some point, family and work needs catch up to us and it feels like the wheels are coming off.
They aren't. All the work you have done is still there. This feeling that everything is changing and you are falling behind is just one more thing to work through. It is a response to the training stress.
Since this typically happens to me around camp week, I try look at it as a time to step back and recover a little and plan one final strong push through RR2.
Just take a a deep breath, figure out how to make your schedule fit for a few more weeks, then you can start stressing over the taper!
Good luck!
The best bit is even though I'm tired and my udercarriage is PISSED, I rode that 5 hours a touch faster after a century the day before than my first outing a couple weeks ago. Progress. I plan on doing a century every weekend till taper.
This hasn't been the best of weeks for me. Toughman 1/2 was last Saturday -- swim went fine, bike looked good on paper but felt terrible, and the run was ... well, I met a few nice people at the BOBOP.
After a day in the dumps, I did a post mortem (not posting a race report -- don't really want to relive it again), trying to figure out what lessons to apply going forward to IMCHOO. So here's what I learned/what I'm going to do:
First, the swim is there. For the first time in forever, I didn't want the swim to end. I'm not any faster than I've ever been (~1:55/100 yd in both pool and open water), but this year has been a real breakthrough for me in that I enjoy being in the water, and my endurance is fine. I've always had that "are we there yet?" feeling in my swims, but this year has been, "Oh! We're done! Already?!?" Which is weird because I haven't spent nearly as much time in the water as I should. Whatever -- not looking this gift horse in the mouth! I'm going to drop the swims down to 2x/wk because I need the time to work on my weaknesses.
Second, for whatever reason, I'm losing power as we go through this build to IMCHOO. Again, whatever. I can only adjust and plan for it. At Toughman, it looked like I rode smartly -- a VI of 1.06 on a REALLY hilly course was more than I could hope for, and I was able to adjust my target power numbers down on the fly. But that masked the huge spikes I needed at the beginning and end. I haven't put in the really big miles that I should have, so that's a top priority in the next three weeks. Hoping to do at least 2-3 100 mile rides, at whatever pace I need to get them done. I'm thinking that my FTP isn't translating well beyond 3-4 hours -- that "what's my 5-hr FTP" discussion on the Power Forum is making a lot more sense. Good lesson on the bike ... AERO HELMET, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE!?!?!?! Faster at Toughman than predicted, with a NP over 10 watts lower than expected.
Third, I have no confidence in my run. The Alabama heat has caused me to really slow down this summer, which has decreased the number of miles I've run. Not good when a 2.5 hr run nets you only 11-12 miles. Again, whatever -- as much as I hate this saying, "It is what it is." I've done one of those 2.5-hr runs, and I'll try to do a couple more before we start the taper, and that's all I can do, other than some runs off the bike. I'm going to do a 0.5mi run/1min walk protocol. I still get hotfoot on the run, but it lingers at a manageable level. Will get that addressed before going into the OS.
Going forward, it's going to be all about the bike. Put the swim and run in maintenance mode and focus on the bike. It's the longest part of the day, it's what I like best, may as well make it enjoyable!
So ... that was Toughman! Training-wise, this week has been okay -- got my long run in, got some good medium rides in. The rest of life has been a challenge -- husband on TDY in Virginia, massive AC leak discovered in the attic, preschooler starting K3. I'm starting to see IMCHOO as an adventure, and getting to the finish line is enough. IMTX next year is where I'll start setting goals. Until life gets in the way again.
Oh, and one other thing I learned this week is that the Redskins are as much of a mess as they were last year. Good thing I'll start the OS early!
So I put on my big boy pants and got ready for my ride... As I was wheeling my bike to the car I noticed I had a flat tire... And I only have one tube in the bike bag and no extras... So I canned the bike and thought everything happens for a reason. I believe there was a reason I did not get on the bike... So I swapped out the bike ride for an 11 mile tempo run.
YES! And I believe in heeding those feelings. Of course, I'm also someone who explains away/excuses making a wrong turn with "Well, it may have kept us from being in an accident!"
Got up early on Saturday to get a good early start on my 6 hour bike. I just wasn't feeling it, and after eating, prepping, etc, finally said to self, get your A__ on that bike and get it done. By this time it was about 8:30, and I was heading away from the house, my gears were still not shifting properly from the mechanical I had on Saturday of camp. Rode it down to LBS where I found out they had an early start of about 300 riders for a local Bike MS training ride. Dale, my mechanic said "Its a good thing you didn't show up here earlier, I wouldn't have been able to help you out!" I didn't get 6 hours in but had a much more enjoyable 4.5 hr ride with fixed gears. So, yes I do believe everything happens for a reason!
Crazy week, all was going great, hitting all my workouts and my numbers. Then Thursday in China and it was time to come back to the States to do my back to back 112 and then a long run. 3 canceled flights and my bike held hostage in the broken plane laid waste to those plans. I finally got back Saturday afternoon. I assembled the bike and went to bed early. Did my 112 and a 6 mile run today. I over cooked the bike at .80 effort but still managed to finish the run.
This week numbers:
163 miles on the bike, 12,300 yards in the pool and a week 20 miles of running. TSS of 1,266
looking for better numbers next week.
@Rich S said it perfect though. this is ai I taper for us to build for final RR work. ita a new week today. Let's hope our minds (and knees!) bounce back for the grind.