IMCHOO Training Wk 8/31 - 9/6 2015
#EN4KEYS
Well CHOOCREW we are 4 weeks out from race week and there are 4 Keys of Racing within EN. What sets EN athletes drastically apart from other athletes is the ability to know to race. You're putting in the training and doing a fantastic job of posting your information with the team to discuss but as you wind down your training in the next couple weeks you need to put your head in a space to have the 4Keys down pat. Even if you have been with EN for awhile, there is always something to learn or something you can teach to help someone else's race experience.
Not to reinvent the wheel here is a mixture of coaches perspective and a couple other race captains:
X - Race day is about execution NOT fitness
Theme for this week is important. Start visualizing your upcoming RR2 and Race Day in terms of simply Executing your Fitness:
The majority of athletes on race day are fitness-focused (look at my T-shirt, look at my abs/veins/etc, look at how fast I can go in the first hour of the bike, etc.). They think of race day as the application of their fitness to the course, the distance. They are wrong. Race day is about the application of sound execution skills to a long day. Your fitness is just along for the ride. Through our observation of many, many races we can tell you that fully 90% of athletes out there do not understand this and do not know how to execute properly. For the Endurance Nation athlete then, race day is largely an exercise is doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing!
Easy to read/comprehend the above, difficult to actually apply on race day, when you feel rested, invincible with adrenaline and the best you have felt during the entire training cycle. So important to start thinking and scripting this concept now.
Good Job team.... keep chipping away, two more weeks left of fitness
***** ADMIN INFO NEEDED FROM EVERYONE *******
Please visit Race Admin Doc <-- THERE I need an exact count for the team dinner by end of week. Once I have a solid number I will be able to get our price per dinner locked in. The place I have reserved now has a cap so if we exceed that I need time to find another. This is important please visit this doc and by end of week I will take whatever number is on your name row. Thank you!!! </span>
Comments
Info here:
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Location: Ross Landing
On-Site Registration & Packet Pick-Up:
Thursday, September 24th 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.
Friday, September 25th 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, September 26th 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Ages: 3 to 15
Distances: 1 mile, ¼ mile
Price: $15
This is important information that I need by End of Week as well. Thanks everyone!
https://www.strava.com/activities/382894654
Somewhat back to a normal-ish week for me. The plan is to do my long run early tomorrow with hopes that my hamstring/knee tendonitis behaves. We started out the week with the pink eye/stink eye in our house so Monday stuff was out due to little one being home. I was pretty sore from my long run though so I think it was smart to chill. Easy cruise miles in yesterday followed by massage and ART on the bum leg. OWS last night with Crosby. 3200 even though my garmin does not say it. I got in 3800 today in the pool, again, with Garmin button/user error issues. The 920 hates me.
Followed up with a lunch time bike where I hit a 2.9 mile bike loop right outside my front door. It was the first time I did my 2X20 outside, and although I had to deal with a few of the elements, i.e. one traffic light, and 2 minor stops for backed up traffic, It went well. I split it up into 3 mile repeats, trying to hold as close to FTP as I could for 2 loops (6 miles, around 17 min) followed by an easy loop. I did that twice and included a warm up/cool down. 20 miles and I didn't have to sit on a trainer - 1.12 VI (there were some hills I hammered) and .89 IF
At this point, the name of the game for me is getting to that start line as healthy as possible.
So my legs have also decided Z4 on the bike is a dream. Only could manage A Sad Attempt @ FTP Intervals- 2x15'@.89IF + 25'@.81IF. Felt stronger towards the end so maybe I should try warming up like Carol said.
I'm with Kim. For the first time, I could not hit the Z4 intervals (18 mins). First one was there at .95 IF, and the second one was .86. So it's not awful, but I just could not get my legs to push any more or go around any faster! That's okay. I had a pretty good run after and swam for 1000 yards in the bay:-) I came home, ate lunch, and layed on the couch for 90 minutes. I NEVER do that!! I also need to hydrate more during the day! I've been a really good girl this week with the alcohol (or lack thereof) so that should help, but I really do need to be drinking more water! Not sure what my plan is for the rest of the week. Turby is messing me all up with his schedule! LOL I may move my long run to Sunday since it's supposed to be friggin' crazy hot tomorrow. I also may be doing my race rehearsal on Saturday, depending on what Coach P has to say. In that case, I may try to get a long swim in tomorrow. The pool is closed this week, so it means back to the Bay with the stupid current! And I need to spend some time with my Mom ASAP! Well, it will all workout in the end... Keep up the good work, Chicas! Oh - and you too fellas:-)
The run started slow and I was stressed (still am!!!) but the legs came around for the repeats (I did some strides beforehand..Kim...x2 what Carol said about wu's!) No swim though... 6 hours in the car and lots of stress eating instead! UGH!
Today I had a ton to do here at home and finally hopped on my kickr to do the wo and of course my $#&@*#%#&@* kickr and app wouldn't talk. Nor could I get the kickr to work with Trainer road. AND their customer service line is only 9-5. Seriously. I was cheesed! So I put on 2010 Kona and just rode hard 2x15 by hr. Only a 50' ride total. Grrrrr! Tomorrow the long run. It's gonna be another smoking hot day, but I'm getting after it early!
Bummer Emily about the sick kiddo.
Only a few more hard core workouts and taper shall commence!
Suffice it to say that I boogered that run pretty good by not minding my elevated HR in the early miles. Poor sleep, maybe a little dehydrated, plus warm and humid kicked my butt. I did the anti ninja thing and brought the suck to me sooner! DOH!
AND because I am a genius (not) I miscalculated my turn around to finish at 3 hours. Nice.
Onward!
Anyway, it is great to see people killing their last long run before Choo, and I look forward to tracking the last few weeks. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was signing up, yet here the race is just a few weeks away. Ouch!!
Got another question, at what point does the long run quit hurting? Sadly I think the answer for me was about 20 yrs ago!
We're in the home stretch keep the pedal down for another week!
So I know some folks were saying how tired they are. I don't really feel tired in general except my legs and my wkos this week have been less than stellar. Hopefully I'm training enough...
Crazy couple weeks for me. Two full day delay leaving Shanghai due to a broken plane. Missed two days of training, but got 112 and a one hour run on Sunday the 23rd.
Then our house sold and we found a new Condo. Closed on the Condo last Friday but could not find movers on short notice! So Saturday morning did 95 miles with Rich Stanbaugh and the crew. 5 hours @ .83 wasted the legs. Skipped the pancakes and went back towards home and rented a U Haul. The wife an I worked 48 hours and moved into our new home.
This week has turned into a run only week. Hit my Z4 numbers on Tuesdays run and then knocked out 18 miles in the heat and humidity yesterday. I waited until 9am to start the run to somewhat simulate the Choo heat. New pedals and shoes for the TT bike but the rain kept me from riding this afternoon.
Early morning flight back to Shanghai tomorrow. Hope to get another 100 in on Sunday on Chongming Island. 2 weeks back in China then back to the Sates for my Mandatory leave.
Lots of great work getting done by everyone in the group. Just a couple more weeks to go!
I posted this on the dash, but need some quick feedback: Ok, so I know for bike RR we are supposed to ride a flat course, but what about for the run RR? (The big 3 hr run) I didn't see anything in the Race Rehersal protocol. I was thinking of doing flat then hills to simulate IMChoo, but now I'm not sure.... I think John mentioned not having anywhere flat to run, so I'm not sure if we're supposed to do flat for this LOVELY 3hr run....
Rock on everyone! It certainly is tiring getting this much volume in during the hottest part of the year (for most of us anyway). But I think it will pay dividends on race day @ Choo.
My bike's been in the shop for 6 days and I'm supposed to pick it up today for the big rides this weekend. Being w/out my whip, I've focused on Run/Swim this week. I logged 35 mi with 3 runs in 4 days and had my best 4Km swim of the year this morning. On the swim I was testing out my new swim skin so I guess I've got to attribute the improvement to the suit
The best news of week however, is the South Carolina Gamecocks took care of the TarHoles last night on the gridiron.
John- I hear ya on the hurting! All kinds of parts were hurting that didn't hurt on the long run last week....
So my wkos are 0/4 this week, with today's run being epically horrible. Last week's 13mi run on the same course was a 12:12 avg pace. Today's 15mi run was avg 14:00 pace. Things went downhill (not literally) at the turnaround. It was a little hotter today than the last long run so I'll attribute it to that, as well as the new pains that popped up. I'll pretend that race day will be more like last week's run and try to wipe this from my memory, except to learn from it. Took Trish's cue and took a cool Jacuzzi afterwards while drinking a protein shake. Had some dinner and going to chill for the night. Feeling fairly cranky but I'll try to be nice to the wife and furkids....
Come to find out yesterday afternoon, the bike shop had to order a hanger for my rear derailleur because they (nor any other shop in town - I checked) had the part in stock, delaying me getting my bike back until Tues
Good luck to everyone this weekend and take extra precaution out there!!
Got a pretty good swim RR in today. 4200ys in 1:28:35. Not bad, about what I expected. When I did the RR swim in Choo at camp weekend, my swim was about 1:22 so def a few minutes to save in the current....
Thanks to Coach Rich's encouragement at camp, i pushed my watts to 76% FTP today. Felt great the whole ride and the 10 k brick run afterwards.
This was my 3rd century (not including camp) and continuing to make positive strides. 6,500 feet of elevation gain in under 6 hours - that is a PR for me. This was a HUGE confidence builder for the race in 3 weeks.
I also got some swim pointers from a local coach and was able to shave 10 seconds my pace - i will see next week what impact it has on my OWS.
I am traveling for business Thurs - Sat next week, so I will complete my RR2 on Wednesday.
Best wishes to everyone in the final 8 days of build!
This traveling is killing me. My Delta flight back to Shanghai was delayed almost 5 hours!!! Sooooo i did a 14 mile angry run! last week I hit the 50 mile run plateau for the first time in a long time, the down side I did not swim at all last week.
Got back to China last night and arrived at my apartment at 10pm. Hustled and got the bike assembled, driver picked me up at 6am and I managed 103 miles @ .72 intensity on the Island. Grocery shopping completed, drinks made for the week, laundry complete and Now I'm ready to nail this last big week.
3 more weeks to go, great work being done by everyone! Just remember, if it was easy everyone would do it!
No Labor day here in China, its back to the office in the morning. All my USA peeps have a great holiday weekend.
My morning started out with a rear flat. So after employing my go-to flat tire strategy (Pouting) I decided to get some experience and do it. (I considered waiting til the bike shop opened, or use the other bike with the bum power meter.) I managed OK but needed my roadie neighbor's help getting the wheel back in cuz of course mine was a little different than my new virtual BFF (the Trek chick who's Youtube video helped me along) I have changed flats before but it isn't frequent (thank goodness) so if I need it on race day (knock on wood) it will be fresh in my mind.
Got in 77 miles @ .68IF (which happens to be my IM target) with 7 x 20' @ .70-75IF. What was weird is my AP was about 10 watts higher than NP. Usually I see the reverse. Weird. I was getting frustrated because I was riding harder than .70IF but when I had to slow down to see the next or wait for traffic, I'd drop a bunch of watts. So if I go by my AP, the overall ride was .74 vs. .68. I dunno.
I think overall my hydration is OK, but it is the pacing that needs tweaking. I might be drinking too much early when its cooler (ie peed 4x by Mile 50!!) and then not enough later. I'll def refine this for next RR. Anyone else find this? I def don't have time to pee 8X during the IM!