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Sam Lawrence Official Coach Thread
Hey!
Here's your Micro Thread, as promised. As you'll see in this forum, I handle all manner of edits and changes. So post away!
We've got lots to discuss to get you ready for CDA and FL this year. 
I usually check in 2-3 times a week; for more urgent questions, please use the Chat Icon in the bottom right of the page!
~ Coach P
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Here's your updated Season Plan, as promised. This is where you'll return to post all your "coach" questions as responses; I'll see them and reply. This first post is my best outline of how to proceed with your races, but you can ask any / all questions you want. So post away, know that I reply here usually M/W/F each week.
Power User Tip: Click the Star icon by the Title of this thread to subscribe, and you'll get email updates when I do reply.
Your Races
Season Update
These are your recommended training plans, including the date you should start each one (sometimes you won’t complete a full plan but transition to another one). You can change your plans on the Training Plan page by clicking the Move / Change button. Learn more about each plan on the Training Plan Central Page.
Coach Notes
Sam, thanks for checking in. After IMCDA, sounds like you are looking for a bit of revenge. Good news is the the FL course is not hilly...but it's not easy either.
Per the below, you can do the sprints as you see fit...no real taper, just move the long ride to Sunday (no brick run needed). So you lose the Sunday ABP ride, but it's all good!
First thing we need is run consistency...so make sure you are doing all the runs (at least for time) as soon as you can.
Next thing we need is the weekend rides...the Sat/Sunday combo is very efficient. Regardless of your week, hopefully you can be good on the weekends to the tune of 4 + 2 hours across Sat and Sunday. That really adds up over time. Put a short brick run off of either/both of those (even 15 minutes counts) and you'll be cooking with gas.
Final thing is that swim. The ocean swim is a bit challenging for sure, so we want swim time but I want to be careful of your shoulder. Can you please share with me what modifications you are / are thinking of making so I can help guide you?
Let's get to work!
~ Coach P
Ps - added recovery block and first installment of the Run Durability Program (RDP) program for you, depending how you wrap up the year / plan the next!
I like the idea of the run focus after Florida. Many years ago prior to getting into triathlons, I did primarily running events and felt I did very well, however that was 30 yrs ago. Since a long layover not doing much of anything, I started up doing triathlons in 2011, and have not been able to find any speed on the run which has been frustrating.
Food for thought: I am planning next yrs schedule and have narrowed it down to 2 possibilities. I am looking at Texas, Boulder, and Louisville, or Texas, Mont-Tremblant, and Louisville. I did Texas this year and Louisville last year. I like both races, but really liked Louisville and my wife really liked the setting as well. We had a hotel right at the finish line. Even though there were some hills, it was not as bad and IMCdL and IMLP which I have done both and really struggled on the climbs. My gut feeling is that I could do fairly well going back to IMLOU. My problem is the time between the races. There are only 6 weeks between Texas and Boulder, and then about 18 weeks until IMLOU if race stays about the same date. The second option leaves 16 weeks between IMTX and IMMT, but then only 8 weeks until IMLOU. I would like to do well at IMLOU. My concerns are, do I have enough time to at least participate in Boulder and survive, or if not, will 8 weeks between IMMT and IMLOU give me enough time to recover and perform well at IMLOU. I know neither is ideal. If you are wondering why this number of races next yr, I am working toward the legacy entry. IMFL this year will be #9, so 3 races next yr will get me to 12. I would greatly appreciate your input.
I say this as Texas is such a flat race that it won't be too grinding on your body and you will be able to recover quickly into boulder. Then you will have a proper rest before you return to Louisville. The other alternative puts a very challenging race (tremblant) so close to Louisville it will be a nightmare. Let me know what you think!
This is the combination of both Nutrition) and pacing, so be sure to take your time so we can get it right. You only have a few more weeks of long workouts or you can nail this down before the race. And you definitely want to have it lined up.
You can find everything you need under resources in the race execution section of the website. If there's anything else I can help you with short term, please let me know.
~ Coach P
@sam lawrence
Here's your updated Season Plan, as promised. This is where you'll return to post all your "coach" questions as responses; I'll see them and reply. This first post is my best outline of how to proceed with your races, but you can ask any / all questions you want. So post away, know that I reply here usually M/W/F each week.
Power User Tip: Click the Star icon by the Title of this thread to subscribe, and you'll get email updates when I do reply.
Your Notes
Just finished IMFL 2 weeks ago. I came out of IMFL with a PR of 13:49. I felt fairly well on the swim, had a really good bike ride, but had some significant cramping issues on the run affecting a slower run time.
I am finishing the 2nd week of post IM transition plan to finish 12/3. You have me doing Run durability phase 2 finishing 12/31. You just sent me a message to fill the following week with whatever I see fit and then start OS Jan 8.
Your Races
Main Race:
Season Update
These are your recommended training plans, including the date you should start each one (sometimes you won’t complete a full plan but transition to another one). You can change your plans on the Training Plan page by clicking the Move / Change button. Learn more about each plan on the Training Plan Central Page.
Coach Notes
Change in heart...I'd like you to jump in on the DEC OS so that you are ready for to build to the IM plan with enough time to make a difference. You should be rested enough, but let me know! Remember you won't go the distance with the OS plan; just enough work to get you back up there!
Then it's in / out / in / out of the FULL plans through TX and Boulder. A change of pace with quality bike work midseason before returning one more time to the well!
Let's get to work!
~ Coach P
I need a little help on what to do over the next 2 weeks leading up to IMFL. I just completed IMLOU and took off 7 days recovering from the race and a bike accident resulting in a right hip hematoma and severely bruised ribs. Fortunately, I was able to complete the race, since the severe pain didn't appear until race night and the following day. I did a 1.5 hour ride on the the trainer yesterday and felt pretty good with a little rib discomfort towards the end of the ride. I don't think I was able to demonstrate my fitness at Louisville due to adverse conditions and accident, so would like to see a better performance at Haines City.
Thanks, Sam
This is a pretty unique situation. I am glad that you have minimal pain right now, but it will be helpful to know how you feel across all three disciplines. So I recommend that you spend every day for at least 60 minutes.
Today for example you could get off the bike and try to jog 15 to 20 minutes to see how running feels.
Similarly, tomorrow you could drag yourself to the pool and see how your stroke feels. So step one is to determine how your body feels in all three disciplines. Step two is just to stay active to help the facilitate recovery.
This weekend would be a long swim on Friday how about an hour. Saturday should be a 3 to 3 1/2 hour steady-state ride mostly in the aero bars with a 20 minute run off the bike. Sunday would be off. At this point in time we can hope for you to get any faster but we can make better decisions. If you haven’t done so already, please check out the recording from last night available in the forums so you can see more of my thoughts on the course.
Ironman #12 finally completed at Haines City. It was not the prettiest race, but it counted. Swim was off pace due to some mild asthma congestion during swim. A couple of puffs on my inhaler and off on the bike with a good steady ride. Started off a little slow on the run hoping to find my legs, but they never really showed up. I really felt they had not recovered from Louisville. Shuffled to the finish line including a refreshing 2 hour downpour and collected my medal.
I was just glad to get through this race following the recent bike crash and injuries received at Louisville 3 weeks ago which I have not fully recoverd. And then, just before leaving to Haines City, I developed an issue with my Di2 system on my Ventum. It would not keep a charge for more than 12-14 hours. Installed new battery with no luck. Due to having to turn bike into transition Saturday afternoon, the battery was draining down all night. I was first in line at opening of transition with a portable battery charger to put as much charge as possible before transition closed. I took 2 portable chargers with me on the bike with my fingers crossed I would make it back. Fortunately, I did not have to use them.
I now need to know what to do next. The only thing I have officially committed to next year is IM Ireland which is the only full I plan to do next year. I really have no idea what else I may do at this point. Looking forward, I am not too concerned about my swimming, and I feel I have made steady progress on the bike, but definitely room for improvement. The areas I feel like I need the most work is to lose another 15-20 pounds and my running needs a lot of work. I am not looking for a long term plan at this time, just what to do next.
Thanks, Sam
Also, I have been receiving very good customer service from Jimmy and Rachel at Ventum on my bike issue both before and after race with suggestions on what may be wrong. Now that I am back home, Jimmy has been in communication with my LBS to try to solve the problem.
I thought of you this morning because my DI2 when my ventum didn’t work. Thankfully it was a simple fix.
The next step for you was to recover by following the post Iron Man plan which last about four weeks. This will keep your news in active but avoid doing any serious training.
Then you jump in to the rug or ability program ideally for about four weeks. Probably eight weeks total depending on how you feel. The goal here is to laydown a baseline level of running on top of which we can focus on some body composition.
It’s crazy as it may sound, now is a great time to lay down some good fundamentals with regards to your diet. There are some great or resources and her learning/seminars/body composition to get you started. Let me know what you think, and where you want to begin.
@Sam Lawrence -
Here's your updated Season Plan, as promised. This is where you'll return to post all your "coach" questions as responses; I'll see them and reply. This first post is my best outline of how to proceed with your races, but you can ask any / all questions you want. So post away, know that I reply here usually Monday & Friday each week.
Power User Tip: Click the Star icon by the Title of this thread to subscribe, and you'll get email updates when I do reply.
Coach Notes
I love the idea of this year being a consolidation between what you did last year 😱 And 2020's incredible bid for excellence at the World Champs. I have you on a decent schedule per our plans, see below For how I divided the year in to two parts. Note, our plans are now on Final Surge so there's a bit of a learning curve there, esp when loading individual plans. Info on how to do that is here, but let me know if you need help via that chat window on the EN Site.
Long Term Goals:
Short Term Goals:
Your Races
Season Update
These are your recommended training plans, including the date you should start each one (sometimes you won’t complete a full plan but transition to another one). You can change your plans on the Training Plan page by clicking the Move / Change button. Learn more about each plan on the Training Plan Central Page.
Your Notes
I am a returning EN member which stopped late last year. It was a tough year with 4 full IM's and 1 half. It was a push to complete the Legacy program which I did and have been accepted for the 2020 race. YEAH!! It was only supposed to be 3 IM's last year, but I missed the bike cut off at Boulder by 4 seconds. OUCH! I then had to add IMFL to reach number 12 which was only 3 weeks following the cold, rainy, miserable IMLOU. I started last year with FL 70.3 and IMTX. I took off most of Nov and the first several weeks of December. Since then, I have been more consistent than I ever remember. I have had a couple weeks that we off track, but overall fitness has improved significantly. Most weeks have been b/t 8 to 15 hours. My biking is probably the best it has ever been, my running is coming along steadily, and my swim which is my strongest discipline has been put on the back burner with min effort so far. I really need to find more time to get to the pool. Since the start of the year, I have been running 3-4 days a week on good weeks with an overall average of 12.5 miles a week. I do have 7 weeks in the mix with miles b/t 17 to 25 miles. Biking has been more consistent with an average of 75 miles a week. Swimming has been very hit and miss with an average work out session of around 2000 yds.
Let's get to work!
~ Coach P
@Sam Lawrence, @Coach Patrick - "Sam I Am" - we have some things in common! I did IMFL Haines City last November (epic!), and I'm doing the Gulf Coast 70.3 next month, along with IM Ireland in June. And I will be at Kona this year for my Legacy race (congrats on your 2020 selection).
I see Coach P was updating your file today although I thought he was "vacationing" at the EN Camp in Mallorca. My question to both of you is why you have an IM70.3 Waco ending on 11-17-2019 when it is actually on 10-27-2019; and why do you even have IM70.3 Cork on your schedule for 11-24-2019 when there is no such race? The only race in Cork, Ireland is the full coming up on 23 June 2019.
Meanwhile, get your butt to the pool !! :)
@Coach Patrick - I think we need to start over on the race schedule. I just picked the races from the drop down boxes for my 2019 race schedule I submitted. I did not notice the dates we incorrect. To clarify, I am doing Gulf Coast 70.3 on 5/11, IM Cork on 6/23, and Waco 70.3 on 10/27.
@Sam Lawrence, Coach P is out of pocket at Mallorca. Load up the EN Full run focus plan for 6/23 right away. I am doing Gulf Coast 70.3 off my IM training and suggest the same for you. That will put a small dent in the schedule (taper and recovery) but it is early enough before the IM to get sufficient training in. Don't worry about Waco until you get back from Ireland and have done the two week IM recovery plan.
@Paul Hough, Thanks for the input. I basically have been following a full IM plan which I had used last year for previous fulls. In respect to IM Cork, I have a few questions. Do you have any concerns about the cold water swim? From what info I've collected, it should be in the mid 50's. My second concern is the Windmill Hill street. I am not the strongest climber, and it looks to be about 400 meters of some significant grade of up to 20 degees. There is an You tube video of a couple bikers climbing the hill, and they are doing some zigging and zagging to get up some of the steeper sections. I have an 11-28 cassette, and think I may need to get a smaller gear. Any thoughts?
@Sam Lawrence, I have my fingers crossed for water around 58 to 60. I'm bringing my polar cap and booties in case it is mid 50s.
I've already ridden the course profile on Rouvy and Windmill Hill will come at 54 and 110 miles ... definitely a match burner. My travel bike is a compact w 11-28. I'm going to see if my Etap can handle a 30 on the back, but I can climb it without it. Locals posted to Facebook that it only takes a minute longer to walk it but that will be the Hot Corner with the crowd screaming to go for it. Depending on who posted the GPX file I've seen 20 to 25% but it came up at 17% on my Hammer.
I'm on the bike trnr right now but I will send you my course notes later.
@Sam Lawrence - here are the Cork bike notes I promised. Coming out of T1 we go about a 1/3 mile take a left and start a long clockwise loop. It's pretty flat up to 6 miles when you hit a short steep 15% grade as the road comes to a T intersection and we go left. Next big hill comes from 11 to 11.5. The gradients I saw in that half mile went from 5.5% - 13% - 6.4% - 4.1% - 2.9% then it's over. A couple miles later there is a 1/4 mile hill at 13.4 that goes 3.5% - 5.9% - 11%. Then just light rolling until a 1.7 mile climb from 24 to 25.7 with max grades of 9.5% and 9.9%. Next up is a full 3 mile climb from 31 to 34. It is mostly between 2% to 5% grade with one section at 7.5%. You don't get too much of a break after this because the next climb goes from 37.4 to 39.7. This one is also mostly between 2-5% with a max grade of 8.1%. Coming off this climb you are at the highest elevation on the course and now you start the descent to Youghal but the downhill fun is interrupted with a nasty 0.9 mile hill that stayed between 6.5 - 8.5%. When we come into the North side of town and you turn right onto Windmill Lane (54.3 miles) the big hill is immediate with a slight taper off at the top. If you watched the Facebook course talk this past week, the RD said it was 20%. It felt like that but my system said 17% for the first couple hundred yards, then 14% then 10% and then we take a left at the top and head back by T1 - and get to do it all over again. The second time up that hill at the very end of the bike will be incredibly tough!
@Paul Hough- Thank you very much for that detailed break down of the course. It doesn't look too bad except for a few short sections and the Windmill Hill x 2. I ride a Ventum and was able to rent one through a service provided through Ironman at this race. I originally told them to set it up with a 11-28, but just sent them a message to change to an 11-32. I agree with you on the Windmill Hill being a hot corner on the course, and would hate to have to get off and walk up it.
You mentioned you have ridden this course profile on Rouvy. I have heard of Rouvy, but not very familiar with it. What would I have to do to set it up to ride the course on my trainer?
Thanks again
@Sam Lawrence - I've been with Rouvy for over a 1 1/2 years now. Zwift is much more popular but I'm not at all attracted to the animated world. Rouvy has both workouts and REAL rides. There are premium rides filmed with high definition video, regular rides filmed by anyone with their Go Pro, and plain rides without video. There are literally thousands to choose from around the world. You can search for rides on a world map, drilling in, or by name, or by distance, or by rating (1 to 5 stars), with or without video and so on. I saw 5 rides loaded for IM Ireland but no one has filmed the course yet. If there is no video, Rouvy defaults to a Satellite map view with the course marked as a bright red line and your avatar follows that. All the other data is there including course profile and the exact grade you are on at the moment. I verified the route against the turn by turn directions on the Ironman page and it was spot on. Below are two recent articles that Slowtwitch did on Rouvy. It seems to have a growing presence and Slowtwitch has sponsored some group rides on Rouvy (as well as Zwift). You just have to use what works for you. Although I'm in Tampa, FL, I can do rides in the mountains (every classic in the Alps is in Rouvy) all the time. I've also included a youtube link to Rouvy's new Augmented Reality rides. There are only several dozen of those right now, but it's a new feature that's pretty cool.
https://www.slowtwitch.com/Indoor_Training/Gettin_Groovy_with_Rouvy_-_Part_1_Getting_Started_7099.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuZMJvhppI0
@Sam Lawrence - one other thing. If you don't care for Rouvy, just get a trial subscription and use it to ride IM Ireland and you can quit at no cost. As long as you have a smart trainer, you can set it up for you just like any other software (Trainer Road, Zwift, etc).
@Coach Patrick - please see @Sam Lawrence comment above about redoing the TSR.
@Sam Lawrence Update for you above and posted here as well!
@Coach Patrick Change in race schedule. Things did not go well during the IMCork adventure which involved an long, dreadful day on the bike, which resulted unfortunately in a DNF due to missing the bike cutoff.
This race was to be my 2019 validating race for my 2020 Legacy spot; however, since that did not work out, I have decided to do IM Chattanooga. Currently, you have me set up for some transitionary programs eventually building up to Waco 70.3 which I still plan to compete in following Chattanooga.
IMCork was on June 23rd. The swim was cancelled, and I did not run do to not making the bike cutoff, so I basically just had a very long, miserable bike ride. Following the race, my wife and I toured Ireland for 1.5 weeks with no training other than a lot of walking and several moderate hikes. I returned home on July 3rd. Just to get back into action, I did a couple bike/run workouts with friends over the weekend. On Monday, 7/8/19, I plugged in the run focused Full Ironman program starting at week 9 of the program and concluding at IM Chattanooga.
Would you please take a look and update plan as indicated.
Thanks
@Sam Lawrence - I'm sorry it didn't go well for you, but if it's any consolation your DNF beat my DNS; and I am in a similar boat as you with respect to getting back into the grind. The Thursday morning before the race I slammed my little finger in the car door - badly. It bled like a stuck pig and ripped out the nail from the back end. Friday night I changed the second dressing and decided to pull the plug because I worried it about getting infected in the swim or banging my hand during the swim -- an agonizing decision!! So I did not even put my bike in transition Saturday. When I heard Sunday morning that the swim was canx I was ready to kick myself except I knew it would have been a shit day for my wife to be out supporting me in that mess. We just spent the day at a couple of malls and had a nice dinner. In the end, I just had a nice vacation in Ireland.
Since I took a 2 week hole in my training, I'm spending two weeks of Zone 2 only training getting back into the swing of things then going straight into a bike focused IM plan for Kona. E.g., I biked 7 straight days last week for 227 miles to get back in the groove. Let Chattanooga be your revenge race. And here's wishing you (and me) the best for good weather!!
FYI - This is my finger Friday night before Sunday's IM Cork. Don't do this at home kids!
@Sam Lawrence -
Your overall plan looks good to me! I wanted to be cautious with the intensity early on, perhaps taking the intervals in doing them closer to zone three then zone four. However, on the weekend we do want you to get out for those longer sessions.
Again, the intensity does not have to be super high but we can use one or two long rides in July just to ramp your system back up again. These may not be on the schedule and could involve consolidating a Saturday and Sunday ride until one longer day. I hope that’s possible given the summertime, but let me know.
Also, sorry to hear about the trip and that it didn’t work out On race day. Glad to hear you got some touring in!
~ Coach P
@Paul Hough
I was wondering what happened to you. Sorry about your finger. I can relate. I did that once, but smashed all my fingers except my thumb. I think that was some of the worst pain I have ever experienced. Your accident in a bizarre way may have been a blessing. It was by far the worst conditions overall I have ever raced. I was truly riding scared most of the ride. The rough, narrow roads, steep climbs and descents, and wet roads leaving your brakes almost non functional at speed made for a very stressful day. I kept thinking , if I wreck and get hurt, this would be a mess. We still had 1.5 weeks left to travel after the race. There is no way my wife could drive on those crazy roads with left hand standard shift. So I was very conservative, and I guess ultimately too much. Honestly, when I arrived at T2 and was informed I would not be able to continue, do to not making the bike cut-off time, it was the best news I had all day.
I too was concerned about my wife standing out in the foul weather. The day before, we discovered a movie theater in town and pre-purchased a couple of tickets for her during both loops of the bike. It was located at the base of Windmill hill, so she came out between movies to see me push my bike up the hill. It worked out very well, at least on her end.
I turned in the rental bike, gathered my gear, and headed to the car for what we thought would be an early return to our rental cottage in Ballycotton. Well, to our surprise, due to the relentless rain all day, the field which was set up for athlete parking was now a mud bog with hundreds of cars stuck. We were at the far end of the field , so we were at the end to be pulled out by several local farmers with their tractors. It was 5 hours before we were rescued and pulled to the highway. We did not get back to the cottage until after 2 am. What a day you missed.
We really enjoyed the remainder of our trip and the ironically beautiful weather. We were in Ireland a week before the race and 1.5 after and only encountered a couple brief 15 minute showers except for race day. Go figure.
Glad to hear you are back to training, and hope you continue to have a good build up to KONA.
Thanks Sam. I heard about the cars getting bogged in the mud and no doubt I would have been in the same boat. I was lucky it was my right hand because I also had a left hand shift rental car, and my wife cannot drive a manual let alone on the crazy roads around Cork. Since I decided Friday night that I wasn't racing, we just ended up doing more touring. Had a great time in Ireland despite the mushed finger. Altogether we stayed in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin and ventured out from those places and experienced the same great weather you did. The only day I used the umbrella I brought was on race day when we went to a couple of malls and a wine tavern. Kona will be my last triathlon due to my knee, then its all aquabike for me. Good luck with the rest of your season.
I still can’t believe how crazy that race was. I am glad that you have both found some sort of silver lining there. Clearly the “end of the rainbow“ isn’t exactly at the site of the Iron Man in Cork. 😂
@Paul Hough I hope your hand is healing. Also quick shout out that maybe you want to connect with @Al Truscott as he too is juggling his knee and trying to make the most of his preparation for Kona so that he can be healthy when he gets there.