Al Truscott: ITU Long Course Champs
Rich - Twelve weeks or so to go before the ITU Long Course World Championship race in Penticton. Looking at the start list, I have a goal of a top ten finish in my AG. I think I can do even better than that - top five, top three US.
You have me running the half IM program for this race. The distances are: 3K Swim, 120k/74 mi bike, 30K/18 mi run. When we talked a few months ago, you emphasized the value of the harder efforts in the half IM program. I was a touch worried about managing the distances at race effort following the HIM plan exclusively You said circle back to review how to modify the plan to acknowledge the longer race distances.
Swimming I'm not too worried. I can complete the current HIM plan swims in 50 minutes or less. I'll just add time at the beginning and end of each session to make sure I go a full 60 minutes 3x/ week. I figure it should take me an hour to do the 3K on race day.
Bike I'm also not worried about. I've been doing A LOT of biking, multi-day tours and camps, so my endurance and strength are solid. Every week June-Aug I go into the mountains with a group of guys who push me as we hit 4-5 hour rides, 1-2.5 hours uphill at a pop once a week. That plus weekly interval work and second day ABP rides after the mountains seems sufficient to me.
>>> What about the run? I'm not familiar with the HIM plan, so I don't know what the longest runs are. But I expect I'll be going for 2:40-3 hrs depending on the temp on race day, and wonder if I need to modify several of the long runs between 8 and 3 weeks to go to get ready for that.
You have me running the half IM program for this race. The distances are: 3K Swim, 120k/74 mi bike, 30K/18 mi run. When we talked a few months ago, you emphasized the value of the harder efforts in the half IM program. I was a touch worried about managing the distances at race effort following the HIM plan exclusively You said circle back to review how to modify the plan to acknowledge the longer race distances.
Swimming I'm not too worried. I can complete the current HIM plan swims in 50 minutes or less. I'll just add time at the beginning and end of each session to make sure I go a full 60 minutes 3x/ week. I figure it should take me an hour to do the 3K on race day.
Bike I'm also not worried about. I've been doing A LOT of biking, multi-day tours and camps, so my endurance and strength are solid. Every week June-Aug I go into the mountains with a group of guys who push me as we hit 4-5 hour rides, 1-2.5 hours uphill at a pop once a week. That plus weekly interval work and second day ABP rides after the mountains seems sufficient to me.
>>> What about the run? I'm not familiar with the HIM plan, so I don't know what the longest runs are. But I expect I'll be going for 2:40-3 hrs depending on the temp on race day, and wonder if I need to modify several of the long runs between 8 and 3 weeks to go to get ready for that.
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Comments
I believe the long runs in the HIM plan are capped at about 2hrs vs 2.5 for the IM plans. IMO, if you can run well for 2hrs you can run well for 18 miles on race day. Frankly, I see there as being very, very small marginal benefit for you running longer than the prescribed long run volume in the HIM plan. "Maybe" add an additional run to the HIM plan, or add a tick more volume to the existing runs. IOW, rather than focusing on the volume of the long run, I recommend instead perhaps creating an opportunity to run more often and/or add a bit of time to existing runs.