Chris Davis Official Coach Thread
Here's your personal Coach Thread, 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 here to guide you through your first year on EN, so you can always come back here.
As you'll see in this forum, I handle all manner of edits and changes. 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 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.
- Last updated by Coach on 06/26/2017
- On 7/3 Load the -- Run Durability 1 (9 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 7/30/2017
- On 7/31 Load the -- Run Durability 2 (8 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 8/27/2017
- On 8/28 Load the -- Run Durability 3 (7 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 9/24/2017
- On 9/25 Load the Beginner Marathon [Balanced], 24 Weeks to end on 2/18/2017
- On 1/29 Load the Intermediate 2017 EN*Full to end on 4/28/2017
Coach Notes
Chris, the goal here is to have you build up some basic running using our Run Durability Program for the first 12 weeks of your training. This is also a great baseline for the Ironman (it's part of our traditional build) so that will be great. Then you bounce into the Balanced Marathon plan for a good chunk of the fall. This has 1 ride and 1 swim, but I'll encourage you to find a century or similar Fall Ride to challenge yourself.
You'll exit the Marathon plan a bit early, and we'll use those first two weeks of the taper / EN*Full program to get you up to speed on the bike. Post marathon it's bonus time on the Swim, and then you and I modify the remainder of the Full plan to focus more on bike / swim as your run fitness will be all set.
Let me know how your fitness / health is these days!
~ Coach P
Comments
Thanks for checking in on me. I think I'm still on maintenance mode, right? Should I have access to the forums? (not complaining, just curious if I found some kind of worm-hole or something)
I'm really not anywhere near racing right now. I'm still having troubles with my achilles tendon (1.5 years, 3 doctors, 1 boot, 2 pt's and counting). Thus my running has been almost non-existent, and needs to stay that way for awhile. I'm looking at a 1/2 distance aqua-bike in November, and maybe a sprint on Memorial day, but those plans arent set in stone yet. When I come back into the Haus off of maintenance mode, I'll have you work up a plan to get me through that Aqua-bike. But until then, I'm working the swim and bike parts of the Get Faster plan. And doing some pool running on the running days.
By the way, do you have a good guideline on how to approach pool running? I'm trying to cobble together a few good metrics to measure progress, but the only thing I can come up with is cadence, and the only way to measure cadence is to count "steps" in the pool.
Thank you Coach.
we have a good article on water running that I found from another coach....I'll pass it on in a sec. he recommends doing intervals for time and using HR to measure intensity.
You might want to check out the entry form and use the search function here to see what you find, it's significantly improved in the new forms we have right now. Also I would reach out to @Scott Giljum as he was dealing with some Achilles issues for quite some time before it turned out to be something else.
However, the swim, on the other hand, I'm trying to figure out how I'll manage it. A little background: I do almost all my workouts at night after the boys go to bed. Which means that if I'm going to get to the pool, they have to be in bed by about 7:30, so that I can make it to the pool by 8:00 and get an hour in before the pool closes at 9:00. The boys are growing up and their activities are starting to go later and later. This means that I will typically have 1 night per week to make it to a lap pool. I DO have the ability to jump into our backyard pool, and strap myself to the wall with the stationary swimmer (bunji cords that attach to your feet), and am happy to do that.
The big questions are this: 1) Which swim workout in the Aqua-bike plan would be most effective in the lap pool, and 2) How should I modify the other workouts to be done with the stationary swimmer?
(and yes, I know the OBVIOUS answer is to suck it up and wake up early and swim in the morning, but I know myself well enough to know that I just wont do that)
Thanks Coach!
you can pick the long swim one...the short ones should be very simple. You could do this for a few weeks:
+ 5' warm up.
+ 5 x (1' tempo / 1' recover)
+ 5' steady
+ 5 x (1' tempo / 1' recover)
Then we could do this:
+ 5' warm up.
+ 5' steady
+ 5 x (2' tempo / 1' recover)
+ 5' steady
doesnt have to be sexy, just challenging!!!!
Here's what I would do
Load up the bike focused OS plan and replace the runs with swims and /or strength.
I would find the best Damn specialist in your giant state and get a consult. Like the ortho of the Astros or something. You need to get a plan together!!
~ Coach P
Bike focus plan is loaded and ready to hit the ground "running" on Monday.
Thank you. And I think I saw you're racing this weekend. If so, Good Luck!
Race went well thanks...I’m in run jail now too, but still want you out of it!
Things are moving forward here at the Davis household, and I'm finally seeing some movement on my achilles. The doctor has had me doing some small runs over the last couple weeks, with minimal pain. He says I should continue to build slowly over the year, and didn't seem too put off by me talking about doing a big race in 2019.
Right now I'm hacking the January Outseason, and switching up the runs with my "slow build" runs that are starting at 2 miles at the top end, and will build to about 3 mile for short runs, and 6 mile for the long weekend run (hopefully by the end of the outseason). IF I can hit that 6 mile long run by the end of the outseason, I'd like to look at a half marathon by the end of the year, and then maybe train for IMTX2019. Does that seem like a realistic goal at this point? Or should I maybe make my build more gradual and plan for an ironman in late 2019 or early 2020?
As always, thank you for everything you do Coach!
Let me know!
A few things changed.
1. Time has passed, and thus the achilles has healed a bit.
2. Stretching. Before, but mostly after any run. And I've gotten away from stretching the lower half of my leg, and am mostly stretching my upper leg and low back. I'm guessing that stretching out that lower leg too aggressively was probably causing just as much problem as it was relieving, so any stretching I do on the lower leg is very light.
3. Topical anti-inflamatory. I had to get it from one of those compounding pharmacies, but it's helped a bit too. I hate advil and other ingested anti-inflamatories, so the topical has been great. I'm weaning myself off of it though, and not feeling much difference.
4. Concentration on running form. If I'm plodding along with poor form, I can count on added pain, without a doubt. So I'm concentrating on keeping my form light and landing mid-sole.
5. Renewed drive to heal up. My son Archer (the one that had meningitis before I did IMTX) injured his ankle and had to do some PT, so we were doing PT together for a few weeks. It was pretty funny to watch him go through the exercises, but I figured if he could hack it, so could I.
6. Diet. I've got about 20 lbs that I need to drop, but I'm at least being conscious of my weight rather than eating any burrito and pizza I can find. I mix in a salad now and then, and cut out sugary drinks. I cant say I'm on a diet, but I'm going in the right direction now.
@Chris Davis -
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
Let's continue with the Run Durability Program (RDP) progression. Then we refocus on how you feel. Personally I'd like you to be in the January OS, at the beginner level, so you get more balanced work. If that's good, we go Swim Camp to recover and we can plan out the mid point of your year.
The most important thing is that we don't want to play the Mileage Game right now. Instead we want to focus on NUMBER of runs vs MILEAGE. So you can stay between 15 and 20 miles per week in Nov, we just want 5 vs 4 runs. And in DEC the target might be 18-22, with 5 to 6 runs per week.
I do recommend an easy day of cycling (45' to 60' spin) ideally once or twice a week.
Also, are you doing any core training?
Once you connect your Garmin / Strava to Final Surge I can see more of what you are up to. Here's how: https://www.finalsurge.com/GarminConnectSync
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
Ironman Texas 2015, various sprint triathlons. The last sprint tri I did was in May of 2018.My achilles is finally healed up (mostly), and I've been running about 10 to 15 miles per week with nearly no pain. I just finished the run durability #1 plan, though I didnt hit all of the red workouts, mostly due to family commitments. I have swam a few times, and almost no biking recently. My intention over the next year is a SLOW build to a marathon late in 2019 or possibly early 2020, with the single most important thing being "dont get hurt."
Then possibly Ironman Texas in 2020. I'll likely do a few sprint tri's as well, but I dont intend for them to be a focus in my training.
I just want to get a general feel for how my year should be structured with the emphasis on a slow slow running focused build.
Let's get to work!
~ Coach P
PS - Let's update your profile picture when you get the chance…it really helps the Team to "get to know you" a lot better.
You can do that by following this animated GIF (below)…good luck!
Done, Done and Done Coach! Thank you.
Can I repeat phase 1 of the run durability, rather than moving on to phase 2? I'm really serious about a slow build, and i missed several "red" workouts in phase 1 the first time through. Then maybe I can skip phase 3 and go straight into the JOS? Or the alternative is to maybe go with phase 2, but shorten some of the runs. Either way, I really dont want to jump above 15 miles per week of running right now.
That sounds great to me. I have no problem with you doubling back to make sure you are safe. I remember just how long you’ve been battling this issue so I give you my full support! Smart and steady it is!