Tomorrow, Saturday, I will be doing four-six hours on Zwift trying to get over 2100 kilojoules for my "long" ride. Even though it's not raining here anymore, it's still in the low 40s, and I'm too much of a wimp to ride long in that. Times are 0600-1200 PDT.
I'd list the rides here, but you can find out which they are easily on zwiftpower.com, assuming you are on the EN Team. Other ENers who are in any ride/workout/race listed will be identified on the far left of the ride's line with aa small orange/yellow icon (looks kinda like a person's head/shoulders)
I actually sign up for some overlapping rides, so that I have options of greater or lesser intensity depending on how I'm doing
The last few Saturdays I have been loading up the 2019 week 17 wko and riding mostly flat terrain on Zwift. This wko is a 9X25'(5') Z2.......during the 5' Z1 periods I add 2' with 1' V02 and 1' Z1..........I spend as much time as I can stand in the aero position while in the Z2 intervals........
Good luck and be safe out there tomorrow everyone!
@Al Truscott I been patiently waiting to see what level participation you will partake in at IMAZ. Looks like answer is ALL IN. Duh :-)
My week has been a mix. swim/run interval work was just a touch slower than last week . bike work was hard to compare since my 520 was not charged on my FTP day and only lasted through the warm up, I ended up doing the exact same work as the previous week which was 2 x 18' ftp, 1 x 16' endurance, have no idea how long it took or how many watts, only that I replicated where I start and stop, my guess is without the whip in my face it was a bit light, 2nd bike of the week was a 3.5hr bike of mixed v02/lowZ2ish, very windy, good training:-) Aiming for 5hr bike 4 mile brick on Saturday and 16 mile run on Sunday.
I wish that I was around for the Zwift fun tomorrow, but so am in NYC without a bike so I’m working on a big run weekend. I did 6 yesterday and 19 today. Will see what I can fit in tomorrow. I plan to be home Sunday afternoon and will ride on Zwift and watch football. I forgot to swim this week :) so I will pick that back up again in Monday.
I'm going to try to get outside for one more long ride tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad, but it's not summer anymore! Be careful with that run @Brian Hagan! I'm planning about 15 to 18 miles in a local marathon on Sunday.(My wife will run the rest as a team) and then my last long run on next Thursday. I'm obviously not planning on racing the marathon but a nice change of scenery. You all are killing it. Keep it a little longer. I am headed to Red Mist soon!
@Sid Wavrin Is that the Tri Cities Marathon? If so, I've got a funny little story related to that...
@Brian Hagan Will you be running in Central Park IRL? I've got a couple of people I follow on Strava who live or work in Manhattan, and it's always weird to see their runs or bikes in the park, looking just like they did a Zwift wko, but then they run out of the park to home or office.
@tim cronk For a couple of days after Kona, I toyed with the idea of asking folks whaat I should do in AZ, but by the time I got home, I realised, This is What I Do, This Is Who I am (that was my mantra for the 2014 IM AZ run), and my knee felt fine, so here I go...
Yes @Al Truscott Tri Cities Marathon. We run some form of it almost every year it seams. We also race Triathlon on parts of that course each summer. You need to come race one of our short ones next year. So glad you are racing AZ. Love the spirit!
wish i could join you all zwifting. but i just can't tolerate long on zwift. i will be erging it. i will try to check in by discord a couple times on saturday during my 5 hour tour.
and plan 20 mile run sunday.
selfishly glad that @Al Truscott will be race daying with us.
Okay , for those of you racing/spectating/Sherpa-ing at IMAZ this year, we are trying to get a head count for a couple of things. I set up a poll in GroupMe, so it would be great if you jumped in and voted. The link to join GroupMe is https://groupme.com/join_group/37800401/0vldWX
There is a lot of encouragement, training and general fun in there. I encourage you to join us.
First, we would like to put together a TeamEN dinner on either Thursday or Friday night. IMAZ does not have a banquet like some other races. They give you a voucher you can use anytime during the weekend instead. Past experience in trying to set this up told me that I can't make everyone happy, so we will go with majority rules. Would you like to attend a team dinner on Thursday or Friday evening? We are looking at either Pita Jungle or another local brewery/eatery. Place to be determined ASAP. If you can;t do GroupMe please respond this week, so we can reserve a space.
Second, there is talk about making event T-Shirts for the team and guests. I can have them made here locally, but need to gauge the interest and have a design put together right away. I would get TriBlend shirts like these https://www.sanmar.com/p/7462_Black for men and https://www.sanmar.com/p/7463_Black for women. We will have to decide on color. These are comfy shirts that are soft and we give them away at our local race. I'm guessing about $15-20/shirt with design, etc. I could use help on what you would like on them.
Finally, we were thinking of making up some signs for those spectating cheering or to put along the path. If you have some coll/fun ideas let me know as well.
Custom printed stuff needs to get moving quickly, but we still have time.
Got a little work done this week. Always unpredictable how I come back after racing. Felt Awesome after Louisville... then it got cold and I am facing starting up the trainer and all I want to do is hibernate! Still - 11 hours of various sundry work and looking forward 😱to next week!
My training plan, like a couple of others doing this race, has of necessity been totally ad lib to account for need to recover from race weekend of Oct 12. For the first week, I swam, gingerly ran at the end of the week, and tried a bit of biking. Last week, I ramped up a touch, swimming a max of 3100 yards on Sunday, biking 4:10/80 miles on Zwift on Saturday, and ran 9 miles/1:26 on Sunday. I have been sleeping A LOT, sometimes 9010 hours a night + 40-50 minute naps. And my weight is teetering on the downslope.
This week, I'm going to try to spread out the long stuff, running on Thursday, then biking on Sat, and swimming Sunday. I'll switch from running frequency to longer, less frequent runs.Today, I finally hit negative territory for my TSB, with a positive ramp on my PMC. My CTL total is not going to be as high as normal for an IM, but I think recovery is more important than hitting an absolute number.
Nice work @Al Truscott way to adapt, your sounding very fatigued, which is no surprise considering the amount of racing you have done this year. Be smart. Remember if you show up undertrained you may not finish, if you show up over trained you may not start. Isnt that cute , me giving AT advice? I finally had a larger bike week than the week you were here 196 miles vs. 176 miles. Speaking of while you were here, I forgot to tell you I talked Steve Warsaw into IMAZ through a charity slot. He is turning into quite an animal and is amazed at the high quality training out in the desert without the interruptions of lights/turns/traffic etc. I think he will do very well in the 65-69AG.
I'm in exactly the same boat. Last week was my start working week, so I really have three weeks to get some work done. I've been thinking of it like this:
Bikes
2 Long (5ish) at Race Pace+,
2 med (3ish) higher intensity
6 (60'-90') with some combination of high intensity, running off bike and JRA
Run
2-3 long runs (2 hrs) at Race Pace
2-3 runs (60'-75') with 1-2mi intervals mixed in
6-8ish easy runs or short runs off bike
Swim
12k meters / week
Vasa + Pool
What I am not certain of is which order these will get done.
I have 3 weeks - will just get it all done. Should add up to 14-15hrs per week. I really hate being indoors, so I will mix and match and get into warm climate however possible so I can do it all outside. Should get me negative enough that I can taper for a week into the race.
CTL is meaningless to me now... it is always a good metric for the first build phase because of the multiple weeks of consistent work. When trying to manage races that are close together, the work is inconsistent, has recovery mixed in and I really don't know how to interpret CTL. Also, while CTL seems to work well to measure a fitness build, I do not trust that it is a good measure to track detraining. So - it will be whatever it is.
Here is the shirt design that we came up with. Shirts will be available in men's and women's cuts/sizes. Shirts are gray heather. We need your order by 11/4 in order to get them in time. I will have them with me on race week,
shirts look great- unsure of sizing. typically for mens size I am small but unisex I am medium. I am thinking small, however last EN shirt I got that was size small was too small (maybe it was unisex?)
@Gary Lewis I'm having trouble with the Google docs link. Can I be put down for one Men's Medium? I'll try again later, but my attempts so far today aren't saving on the spreadsheet. Thank you and @Matthew Goto for doing this, the shirt looks great!
@robin sarner I've been contemplating doing only one of the two long Saturday bike rides over the next two weeks -- either this Saturday's 5 hr or next Saturday's RR, estimated at 5.5 hrs. A couple of weeks ago on a windy outside RR ride I noticed some pain in my right hamstring about 85 miles in. I don't feel any pain running, but I do still occasionally on the bike. I'm diligent with massage, dry cupping, dry needling and it's helping, but I don't want to sacrifice a good race because of a desire to get all the rides in. I'm leaning perhaps towards the RR this Saturday so that if I do have any pain, I've got one more week in the bank to let it calm down.
@Jeff Phillips for the hamstring check the height of your seat, hamstring issues are usually caused by over elongation, running with too long a stride (foot placement way out in front), or for cycling seat too high.... Heather has been politely telling me my seat looks too high for a year now, I had developed a bit of hamstring irritation and really feel it sitting in a car after running or cycling, I lowered my seat last week about 1/4” (also moved seat forward 1/4” which is also lowering and moved cockpit forward same distance) and have done 3 rides on new position and bam my hamstring feels great.
As far as double RR’s , it’s not how much you can do , but how much you can absorb. The next couple weeks is NOT the time to do TOO much unless you know you can handle it. I will be doing 1 more 5-5.5hr ride this coming Saturday, and the Saturday 2 weeks out will pull back to around 4-4.5hr ride, I think similar to Robin.
Thank you @tim cronk@robin sarner I completely agree on bike seat height and hamstring pain. I had this issue a 3 years ago and worked with my fitter to drop my saddle 1.5 cm which worked like a charm. I also had to work extensively to get my glutes to activate and contribute more to the pedaling stroke. Everything worked great until this long, windy ride a few weeks ago where I was really having to mash the pedals to stay upright and move forward. I must have started using way more hamstring than I realized and got it fatigued.
Given this, I may do a RR this Saturday at target race watts (as opposed to the plan's Saturday ride which has higher IF and than I would target in race) and see how 5-5.5 hrs feel. I'll back off at any sign of pain and go cry in the corner. If that goes well, I'll look to have a ~2.5-3 hr ride Sunday and perhaps another 4-5 hr ride next Saturday, all at target race watts or less.
Below are bike pics from an August 70.3. This position may not be the most aero, but it has kept me pain free. Any feedback is welcome!
@Jeff Phillips it’s hard to tell from those pics, you want one that clearly shows your leg with one pedal at 6 o’clock and make sure you still have a good amount of bend in that leg. Disclaimer I am not a bike fitter and have been know to ride my own bike with seat too high. While I believe it maybe possible to use your hamstring too much pedaling I think it’s highly unlikely, that would require quite a bit of work pulling instead of pushing, we have all heard about “scraping the mud” off the bottom of your shoe pedal technique it much easier said than done.
@Jeff Phillips i was having hamstring issues last spring and went to my bike fitter who is also a physical therapist. He noted 2 things:
1) I am not flexible and have not been doing the stretching he assigns me
2) I have one leg 2 shims longer than the other and only had one shim. He put a second shim in and the pain went a way. That is all it took. You mentioned a centimeter on your seat height. Imagine how small a shim is and it made well the difference.
Comments
good luck all.
definitely feeling it.
took yesterday off.
I currently stand down and rest 2X each week, Monday completely off and Friday swim only. The other 5 days are all business
Tomorrow, Saturday, I will be doing four-six hours on Zwift trying to get over 2100 kilojoules for my "long" ride. Even though it's not raining here anymore, it's still in the low 40s, and I'm too much of a wimp to ride long in that. Times are 0600-1200 PDT.
I'd list the rides here, but you can find out which they are easily on zwiftpower.com, assuming you are on the EN Team. Other ENers who are in any ride/workout/race listed will be identified on the far left of the ride's line with aa small orange/yellow icon (looks kinda like a person's head/shoulders)
I actually sign up for some overlapping rides, so that I have options of greater or lesser intensity depending on how I'm doing
I'm going to be on zwift tomorrow for 3.5 hrs. probably around 930 ADT. I'll be going around and around the desert flats alternating between z2 and z3
The last few Saturdays I have been loading up the 2019 week 17 wko and riding mostly flat terrain on Zwift. This wko is a 9X25'(5') Z2.......during the 5' Z1 periods I add 2' with 1' V02 and 1' Z1..........I spend as much time as I can stand in the aero position while in the Z2 intervals........
Good luck and be safe out there tomorrow everyone!
@Al Truscott I been patiently waiting to see what level participation you will partake in at IMAZ. Looks like answer is ALL IN. Duh :-)
My week has been a mix. swim/run interval work was just a touch slower than last week . bike work was hard to compare since my 520 was not charged on my FTP day and only lasted through the warm up, I ended up doing the exact same work as the previous week which was 2 x 18' ftp, 1 x 16' endurance, have no idea how long it took or how many watts, only that I replicated where I start and stop, my guess is without the whip in my face it was a bit light, 2nd bike of the week was a 3.5hr bike of mixed v02/lowZ2ish, very windy, good training:-) Aiming for 5hr bike 4 mile brick on Saturday and 16 mile run on Sunday.
I wish that I was around for the Zwift fun tomorrow, but so am in NYC without a bike so I’m working on a big run weekend. I did 6 yesterday and 19 today. Will see what I can fit in tomorrow. I plan to be home Sunday afternoon and will ride on Zwift and watch football. I forgot to swim this week :) so I will pick that back up again in Monday.
@Al Truscott is ready to rock!
@tim cronk you are getting closer and closer!
I'm going to try to get outside for one more long ride tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad, but it's not summer anymore! Be careful with that run @Brian Hagan! I'm planning about 15 to 18 miles in a local marathon on Sunday.(My wife will run the rest as a team) and then my last long run on next Thursday. I'm obviously not planning on racing the marathon but a nice change of scenery. You all are killing it. Keep it a little longer. I am headed to Red Mist soon!
@Sid Wavrin Is that the Tri Cities Marathon? If so, I've got a funny little story related to that...
@Brian Hagan Will you be running in Central Park IRL? I've got a couple of people I follow on Strava who live or work in Manhattan, and it's always weird to see their runs or bikes in the park, looking just like they did a Zwift wko, but then they run out of the park to home or office.
@tim cronk For a couple of days after Kona, I toyed with the idea of asking folks whaat I should do in AZ, but by the time I got home, I realised, This is What I Do, This Is Who I am (that was my mantra for the 2014 IM AZ run), and my knee felt fine, so here I go...
@Al Truscott yes but it is not as real as Zwift 😂
Yes @Al Truscott Tri Cities Marathon. We run some form of it almost every year it seams. We also race Triathlon on parts of that course each summer. You need to come race one of our short ones next year. So glad you are racing AZ. Love the spirit!
have a grand weekend all.
wish i could join you all zwifting. but i just can't tolerate long on zwift. i will be erging it. i will try to check in by discord a couple times on saturday during my 5 hour tour.
and plan 20 mile run sunday.
selfishly glad that @Al Truscott will be race daying with us.
Okay , for those of you racing/spectating/Sherpa-ing at IMAZ this year, we are trying to get a head count for a couple of things. I set up a poll in GroupMe, so it would be great if you jumped in and voted. The link to join GroupMe is https://groupme.com/join_group/37800401/0vldWX
There is a lot of encouragement, training and general fun in there. I encourage you to join us.
First, we would like to put together a TeamEN dinner on either Thursday or Friday night. IMAZ does not have a banquet like some other races. They give you a voucher you can use anytime during the weekend instead. Past experience in trying to set this up told me that I can't make everyone happy, so we will go with majority rules. Would you like to attend a team dinner on Thursday or Friday evening? We are looking at either Pita Jungle or another local brewery/eatery. Place to be determined ASAP. If you can;t do GroupMe please respond this week, so we can reserve a space.
Second, there is talk about making event T-Shirts for the team and guests. I can have them made here locally, but need to gauge the interest and have a design put together right away. I would get TriBlend shirts like these https://www.sanmar.com/p/7462_Black for men and https://www.sanmar.com/p/7463_Black for women. We will have to decide on color. These are comfy shirts that are soft and we give them away at our local race. I'm guessing about $15-20/shirt with design, etc. I could use help on what you would like on them.
Finally, we were thinking of making up some signs for those spectating cheering or to put along the path. If you have some coll/fun ideas let me know as well.
Custom printed stuff needs to get moving quickly, but we still have time.
Tagging everyone I think is involved in the race.
@Coach Patrick @Brenda Ross @tim cronk @Brian Hagan @Al Truscott @robin sarner @Satish Punna @DAVID RICHMOND @Matthew Goto @Sid Wavrin @Jeff Phillips @Nam Lam @David Howard @Kori Martini @Rich Stanbaugh @Dana Burns @Stephanie Stevens @scott dinhofer @Katherine Thom @Julie Pfeifle @Patrick Quinn @Greg Lewis @Ken Mclaughlin @Justin Gray
Got a little work done this week. Always unpredictable how I come back after racing. Felt Awesome after Louisville... then it got cold and I am facing starting up the trainer and all I want to do is hibernate! Still - 11 hours of various sundry work and looking forward 😱to next week!
My training plan, like a couple of others doing this race, has of necessity been totally ad lib to account for need to recover from race weekend of Oct 12. For the first week, I swam, gingerly ran at the end of the week, and tried a bit of biking. Last week, I ramped up a touch, swimming a max of 3100 yards on Sunday, biking 4:10/80 miles on Zwift on Saturday, and ran 9 miles/1:26 on Sunday. I have been sleeping A LOT, sometimes 9010 hours a night + 40-50 minute naps. And my weight is teetering on the downslope.
This week, I'm going to try to spread out the long stuff, running on Thursday, then biking on Sat, and swimming Sunday. I'll switch from running frequency to longer, less frequent runs.Today, I finally hit negative territory for my TSB, with a positive ramp on my PMC. My CTL total is not going to be as high as normal for an IM, but I think recovery is more important than hitting an absolute number.
Nice work @Al Truscott way to adapt, your sounding very fatigued, which is no surprise considering the amount of racing you have done this year. Be smart. Remember if you show up undertrained you may not finish, if you show up over trained you may not start. Isnt that cute , me giving AT advice? I finally had a larger bike week than the week you were here 196 miles vs. 176 miles. Speaking of while you were here, I forgot to tell you I talked Steve Warsaw into IMAZ through a charity slot. He is turning into quite an animal and is amazed at the high quality training out in the desert without the interruptions of lights/turns/traffic etc. I think he will do very well in the 65-69AG.
I'm in exactly the same boat. Last week was my start working week, so I really have three weeks to get some work done. I've been thinking of it like this:
Bikes
Run
Swim
What I am not certain of is which order these will get done.
I have 3 weeks - will just get it all done. Should add up to 14-15hrs per week. I really hate being indoors, so I will mix and match and get into warm climate however possible so I can do it all outside. Should get me negative enough that I can taper for a week into the race.
CTL is meaningless to me now... it is always a good metric for the first build phase because of the multiple weeks of consistent work. When trying to manage races that are close together, the work is inconsistent, has recovery mixed in and I really don't know how to interpret CTL. Also, while CTL seems to work well to measure a fitness build, I do not trust that it is a good measure to track detraining. So - it will be whatever it is.
Week 17 -
#1 priority is to have a successful 3 hour run. I define success as:
#2 Priority Solid long bike/run
#3 Show improvement on Red mist vs. last week
Everything else is just a question of how does it help me/hurt me accomplish my above priorities.....
Rest day for me today with focus on staying healthy.
Have a great week all!
Here is the shirt design that we came up with. Shirts will be available in men's and women's cuts/sizes. Shirts are gray heather. We need your order by 11/4 in order to get them in time. I will have them with me on race week,
Link to sign up:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1krElLoiHb9CjXeZ0D0etLRMqkHhdcTHnlNqJYXMyqs8/edit?usp=sharing
Shirt design with much help from @Matthew Goto
shirts look great- unsure of sizing. typically for mens size I am small but unisex I am medium. I am thinking small, however last EN shirt I got that was size small was too small (maybe it was unisex?)
@Gary Lewis I'm having trouble with the Google docs link. Can I be put down for one Men's Medium? I'll try again later, but my attempts so far today aren't saving on the spreadsheet. Thank you and @Matthew Goto for doing this, the shirt looks great!
@Jeff Phillips I added you to the sheet.
shirt looks great. thanks a bunch.
taking another midweek mini vacation. last big big bike on Thursday.
hang tough. Imua !
@robin sarner I've been contemplating doing only one of the two long Saturday bike rides over the next two weeks -- either this Saturday's 5 hr or next Saturday's RR, estimated at 5.5 hrs. A couple of weeks ago on a windy outside RR ride I noticed some pain in my right hamstring about 85 miles in. I don't feel any pain running, but I do still occasionally on the bike. I'm diligent with massage, dry cupping, dry needling and it's helping, but I don't want to sacrifice a good race because of a desire to get all the rides in. I'm leaning perhaps towards the RR this Saturday so that if I do have any pain, I've got one more week in the bank to let it calm down.
Thoughts?
yes be careful of potential injuries.
injuries aside: for me it does not work to do big big stuff two weeks out from the race. find I need more recovery than the EN plans.
so my remaining big stuff:
this thursday. five hour bike with 4 mile brick.
sunday. 13-16 mile run.
11/9. 4 hour bike. 4 mile brick.
11/10. 11-13 mile run.
@Jeff Phillips for the hamstring check the height of your seat, hamstring issues are usually caused by over elongation, running with too long a stride (foot placement way out in front), or for cycling seat too high.... Heather has been politely telling me my seat looks too high for a year now, I had developed a bit of hamstring irritation and really feel it sitting in a car after running or cycling, I lowered my seat last week about 1/4” (also moved seat forward 1/4” which is also lowering and moved cockpit forward same distance) and have done 3 rides on new position and bam my hamstring feels great.
As far as double RR’s , it’s not how much you can do , but how much you can absorb. The next couple weeks is NOT the time to do TOO much unless you know you can handle it. I will be doing 1 more 5-5.5hr ride this coming Saturday, and the Saturday 2 weeks out will pull back to around 4-4.5hr ride, I think similar to Robin.
Thank you @tim cronk @robin sarner I completely agree on bike seat height and hamstring pain. I had this issue a 3 years ago and worked with my fitter to drop my saddle 1.5 cm which worked like a charm. I also had to work extensively to get my glutes to activate and contribute more to the pedaling stroke. Everything worked great until this long, windy ride a few weeks ago where I was really having to mash the pedals to stay upright and move forward. I must have started using way more hamstring than I realized and got it fatigued.
Given this, I may do a RR this Saturday at target race watts (as opposed to the plan's Saturday ride which has higher IF and than I would target in race) and see how 5-5.5 hrs feel. I'll back off at any sign of pain and go cry in the corner. If that goes well, I'll look to have a ~2.5-3 hr ride Sunday and perhaps another 4-5 hr ride next Saturday, all at target race watts or less.
Below are bike pics from an August 70.3. This position may not be the most aero, but it has kept me pain free. Any feedback is welcome!
@Jeff Phillips it’s hard to tell from those pics, you want one that clearly shows your leg with one pedal at 6 o’clock and make sure you still have a good amount of bend in that leg. Disclaimer I am not a bike fitter and have been know to ride my own bike with seat too high. While I believe it maybe possible to use your hamstring too much pedaling I think it’s highly unlikely, that would require quite a bit of work pulling instead of pushing, we have all heard about “scraping the mud” off the bottom of your shoe pedal technique it much easier said than done.
the main thing @Jeff Phillips is that you are looking sexy.
@Jeff Phillips i was having hamstring issues last spring and went to my bike fitter who is also a physical therapist. He noted 2 things:
1) I am not flexible and have not been doing the stretching he assigns me
2) I have one leg 2 shims longer than the other and only had one shim. He put a second shim in and the pain went a way. That is all it took. You mentioned a centimeter on your seat height. Imagine how small a shim is and it made well the difference.