2011 IM and HIM Plan Annual Questionnaire Exercise
Folks -
It's that time of year again when Rich and Patrick stop producing (for a second!) and start listening. Really hard. 
This is your chance to tell us all about the Half Iron and Ironman Training Plans...specifically:
- what you liked/didn't like
- what you think should change and why
- any thing else you can think of.
Example of Good Feedback: "I have enjoyed the addition of big training days to the 2010 plans. I think we could use more individual volume session in weeks 8 and 12 becuase X, Y, and Z."
Example of Not-So-Good Feedback: "More hard stuff please!" "I am a nocturnal bipolar vegan with agoraphobia, I need special workouts for me."
While we can't answer every request, this annual exercise has repeatedly turned up really solid great advice for the Team. Sometimes our edits end up in the plans themselves, other times they grow into hacks for the wiki and much more.
Thanks in advance for your time. Please be sure to read through this thread as you reply so we can cut down on repetition...and the deadline for info for us is 11/1!!!!!
~ RnP
Comments
HIM plans - I didn't start from week 1 for either of my HIMs this year, picked it up at week 6 or 12 after OS and then week 7 of 12 after 6 weeks back in OS after my first HIM of the season... so I can't speak to the first half of the plans. I liked the swims insofar as the sets/segments broke it up nicely so I never got super bored. But, it seemed a bit crazy for me to be doing a 3400m swim when prepping for a HIM. I thought that was overkill. That may definitely be part of my lack of swim mojo now that I'm training for the full IM...
Swim: I liked having 3 swims a week during General Prep and 2 swims a week during Race Prep. 3 swims a week during Race Prep was alot of admin time; and I ended up skipping that 3rd swim for most weeks.
Big training week: Great addition. Yet another opportunity (besides the 2 race rehearsals) to practice race nutrition and hydration.
The variety in the swim workouts was great. I especially liked the intervals broken down as "50fast/50EZ" or whatever. It helped with both pacing and keeping it all interesting.
Finally, I'd like to recommend calling the plans something other than "Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced". We have a lot of folks shy away from "Beginner" 'cause they are not beginners, but who should be doing those plans based on their own fitness and recovery needs. The Beg plan was more than enough for me last year- and this was my 3rd IM.
I agree with the run assessment - It was perfect. I spent a lot of time on quality work, never ran more than sixteen miles and ended up having a great day at Wisconsin. (Thanks to reassurance from Michelle C. that is was fine to just trust the plan -- no 22-miler needed).
All the big training days happened to coincide with training camps, so I never actually did one as written. But I think the few weekends of epic riding I did really, really helped make my race.
With swimming -- and maybe this can fall into Nemo's thought about levels -- I, too, ended up usually skipping the third swim. It is so easy to forget that swimming actually needs to be respected as a real sport. Maybe specialized swimming thoughts for
a) those of us who have to actually learn to respect swimming as sport and do have a lot to gain there (um, me)
b)those of us who could use some improvement
c)those of us who just need to maintain enough swimming fitness to get the job done, because we are pretty much rockstars already
I also loved the bike structure. But please but a warning label on that first 4.5 hour bike with Rich's killer intervals! I learned to love that ride, but wowsers, they required serious mental toughness. I also did most of the intervals on the trainer during the week and usually skipped some of the volume in favor of just getting the intervals done and nailing out the run.
Oh and I loved the videos! Seriously helped me keep my head on straight and remembered to do things like stretch, buy stuff, etc., that I totally would have forgotten to do otherwise.
My first year at HIM - I took on the Intermediate Plan. Here's my input;
Swim: Can I pile on re the volume ;-) I am a slow swimmer (40 min HIM) so perhaps I should have been doing beginner rather than Intermediate swimming?
Bike: Perfect for me
Run: Had ITB injury so was always run limited.
I agree with Beth on specialized swimming thoughts. I had no problem swimming the 2.4 miles at IMWI but I would like to improve my time.
Beth also hit the nail on the head with that first 4.5 hour ride. Wow! It was tough mentally and phyiscally but after a couple of them I was looking forward to them.
to keep going with the swimming... fwiw, I'm a decent swimmer and could usually knock out the crazy long ones (3400m) in about 1:05ish... so having to do that 3x a week to prep for a HIM seemed like serious overkill and I didn't do it. Like Kit, I did 2 swims a week and was happy with my HIM times as well as my iron AV swim time... I am doing 1-2 swims a week now that I'm in IM mode and I think that's a product of the burn out...I've been in the pool a long time now with such a long season.
I think Beth's idea for separating the swims out for those looking to make the swim cutoff, improve to middle or ahead of middle of the pack, or maintain because you're already in the FOP is a great idea if you can do it.
I didn't know the "big day" was new this year. It hurt me more than I can say... but it was worth it. Looking back now - after a few weekends of 4.5 hour rides and the first RR, it seems silly that I suffered so much... it was a very very good introduction to mental toughness. And, like Kit said, a good way to start dialing in nutrition in advance of the first RR and those epic weekends.
I'm gonna have to trust what everyone is saying about the 2.5 hour run being enough for the full IM. I haven't done mine yet. i thought the running was very good for the HIM as far as getting ready for the distance.
As an over 50 athlete, I think we could use some maintenance routines built into the plans, stretching, core, yoga/pilates, massage frequency/timing suggestions, etc. I find I don't recover as fast as I used to and really have to pay more attention to the maintenance stuff or I'll get unjured. I know there is stuff in the wiki about this, but it seems like it would help to have it built- in to keep it front and center. Just my 2 cents
My attitude on the sswim is that it's hardly worth the admin time to get in the pool for 20-30 min, and to do so is just not the same workout as a bit longer. Without gravity/impact, unless you just get in there from the first second and are hitting it HARD, it takes a little while to warm up (e.g., the drills and/or ~400-500 wu set is about right!). In the intermediate swim plans, the main sets total around 2000 yds quite commonly, which is right near race volume. I don't have data to prove it, but this seems reasonable. Swim cooldown is like added volume in OS...just do it to fill time, relax and make you feel better...it's the drill (if any) at beginning and MS that matter.
Swimming isn't like running, in that people routinely swim MUCH longer than the race time/distance. Consider the reductio ad absurdum of swim training volume for a sprint... :-) Perhaps some greater explanation of what you are trying to accomplish would help.
On another note related to some people's remarks: One thought might be to give specific suggestions each week of "If you need a bit more rest/recovery this week, we suggest you skip x or do y instead of x". You do have general guidelines on this, but the structure of the weeks does change around from time to time to accommodate testing, long days, etc.
I don't see being in the pool 75 minutes 3x per week when I plan on being out of the water in 50 on race day.
For me the 'swim' issue is pretty simple. The plan says swim 1 hour. The reality for old and slow me is that the swim sets would some days take about 75 mins. I suspect I was doing the wrong plan for my limited swim ability. Run and bike were ok. I believe I remember listening to a podcast on the interweb where the coaches addressed this very issue!
The only thing I did not like was the race simulations to 5 and 3 weeks before the race in the IM plan. I much prefer the 4 and 2 weeks from the previously year. 5 weeks out felt too soon and I really did not like having 3 weeks of "taper" between the last race sim and the race. I know the last 3 weeks were not all tapering but it felt like it with the race sim. 2 weeks is a REALLY long time and 3 felt like months.
Either way, I will be moving my race sims to 4 and 2 weeks out and starting my taper after the last race sim next year, but wanted to share my thoughts in case others agreed.
I personally liked the 5 wk and 3 wk RR plan. I actually did this last year before it was even written because I know how my body responds.
Matt at your age you can certainly handle the 2 week taper. Those of us in our late 40's and older may need the extra time.
This possibly can be written as another variable, ex: If you are under 40 and recover well you can tollerate the 4wk and 2 wk RR, You old dudes who need a little more recovery time should consider the 3 week taper and a 5wk and 3 wk RR.
just a question on outseason...i have a olympic and half IM in oct and nov 7th respectively and due to my injury with ligaments in my foot i probably will not be able to complete the run portion of either race...that sucks9WILL TRY AND PUSH THE BIKE AND SWIM HARD) but that being said should i start on the outseason in november without a transition time (waiting till foot is ready for the work (SGIM is my goal for 2011), start slow on run portion ,add a little more bike time,add a little more swim time?..also as a member do i neEd to purchase this plan or just give you a heads up which program i want to get
Presumably, the B/I/A option is one way of adjusting the length, though those were not always aligned, since the beginner ones had more drills and the Advanced very few.
Maybe it's as simple as placing an asterisk next to the set which is best adjusted for number of repetitions to increase/decrease volume, or a dagger to increase/decrease distance....something simple like that as guidance on how best to adjust the workload if you are consistently too fast or too slow for what you expect the workout to be.
Any chance of getting our Data Tool numbers for pace and power on our dashboard where we see our daily workouts now? Thanks for the consideration gentlemen.
That would be pretty cool if it was possible, my flow for heading out on a workout typically involves reading the workout itself, then opening the data tool to pull the specific power/pace target numbers if they've changed recently or I've spaced on them, then combining the two. I can't be the only one who often heads out on workouts with a long list of intervals and power numbers / paces written on the back of my hand or forearm? That does kind of go along with what Matt said, sometimes on longer workouts there are just too many individual intervals and rest periods for me to remember, but for me at least, I just solve that by writing all over myself.
In terms of both the HIM and IM plans, the Big Training Days were a pretty big challenge, I think I'll be better prepared for them mentally next year but this year my predominate thought was "you want me to do this big of a brick this far out??". For people with early season HIMs in northern climates (probably quite a few of us) this was even more poignant as the first big training day fell when people were still timidly emerging from their winter pain caves, I was not in full-blown on-season mode and my gut feeling was to skip it
All and all though, I was pleased with both HIM and IM plans last year. I can't comment so much on the swimming because I mostly swam with masters, but the IM swim workouts did seem pretty epic towards the end. I was somewhat of that attitude that harder 1-hour workouts with masters with the occasional distance session worked in, especially as we neared the race, would prepare me and for the most part it did. I'll likely be using more EN swims going into this season however.
To build on that idea - and this may be getting a little far fetched but,,,,,
It would be very cool if we could click on a workout like this one;
10' (4) @ FTP
12' (4') @ 75%
2 x 15 @ 80-85%
and have an option to print it with it already completed with our data tool numbers !
Now I did that manually last year and stuffed the paper in my back pocket but it would be sweet if I could do that with a couple of clicks!
James- You want to post this in the MACRO thread. It'll get lost here, and RnP will get back to you quicker there too since they check those threads the most.
The rewrite of the swim workouts was great.
-I worked with the advanced flavour (after using advanced CF and EN swim sessions for years), and there was definitely a new level of challenge these introduced.
-after 10IM, these cut a minute from race swim times from 1:05 to 1:04. in this neighborhood, I think the technique is there, and it's just plain work that will keep cutting time. I'm pretty confident that I get that work in these workouts, and will for a few years yet. So, good to explect more gains ahead.
-Loved the inclusion of longer, multiple sets. The direct tangible result this was consistent negative splitting of open water race rehearsal swims, accoring to my garmin data. I've not been able to do that in the past. I'm not sure if this muscular endurance piece was a deliberate emphasis, but i liked it.
-I liked the 'reaching' these required. Pre-rewrite, I could normally finish the entire swim workout - wu, MS, cd - in under than an hour, and would run the clock ny shooting the sh*t with other tri dudes hanging off the wall for a few minutes. Post-rewrite, I was working for an hour. super efficient. No wasted time. I liked that.
Summary: I would recommend Rich be locked in a room for two weeks every year with just a coffee press and laptop, and keep knocking stuff like this out.
Oh - I have another one: collect, organize and catalog an "annotated tweaks" library as a system of add-ons to The Plan.
Here's where I'm going with this: first and foremost, an athlete going with the basic, out of the box, plain vanilla EN plan is going to get faster and achieve their desired gains by doing the plan, and only the plan. True for the FOP vet as much as the rookie, and true for the first-time EN'er, as well as the multi-year, multi-plan year-after-year team member.
But the thing is, even though this vanilla plan applies to and can benefit all of us, we each also believe that we're different, unique, special, or are beautiful little individual snowflakes like no others, with special needs that deman individualized approaches. I'm guilty of this. P, you and I had a good talk about this pre-IMAZ last year and agreed it's one of the 'universals' in the coaching game.
You also have had a number of people move through race seasons with EN, and developed fantastic tweaks to the plan, whether to address their own restrictions, time limitations, limiters, perceived strengths, or whatever.
So why not develop a way to consistently collect and organize the hundreds of tweaks that are out there in disparate threads and conversations, and make them available as open-source add ons to the EN plans? So it gets organized as something like:
Tweak # // Run 3
Tweak name // early season run speed boost
Description // Long run HMP increase
Specific workout protocol // addition of 3 x 20 (4) HMP pace sets in week 1 - 4 long runs. Progress as week 1: 3 x 15 (5) Week 2: 3 x 15 (4) Week 3: 2 x 20 (5) week 4: 3 x 20 (4)
theory, rationale, supporting comments // (pulling this outta my ass, but for illustraton purposes): Daniels says increased time at sub-threshold paces, to a maximum of 60' per week, leads to improved performances at half-marathon to marathon distance races. Tried this in my buildup to IM LOU in 98 and it worked well, without leaving too large a crater for my Saturday ride. Any more than 4 weeks, though, is probably going to be too hot to handle.
.....
So, you get a few dozen of these tweaks that come through the lines every week anyhow, but now it gives a systematic way to capture them, and be available as a menu for self-coached athletes to customize their plans (again, recognizing that the plans are perfect exactly as they are, but we are all drawn to 'needing' customization anyhow). It also leverges the many many smart things that people have done to plans over the years, and makes it available in a easy-to-search menu that keeps growing.
And keeps people on the team year after year because they get hooked on infinite customizations in the same way I'm hooked on watching Women's Beach Volleyball on Universal Sports.
“Over the years we’ve shifted to mileage only because we found that for newer athletes especially, going on time could result in them doing a long run that was very short, and then over the course of the race they would break down. Even if their ability to metabolize fuel was good, their body just couldn’t handle the pounding as the race progressed. They didn’t have the resilience to deal with it.”
So, yes, while the chance of injury does increase with additional mileage, it might be good to give athletes an OPTION between a minimum mileage target and a maximum time ceiling, or breaking the long run into two parts. I no longer have the speed I had when I was young and all the OS training in the world isn't going to bring it back. And if someone's inherent speed isn't there, the OS won't change that. So options would provide flexibility to the plans. If someone does go over the max time like I do, then I would recommend they do their long runs on dirt/grass trails to minimize the pounding. I'm going to submit another post regarding options for self-coached athletes as a way to improve what is already pretty damn good.
I used Advanced 12 Week HIM for 70.3 Branson.
Overall, very well put. Volume is excellent, volume ratio among sports well balanced and in favor of bike and run, completely appropriate. The way the individual weeks are executed, brilliant. Selection and choices of workouts to train individual abilities good, little boring occasionally, but biggest bang for the back was there.
Swimming: Spot on for HIM, I disagree that it was excessive. Sets selection was the summation of best choices to get the job done. Correct emphasis on race pacing. These swims are triathlon specific with little variation, can lead to some boredom in the pool. On the other hand "real swimmer's" workouts can make your head hurt from variety standpoint. I think we could use a little more broken sets to improve on race pace as well as simple 50s, 75s and 100s with send offs for "pulling the roof from above" with the same logic used for running and biking. That would lead to some reduction in volume on occasion or two.
Bike: Excellent in every way. Maybe an addition of longer than 20min interval as a continuous Z4 95-100% FTP, ie 30-40min @95%FTP from time to time.
Run: Just a question more than anything, T-pace cruise ints, Daniels suggests 1min of recovery per 1mi of T-pace when cruise is done, I have done as instructed at 4min recovery, any reason for that? 4min recovery allowed me to run them at 10k pace rather at T-pace. Run is awesome in this program. Stresses abilities required for HIM dead on.
I joined EN because the execution guidance seemed spot on to me and I liked the idea of having multiple resources to draw upon as a self-coached athlete. By contrast, the EN training philosophy was something I found interesting but have not fully absorbed. After 15 months with EN, I think there is tremendous value in the EN approach; and that this approach works the bestest for the mostest, but I reject it as a one-size-fits-all philosophy. I come to triathlon with more than 3 decades of running background and a firm belief, verified by experience, that the quantity-quality ratio in a person's program is directly related to base speed. I.e., the faster your inherent speed, the less volume you need and vice versa. If you are slow, you need quantity to overcome it. I was a sub 15min 5K runner with only 57sec flat-out quarter speed. To run sub 4:50 miles with that kind of limiter takes both tremendous volume and quality to be able to race at almost redline. So volume doesn't mean low quality. I read the Volume Elephant in the Room piece...it's great, but again, it's the philosophy that works best for most, especially for beginners. I suspect that if you collected the real training logs of those on the advanced plans that many are exceeding the volume recommendations in the plan. I also know that the fantastic triathletes near my age (Joe Bonness, Jeff Cuddeback, Kevin Moats, etc) are not skimping on quantity (or quality). I admit that I've exceeded plan volumes, but I'm always mindful of the ROI and the need to maintain quality.
So how's this relate to plan improvements? You might consider building options into the advanced plans for those who are trying to podium. If we are going to add mileage where should it be? Which weeks might it help, and where should we avoid it at all costs? I think a modular plan construction that allows the athlete to select from the building blocks that you supply would offer a level of sophistication for the future.
Other comments:
1) Swim days always seem to be Mon-Tue-Fri. I swim masters Mon-Wed-Fri, and the pool is not open Tue morning. So what's the option for that constraint? What's so special about the M-T-F order in the plan? Here's where a modular plan construction might help the advanced athlete.
2) Uphill strides. What's the training goal for those uphill strides and what's the option for Flatlanders? The closest hill to me is an overpass 4 miles from my house. Too much admin time to drive there so what can I do in it's place to achieve the training goal?
3) The plan calls for RRs in wks 6 and 9, but wiki says the last one is best performed in Wk 10. If we do our RRs early (say wks 5 & 8 which I did for IMAZ) is there any value in putting in RR#3 at wk 10 as an option?
4) Another option I would like to see is adjustments for heat training. Getting the runs in during the summer in Tampa is hell. As a runner I targeted long races in the winter and 5Ks or track in the summer. IM is practically the opposite requiring tremendous suffering in heat & humidity. Is breaking the long run into two pieces the same day a viable option? Is it better to get in large base just before the 12 week build (i.e., OS, then base, then build) so the longest stuff is out of the way before the real summer heat comes?
5) Standing during the bike Z3 sets: what's that all about? For some reason, I find it very hard to stand for very long on the flat. If you have 2 mins of standing in a 12 min Z3 rep, is that supposed to be 2 mins straight? I usually get it like 2 mins seated, then 8 mins with the first 15 secs of each min standing, then 2 mins seated again. Not sure I could do 2 mins straight anyway, but I would like to know the training objective and whether my approach is an acceptable option.
6) Race week - if ew cant bike up any of the course on Thursday, then what is the bike mileage limit for Friday?