HIM Volume Issues
My only HIM this year is a little more than 11 weeks away, and I am about ready to switch into a HIM plan for that race. When I loaded up the plan, I got my first look at the volumes and freaked out. ')" unselectable="on" style="width: 20px; height: 20px; cursor: hand">" onmousedown="return false;" src="http://members.endurancenation.ushttp://members.endurancenation.us/DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/shocked.gif" width="20" height="20" alt="" />
Specifically, it looks like I am supposed to be doing 2 hours a day on 3-4 weekdays, every week. To put it bluntly, that's never going to work for me. I have a max of 60-90 minutes to train on weekdays. It's really more like 60 minutes, but I can stretch it to 90 for one or two days a week to get in the long run. So, I am not quite sure how to handle this. I was going to post this in the macro-planning thread, but I can't be the only person at EN with a 60-80+ hour work week.
What do people with time limitations do for the weekday workouts in the half-iron plans? Even if I did just the main sets, it's going to be over budget on time.
Comments
I'm in the same situation, with work plus very young kids. Most of the extended time in the plan is swim workouts on "2-a-days". I swim during lunch, but do not even get all of those workouts in. It is really tough.
I would suggest prioritizing the workouts based upon suggestions from the Coaches. They stress Long Bike, Long Run, ABP Ride, in that order. I think swimming is the least important workout since it is the event with the least time to gain/lose.
What John said. You gotta do what you gotta do and you still get in a lot of work by following the mantra of the less time you have, the harder you go.
Also, I'm relearning that swimming is a huge time suck. For me, any amount of swim time is surrounded by a minimum of 30' of admin time if I sprint in/out of the lockerroom. More like 45-50' = 1:45 per swim x 3. It definitely adds up, quick.
What Rich and John said.
I have had the same issues this year. My solution is sub-optimal, but worked mostly OK:
M Run
T Interval Bike (usually bagged the run)
W Swim
R Long Run
F Usually swim (sometimes do bike if Sun is compromised or run if R was shortened)
Sa Longer Bike + Brick Run almost evey weekend
Su ABP bike or swim
This worked for me b/c I have a Div I swim background, and can go fast enough for tri on min swim training.
I think your best bet is to post to the macro thread and then do what you can to optimize your time for your skills.
One thing you see in each of the EN plans (and also in other approaches), is the idea of a consistent, repeatable week -- whatever that looks like in your life -- so long as you can do it week in and week out and hit the key workouts. For LC racing, long term consistency is key and repeatability is important in building that far under fast so that HIM isn't a death march.
FWIW, I'd also note that the basic structure doesn't account for any days off -- which may be fine or may not depending on how you train and recover. One issue with moving the workouts around within the week is that the plans are drawn for enough built-in recovery to allow you to get some recovery w/o a day off, and moving or stacking things can lead to some issues. With a strong swim background, you may find it helpful to swim the day after your long run to help unload the legs in prep for the long bike. That and keeping the long run someplace in the week separate by at least a day from your long bike and interval bike rides, respectively, are probably good general take-aways from the plans that make a lot of sense.
From personal experience, I can say that if you end up doing less than 100% of the HIM plan prescribed overall volume, you will need to turn up the intensity to get the work in (as Rich notes) .. but you may also need a few more weeks to have overall volume to underwrite a good HIM performance. Last, if you're working from a thin prep, then raceday execution becomes all the more important, as you'll have less margin for error on the day in terms of overreaching fitness.
I have some flexibility so I would hit the pool mid morning or at lunch or whenever I had an hour or two without meetings. I found hotels with proper 25 yd pools. On swim/run days I usually did the workout as a brick to save time. I did some runs at 10pm, and some after rolling-off of overnight flights to Europe or South America. Bottom line, I squeezed in as much as I could. The time came from mostly from my famly truthfully, partially from being more efficient and wasting less time overall on randome household things I'm really anal about (like paying bills / managing finances, projects at home, etc), partially from outsourcing some maintenance things I used to do around the house, and a teeny tiny bit from work. The only thing I didn't compromise was sleep. I don't always sleep a ton, but other than on weekends I never set an alarm to be earlier than it would have regularly been.
When I have time after the season is over I will go back and compare my weekly hours to what the plan specified. I suspect I'll be an hour or two short each week at the most.
Could I do that volume again next season with all the tradeoffs it entailed? Very questionable, and something I'll have to think really hard about.
All great above, could have not summed it up better. I am in the same boat every other week though. 80-84hrs total duty hours but frequently with holes in the schedule. As Matt above, I get really creative. I finally arrived at repeatable volume/ frequency during the work week, for me being 13hrs total, 2-3 swims, 3 bikes and 5 runs. At home, sky is the limit and I am frequently at 16-18hrs total volume, having two kids, being 40 and being able to recover.
Let the recovery be your main guide, pick workouts that address your weakness first, when in doubt go harder or more race specific, and from knowing you on the forum, you can still do single arm freestyle and beat us all out if the water, so less swimming and more running, runnning being logistically the easiest and in terms of time, best bang for the buck.
You will be fine. You can let go of that panic button, now. Stop reading and posting, out the door for some training.