general Q about big training day

saskat

Hey EN gurus!  I'm still trying to digest and absorb the EN kool aid (so far so good...higher FTP and vDot just from the OS! ) I've read through the wiki about the big training day and still have a question that I need some help with understanding.  Apologize in advance if this has already been discussed (tried searching the forums but nothing came up). 

Ok...so while I understand that the big day is not fitness related but rather to get a feel for doing all 3 together, practice nutrition, etc., how come it's not generally closer to race day?  I rolled into week 10 of beginner HIM plan after 9 weeks of OS and I'm currently on week 11.  I have a big day coming up this Saturday but no other big days scheduled until the actual race on June 16.  So my question is, what's the reasoning behind scheduling the big day earlier on in the plan and not a little closer to race day (i.e. 3-4 weeks out)?  Or another way to phrase my question is, how come there is no race rehearsal as part of the HIM plan (or is there and I'm just missing it)? 

Again, apologize if this has already been discussed. Thanks in advance! 

sarah

saskat

Edit: There is a RR bike and run 2 weeks out from race day in my training plan...why not all 3 that day?

kjanracing

I'll try here... The big day is like a practice day. Try to treat it like a race day with evening prep, travel and start the swim close to the race time. Get out of the swim and onto your bike in a reasonable amount of time. Make a mental note of how you feel. Do the ride as you would in the race, pace, nutrition, etc. Transition to the run and do that. When you are finished, replay the day and make notes of what went right and what didn
T and what you think you should change for the actual event. Really, it's more of a practice to see how you handle things in time to make a change for the race. Does that help?

tuckerm

You can check out this post in the wiki
http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Wiki/tabid/108/Default.aspx?topic=Big+Day+Guidance

saskat

 Thanks, guys! I read the wiki article and understand that the big day is supposed to be practice/race rehearsal. My question is more about the following statement:  Please Note: Big Days happen in Weeks 8 & 11 of the 20 week training plans; and on Week 3 of the 12 week training plans.

Why are the big days so early in the plans and not in week 16, 17, or 18 for 20 week plan and 9 or 10 for the 12 week plans?  This would still give enough time to make any changes based on the lessons learned from the big day.  I realize the EN training protocol is very different from other plans that we may be used to so my curiosity is coming from being used to the old paradigm where I had a race rehearsal about 3 weeks out from race day.  

I plan on sticking to what's laid out in my training plan but was just curious...maybe a question more for RnP?

Thanks!

Al Truscott

I'm not sure there's a lot to learn from a Big Day if you've done triathlons before. Me, I usually don't worry about whether I can get the swim in on that day or not. What I get out of it is just a reminder to my system of what it's going to be like when I start ramping up the hours in the final 2 months of training, something like, OK, Now it's time to get serious about this "far" stuff.

However, someone new to long distance tris may want to plan for several swim/bike days at full race time, in addition to the scheduled bricks. And if an HIM or an IM is your first triathlon, well ... 

Coach Rich

Good question and discussion. Some notes for you:

The purpose of the Big Day, for both the HIM and IM plans, is so you can experience what it's like to put together all three sports across a long day. You'll exit with many learning points about pacing, nutrition, your position on the bike, etc. However, note that we don't call it a race rehearsal, we don't have you riding at race pace, etc.

The race rehearsals are more important / critical because we want you to do just that -- do everything exactly as you would on race day.

The reason why we don't have you doing the swim before any of the EN RR's is because everyones' swim and bike course / RR venue situations are very, very different. Ideally, we would want you to swim, bike, and run the whole RR from one location with no significant breaks between each. But that's not very realistics for most people. In my opinion, getting in a car and driving from the pool to your cycling venue would be very artificial.

Basically, our guidance for the RR's is a reflection of the reality of probably 90% of age group atheltes out there.

jmoss70

I bag the swim and sometimes the whole thing and just do a Run/Bike or Bike/Run of similar distance that day.  I think if I was new to Long Course triathlon and hadn't done an IM before I'd take the Big Day pretty seriously.

Coach Rich

Understand that a lot of success in endurance sports is exposing yourself, and your head, to greater and greater levels of "oh shit" stuff. That is, putting together epic cycling weeks, big days, crazy long bike rides allow you to put another check on the box and that check allows you to not be skeerd of anything on race day. You're better able to disconnect your head from your body because your body is feeling stuff that's already felt before, or much worse.

In short, there is training value in discomfort, even misery :-) But the value of that decreases with repeated exposure and soon becomes "wasted time."

saskat

@Al - what you said makes sense as far as using it to remind your body of what that kind of volume is like.  I've done a few 3-4 hour rides in the last month so hopefully that will have primed me a little for the big day this weekend and it won't be such a huge shock to my system...then again, I haven't yet put all 3 together this season 

@Rich - I knew you guys had a reason for structuring the plan the way it is   I can see how repeated exposure, at some point, no longer adds value and based on what you said, it sounds like it wouldn't hurt anything if I can do all 3 during the RR day a few weeks out.

@Jim - that is good to know...a good example of not following the plan into a brick wall.  I'm still learning how to not do that 

Thanks, everyone, for your input!  I have a better understanding and appreciation for the big training and RR days.  I've done a HIM before so I'm not too worried about the volume required for that...it's the volume required for the full IM I'm a little skeered about.  I'll definitely be taking the big days and RR's more seriously when I transition into the IM plan...but I won't worry about that until after June 16.