A.B.P. = Always Big Pain!
Anyone else have trouble completing the ABP rides? By the time my body has worked hard for my long run on Thursday and my long ride on Saturday, it is protesting big time for my Sunday ABP ride. I can usually hang on for 1.5-2 hrs but no way is 3 hrs happening! Should I be concerned about this? Is this a bad sign for my IM bike leg on race day? Or do others also struggle with the duration of these intense rides?
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I think what you are describing is natural fatigue after hard training - and remember on race day you will be going in rested, not hard on the heels of some wicked hard run and bike efforts!
Personally I find that as I train, something finally 'gives' to give me that 'a-ha!' moment that I can handle it... I am new to EN and the bike is my nemesis - always my weakest leg of a tri both in terms of placing and mentally - I find I am always holding back cuz I know I then have to run and don't want to blow up. As a result I have NEVER hit 'race pace' (which is a guesstimate for me as I don't (yet!) have power) out in training and I have found that super frustrating.
So this weekend was 2 wks after IM CdA and I figured time to get back into the groove in preparation for IMC in 7 wks so I headed out for 120km with the mantra 'Always Be Pushing' running through my head - where I normally would cruise along, I instead made a mental effort to kick it up just a hair. The increase in effort level was barely noticeable - I would say the difference was in the level of concentration I employed to keep that effort going and the result was an almost 3km/hr increase in my average speed over what I normally do on the route - and FINALLY ... I managed to hit race pace (even with decelerations and accelerations at traffic lights etc!)
So from my experience, keep on track with the training and trust me you WILL have an 'a-ha' moment... and a kick-a$$ race day :-)
So there isn't that much difference between IM and HIM weekends (and Thursday's long runs aren't that different either).
But, I also struggled on Sunday's APB ride in my IM build, but never did with any HIM build.
I don't know why that was but am assuming the extra tiredness and the need for more mental concentration in the IM, compared to HIM were big factors.
I use power and pace — do you?
Just did HIM ABP ride Sunday and best I could do was .75if. Granted I spent some time trying to get myself unlost but I felt like I was pushing more than .75.
Doug - I think the Sunday ABP ride is one of the toughest and most important rides we do in EN. And I struggle with it too. It really takes serious concentration and a willingness to suffer in the last hour. I think the suffering is harder mentally than the shorter mid-week Z4-5 intervals b/c my mind says " it is only Z3, come on, how hard can it be?" but my legs say " you killed me yesterday for 4 hours on the bike and then made me run a brick, and today you want me to ride 3 hours at Z3, you got to be joking.." ABP rides really could be called SIU (Suck it up) rides. I think what you are experiencing is normal. Work Works!!
What Bill said but also understand that you don't want to look at your IF at the end of the ride as the measure of success. Even very small amounts of admin time will combine to seriously drop your IF. It is what it is.
Bottomline, whenever you are supposed to be riding at Z3, 80-85%, just look down and see _those_ numbers as much as you can. If you need to take a break now and then, that's fine. The net, however, is that pushing as much Z3 / 80-85% as is right for you that day sigificantly increases the total TSS of the ride vs your normal, vanilla Z1-2 ride. More TSS per minute = a more time efficient ride and this Z3 fitness definitely pays off on race day.
2 - ride as hard as you CAN given the fatigue that you HAVE
The interval button on my Joule is my friend during these types of rides. If I'm going downhill, or thru a string of stop lights, or just need 5 minutes "off", I'll hit the interval button, and basically delete that time from my IF. Then I can look at my IF window during the "on"times to reasuree myself that I'm in the ball park. Total IF = Don't care; Interval IFs = try to hold it. I'M never looking at my ride totals during my ride; I press and hold the interval button so it's slways showing my current interval #s.