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Week 18: Final Race Rehearsal Week!
Time to check in!
Last week was big for me, with key workouts as:
- Thurs: 2:20, 17mi long run that went very, very well for me...though any long run just fookin' sucks.
- Sat: 4hr ride at .81 IF, then backed it with a cruising 7mi run later in the day.
- Sun: backed that up with 112 @ 4:54, .735 IF, 217w Pnorm. This ride felt MUCH harder than the IF and TSS would indicate as I was really, really feeling the week. I was sitting on 219w Pnorm until the last 60-75' when I saw my HR begin to increase due to increasing heat to so I put aside the power goals, focused on HR, and watched the ride drop 2w. Feeling pretty good about my goal of 222w Pnorm on race day, considering my experience in ^this^ ride while drilled. Completely shelled when I got home and bailed on the rest of my day, punting on my goal of a 50mi run week.
This week is another big, final volume push, with a big cycling weekend planned:
- Tues: doing my final, longest long run of 18mi
- Fri: final RR. Goal: 222w Pnorm, 1.02 VI, 6mi run at 8:20-25 pace.
- Saturday and Sunday: 112mi each day at "just punch the clock" effort.
- Continue to chip away at body comp, with a goal of 150lb by race week. I'm going to book a body fat test, via dunk tank for before I fly out to Madison, for historical shits and giggles
FYI, I'm on the "don't try this at home" training plan, which is to say that via consistent, pretty big training across the summer, I've built my CTL up to big numbers. So I can handle ^this^ and then I've begun to plan my training out for the last 2wks to bring me into good numbers on race day.
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I am feeling on track as well. This coming weekend is my 10 year wedding anniversary, and we have an 8 week old baby, so this past weekend was the best I could do for a big outdoor volume pop (negotiated 2 big weekends with the wife). I have only done 3 outdoor rides as part of this build to Wisconsin
My RR went very well. 5:09, 192NP, 0.73IF, 276TSS, 1.02VI. I negative split the effort and stayed aero 99% of the time. After the bike I went 5 miles at a 7:39 pace. I paced by the HR that I saw on the last hour of the bike. It was a bit elevated, but manageable. It was in the 80s and in direct sun on the run.
I have done 3 really long runs, 18 miles, 20 miles and 19 miles. The 18 miler was done in hills and heat so it sucked a bit. The 20 miler was an early morning cool run where I just cruised at my goal HR for the race. The 19 miler put me in the hurt locker, it was warm and I averaged a 6:58 pace, which is way faster than I would run on race day.
This week I will do a 13.1 mile long run, and I will wake up early one day on the weekend and put in 3.5 hours hard hours on the trainer. I am hoping to sneak out for an hour or so to try riding and running with the new Tri Suit I am getting this week. I am also going to start swimming 4x a week. I will probably post my race plan pretty soon, I have been slowly working on it for the past few weeks.
Looking forward to seeing you all in WI!
Yeah, I'm jacking up my swimming next week for sure, swimming 4-5k/day pretty much every day until I get on the plane.
This week... I need to get swimming more. I am going insane with the 20 yard pool at my gym so I'm going to drop some $ and take advantage of a 50 meter outdoor pool tonight. I'd like to get some OWS in this week, but lake Michigan dropped over 15 degrees the last few days and is currently sitting at 59...I might wuss out unless it warms up.
Going to head up to Madison to get the final RR done on Saturday and really, really looking forward to riding the course once more before race weekend.
I was very discouraged to have such a week right at what is supposed to be the peak of the training plan. But it is what it is. Week 18 will hopefully be better and I expect to have one final good-volume push for the next ~10 days before the taper. Based on my travel schedule this week I am targeting:
- Swim 4x for >12k yd total (Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/one weekend day)...Monday is done
- Run Tuesday 60', Wednesday 60', off Thursday, Friday 45' as RR #2 brick, Sunday long run 90'
- Bike Wednesday 75'
- Final big weekend on the bike with RR#2 on Friday in Madison, then Saturday 5-hour ABP back in Chicago
This will give me only ~36 run miles but if I execute the above I believe I will be in good shape heading into week 19.
This week I'm in Milan, so making it a running focus. And lots of walking, because apparently I have no sense of direction and that isn't going so well for me. I had found a pool that was close to the conference, but when I went to check it out today it is apparently closed all week. Not sure if I'll be able to find something else convenient. My swimming has not been consistent since Coeur d'Alene, I just don't make it a priority and so it falls off. I'm going to put myself through a major swimming push for week 19 and the start of week 20- don't need much of a swim taper, right?
So it looks like the weather is going to be perfect this weekend. Plan to do the 90 minute swim in the ocean. Will be focusing on my nutrition plan. 6 hour bike and and hour run. My plan is to do the run the hottest part of the day.
This will be my first race rehearsal in this training plan, due to dealing with lymes disease but have recovered through that challenge.
I did do two days with the iron cowboy, so overall I feel in great shape and feel confident I will be more then ready for Wisconsin.
On the surface my effort looks rock solid over the course of the swim, for example my pace was identical at 1:41/100yd for every 1000 yd split: 16:53, 16:47, 16:46, 16:53. If I look at every 500 yd split I have almost the same consistency with all of the 500 yd splits at 1:41/100yd except the second (1:42), the sixth (1:40) and the eighth (1:42). I'd also say my RPE was constant (and very easy) for the whole swim.
On the other hand, when you look at the Garmin data (link below) it shows how form falls apart as fatigue builds up. I go from rock solid strokes per length to not just more strokes in general, but a lot more variability. Same with paces for individual laps as I try to hold the form together…successfully for some lengths and "muscling through" for others. Pretty interesting. To me it underscores the value of the "swim fitness cram plan" targeting a lot of yards in the weeks before the race.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/879571698