Francis Picard Official Coach Thread
Hi Coach P !
I am actually doing the 5 weeks running durability and was wondering for the longer runs (70 mins) if its a good plan to follow that road which is an awesome place to run in the area since no cars, the surface is soft for the body. I did it yesterday, but was wondering if that run should be done on a flat road ?
https://www.strava.com/activities/404912319
It has a nice elevation gain it exactly takes 70 mins. The reason I am asking is to see if I should stick to a flat run or its a good idea to do the same run, thus working with climbs and once I will be back on flat, I should be faster.
I am aware you are away, so thats why I am asking a week before the next run - enjoy Kona ! 
Francis
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and BTW, the day after your post we received snow.. Thank you for that Coach
We can still run this mountain during the winter as a lot of people use it for winter sports.
Im actually on the NOS advanced plan and I want to know your input about playing around with the days and do as follow:
Monday : do the Friday 30' run
Tuesday : do as written in the plan but do the run early before going to work and do the bike later at night.
Wed: do as written in the plan
Thurs: do the Sunday's long run
Friday : do Saturday's bike and run (run as a brick)
Saturday : do the Thursday's plan, do the run early in the morning and bike in the afternoon.
Sunday : rest or switch with Saturday depending how I feel.
The main reasons I wanna do this way is that my wife works every 2 week end and I have to take care of the kids and its easier for me during outseason/winter do the long sessions on Friday since I work from home. I dont think doing these changes will impact negatively anything but want to be sure before going ahead this way.
Thanks!
I think that some adjustments. I get the need to be flexible on the weekends and this seems a fairly good compromise.
Only pushback is on the reverse stacking of the long run on Thursday and the long ride on Friday. At the very least, it might be worthwhile trying to switch that to see if you can handle the ride first and the run second. You may even be able to alternate it from week to week depending on how you're doing. My personal bias is to do the bike first, but I leave it up to you.
Question regarding the run volume. I am week 2 of the NOS and I have the following volume:
Monday : i did the Wednesday 60' in the evening and got to 7.83M. The morning I did the Friday 10' of hills and got to 3.97 for a 11.8M total for Monday
Tuesday : I did the Tuesday's 35' and got to 3.73M
Wedneday: i did the Saturday 70' and got to 9.32M
This give a total of 24.85M so far this week and I still have to do the Thursday 35' and Saturday 40' - This should give around around 10M.
The TP says we should have a weekly mileage target of 24 miles. Should I stick to the workout and aimed for about 34-35M/week, which is something I can hold or should I cut 2 wkouts during the week. Looks likes the 5 weeks of RD really worked for me.. I used to regularly be at 5 mins /KM and now I can run at 4:30/k without going in the HR z3 ! - which is great news IMO !
Thank you !
P
I started going back to the pool and I avg 1.41/100M. Next week as you might know is swim camp.
Living in the socialist province of Quebec, public pools are on strike starting Feb 1 to Feb 15 (what a great timing!!!) and will be close. What can I do ? there are no kind of "private" pools in the city.
Thanks! The strike might not go on, but prefer to plan ahead.
Thanks
next week is the last one in the GF, jumping in HIM before heading to 70.3MT. I see that the long runs are not splitted in 2 runs, the longest being listed first and the shortest second.
My question is : do I really need to do it in that order or I can do the shortest first thing in the morning and "longest" in the evening since it fits easier in my schedule ?
Thanks!
I hope GF has been good for you!
~ Coach P
AS for your question, depends on what you mean by good haha... It was really hard ! but it paid alot, my swim and runs are sooooo much faster than they were at this date last year.
For the bike, its hard to say, I didnt ride outside yet and its my first year with a PM, as such, my virtual FTP from trainerroad was 389 (lol!!) compare to 269 with a PM. Tonight is FTP test, hope it will continue its way up!
Thanks!
Beginning of GF (last ftp test) I was at 71.2kg with a FTP of 269 = 3.77w/kg
End of GF today's ftp test - 67.2kg with a FTP of 266 = 3.95w/kg
run:
5k beginning GF: 19:53, last night test 19:37
really happy with the run same for the bike, w/k is almost at 4.0 :0
I think I got faster
https://www.strava.com/activities/532689987
Happy with that one too.
I was wondering regarding the swim if I really have to do a full hour, im actually doing the advanced HIM plan torward 70,3 MT and jumping on the IM plan on 5/30.
My question is if I do one hour swim, I will end with about 3.2-3.5KM.. which is almost IM distance, should I stop at 1.9K or keep up the full hour ?
Thanks!
Why a bit more?
1) you are on your way to an IM and;
2) I believe that 90% of swimming is mental...having some extra "time" in your TT swim vs race day will make a difference.
Please keep me posted!
~ Coach P
just to give you a quick update. It was my best big training day since 2 years. I think I nailed the nutrition, I made a few adjustments based on the sweat test.
I never ran so fast after a 180' ride. Last year my avg run time after 3hrs rides was around 5:20/km.. and my run today was 4:41/km avg. I think run durability might work ?
As you can see swim is correct, I still wonder if I can do better, maybe cut another 2-3 seconds per 100M ?
On the bike I tried to keep around 72% and never get in the HR red zone, which I did perfectly. I know I am alot faster outdoor than inside
Here are the strava links:
Swim : https://www.strava.com/activities/553275625
Bike - trainer : https://www.strava.com/activities/553425143
Run : https://www.strava.com/activities/553475275
My only critique would be to have you watch the early miles (on race day) to keep that HR closer to your bike HR.
That's not really feasible on this session since you were on a trainer -- indoors means your HR is artificially low. But just something to file away!
https://www.strava.com/activities/557851016/overview
RR week and got 3 questions.
1) Swim, plan says 60' do I only need to do HIM distance since its a RR or I can push the full 60' to see where I get ? If I go the full 60' I will be arount 3.5K-3,7K
2) Bike : same question, the 90K should take me about 2h20-2h25 at race pace. What do you want me to do ?
3) As for the run, I'll do the full 60' it will get me to about 12k-13k but plan says 3M which is 4.8Km. I have no problem here again to push the full 60'
Thanks for your input as usual
Swim only the HIM distance.
Bike = 3 hours...just use the first part to warm up if that time is "extra"
Run = Proper race pacing. DO NOT RUN FAST LIKE ITS A RACE OR THIS WILL BE YOUR RACE.
Really. Get a feel for what it means to lock your HR down, etc...
Will write a report in here for accountability after !
Swim 29:05, target was somewhere between 29' and 30'
https://www.strava.com/activities/582010200
This year I decided to swim more seriously, I already had double my volume of last year already and I also did an IM last year. I decided to try to get back where I was at high school.
I "think" I can maybe get a bit below 29' in a race assuming all factors stay the same.. but wetsuit, drafting and no stop and go at every 25meter should help.
Bike goal : 2h30-2h45 (including lights etc to get out of the city
https://www.strava.com/activities/582152783/overview
176TSS @ 0.79, I decided to ride at the "i should pace" which is 80%. I was riding on a flat course since Montreal is flat but the place where I rode is a road only allowed to bikes, each loops is 45km, that makes a perfect place for that kind of day.
Tried to keep HR low, which IMO was done, no points in the red and never felt exhausted or wanting to relaxe to get back my breath. One thing I found when analysing the file is that HR was a bit higher in the second half, which I think is a good setup for the run.
run
No goal, only to run non-stop during 60'
https://www.strava.com/activities/582235215
Just to let you know that the spikes in the HR graph are when I was replacing the strap since it was sliding down (looks like I lost weigh yesterday ! - need beer
My run may seems extremely fast, but this is where my "normal" pace is now, I can't explain what happened in the last year (probably all the elevation work i've done this year - about 8600 meters climbed and when I get on the flat it gives those paces), last year normal pace was 5m/km and hard pace was 4:50/km.
I was trying to get on the non-confortable line to see what It was and wasnt able to get to it, that said, I believe if everything goes the same way on race day, I could make race-day decision to push a little more on the run ? dunno will see.
As you recommanded of my first RR, you suggested to start the run at the ending bike HR, was able to do after 1km
take-aways
1) Nutrition is nailed, I didnt feel depleted at the end of the day, I am using the same nutrition plan since last year excepting the gels flavor that I change every year, my pee at the end of the day looks like water and is not yellowed at all.
2) I still have to think about pushing a little more on the bike .. 82% or 85% for HIM, IM will be another story during the summer without killing my run, which I think can be my hidden weapon.
3) I think the run can still be faster on race day, probably will try to have an agressive neg split.
thanks for reading!