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2016 IM Canada Week 11- Another BIG Day!
Week 11 - Another "Big Day"
BIG shout out to Paul, Mike, Doug and Robin!! LOVED seeing your posts about this weeks training! We are so fortunate to have such an awesome team with a TON of knowledge and most importantly MOJO!!! Who else is out there???
So this week…...Second “Big Day”
Things to pay attention to
Nutrition
Watching your pacing (are you making mistakes early on?)
Don’t “rest” in-between but no need to go full fledge tri geek and set up transitions where you sprint from event to event
What coaches want to see this week is us talking about how we are going to prepare. Post your “big day” check list here, a chance to even practice your “race plan” and “race report”
Let’s not wait until after the big day to start discussing what we did or didn’t do. Lets plan it out, write it out and discuss it now so we can help each other. Then debrief with this awesome Crew after the big day on what worked and what didn’t.
This will set you up for your race rehearsals closer to race day.
****There is still time to find a friend who is racing Canada or your other IM events and give them the best gift you could give someone— no not a power meter, a free 30 days of Endurance Nation. Sharing is caring! (you get a Free month when they sign up also)**** give them friend@endurancenation.us email and we take care of the rest!
Ya’ll are EN rock stars…. soooo what’s on your mind?
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I felt surprisingly good yesterday after a hard first two weeks (1,000 and 1,100 TSS, when the most I've done in the past is 850). Still, with TSB around -40 I know I need an easier week. Fortunately, this week is setting up as one. I'm traveling later in the week so hacking the schedule starting today -- moving the FTP bike and long run each up a day and taking Thursday off. I'll do the big day Saturday if the weather cooperates (and maybe even if it doesn't; riding in the rain the past weekend wasn't too bad).
Doug, I've also had some shoulder issues. Fortunately it hasn't progressed to the point that I had to stop a swim workout, but it's probably a good thing that I'll end up dropping one of the swims this week. Better to build the volume more slowly than get injured and have to take more time off.
Today, I continued my hack for the week. It rained before I got out to run and the humidity was off the charts. I ran 4 miles as 10:25, 10:01, 9:25 and 9:12. And I was sucking air like crazy. I now have to work very hard to run slow. After some recovery and a little off-site work, I went out to bike 2 hours (37 miles). I only have a road bike with me so no power. I did Wed's bike ride with 10mins and 15 mins at Z4 RPE. ... dial into hurt and go! I nearly evaporated on that ride from sweating. BTW, I'm not in the mountains anymore. Net elevation gain was 311 feet. Recovered again and packed for my conference. There's not a single public pool in Panama City, but there is a very nice facility in Panama City Beach en route to my conference in Destin. I stopped in at the Frank Brown Aquatic Center ($5) and knocked off 3700 yards. That made for a solid MEDIUM day to get me ready for the BIG day I'm doing on Friday. On, on, on!
My Sunday swim done by 10am, I soaked up nearly 48 hrs of rest. Legs responded nicely - was able to get my 25 min of z4 in with a low-for-me HR of <155. Still can't manage z5x 5 mins after that tho. Did hit almost 1 minutes of z5 collectively. Work toasted me but felt well enough for a 40 min run. Going to test out the shoulders in am. <br />
Good work men! Keep it up
This week will be lighter for me with Thursday off and a short run Friday before the big day. Maybe 5 1/2 hours during the week and 6 on Saturday. It sets up a good rhythm with 2 weeks hard and 1 week easy; week 14 I'll also have a lighter week heading into Victoria.
Doug, I'm glad to hear the rest helped! My legs are telling me I'm due for some soon. They were okay for the 22 minutes on the bike at z4 today but felt dead tonight after the brick run. Tomorrow's long run will be interesting.
Yesterday, after a day off, felt like I could run through a brick wall - legs fresh, no soreness, no reason not to go hard. This evening I did the prescribed Tuesday run, very clearly not the same - hip, ankles, feet sore. Took all of 15 minutes to warm up, even then a little sore. First z4 mile , er, not. Got to a little over a half mile into it before I pulled the plug, winded. Walked to recover, then grueled through another half mile at z4. Toasty. Got back to TRP for the rest of the run. Z2 I was not feeling.
Today's experience reminded me of thought I had last year while prepping for IMCDA - I'm curious, just exactly how much of a time improvement, if any, there would be between taking week off right now and doing an IM vs. completing the training plan as written (or should I say dropping 1-3 work-outs per week and having definite slogfest runs like today). Days like today, cant decide what is harder, IM or IM training.
Swam this morning, got in a quality 3k. Shoulders held up - yeehaw! Overall, a much better effort (timewise) after studying the critics of Cronk's swim videos. Can comfortably swim at 65 SPM now thanks to wetrinome, plan to keep increasing a little per week. Will soon time trial in the open water to determine if this pool work translates.
Anyway, good conference, but I'm glad it is over. It put a small dent in my training load and my nutrition was probably about a C+ for the last couple of days. BIG DAY up tomorrow!!
Just discovered the EN and IMC boards on Strava. That is quite inspiring, to see the amount of time/mileage others are logging.
Now I'm waiting out the worst of the rain before heading out for my ride. I'd rather ride four hours in light rain than be on the trainer that long. Plus I figure it's good practice in case the race weather this year is anything like last year.
Hit the pool after the ride. The pool remains a total mystery to me. Knocked out 3200 in 1'2". In the water, I feel like a hero - post swim Garmin review is routinely disappointing. Anyway, nice to be done. Getting in another date with the mrs, who gifted me a quick nap right after I finish this training report.
Tomorrow I have the split long run. Hoping for a dry morning.
Good work gents. Have a safe weekend
Doug, glad to hear you had a more successful ride than I did. I crashed about halfway in. I was moving out of the shoulder / bike lane to avoid a pedestrian and my tire caught in a seam at the edge of the road at 25 mph. I got lucky; just some road rash, and the bike looks okay other than a sticky brake and needing new bar tape.
Me - being in my own bed for the first time in over a week I sort of melted in and couldn't get up this morning. By the time I did, it was already too hot out. So I got on the trainer and did the entire 4 hours there watching Gran Tourino (never saw it before) then World War Z. Did some errands then another nap. You just don't sleep the same on the road else, it's all this jellyfish poison floating around my itchy body! I did go swim 2100 yards but the pool was too hot to do any quality.
Tomorrow will be hot and humid but there is a "cold front" that will drop our lows to the upper 60s Mon and Tue and more importantly, bring some dry air. So instead of doing a split long run on Sunday and then again Thursday, I'm adjusting next week's schedule to do it Tuesday. In Tampa, I've learned to adjust my schedule whenever the weather provides a reasonable window to get in a good key workout.
Grand Tourino is one of my favorites - will load that up for my next trainer session.
Split long run done. Logged 17.1 miles today, longest this year. The second run remains solid, even with an unexpected additional 15 minutes added to the am run, even in the rain - all systems a go for a solid sub-TRP pm run without pushing.
I plan to do the FTP test, but not the run test. I am still not really able to hit Z3 and Z4 based on my pre-build race, will do a SLP instead and try to add some TSS following the rest week.