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2016 IM Canada Week 12- Testing!
Week 12 - Be a Scientist
Hello Canada Crew! Hope everyone had a great BIG DAY!! Let’s hear about it!! I really love seeing your posts---keep the mojo flowing!!
This week is a test week. The coaches want us to focus on the following:
- Measure
- Gather Data
- Don’t forget to Sweat Test
When you head to an Ironman event, you will see lots of athletes suffer because they did not know something as simple as having a nutrition plan. However- in the “haus”, EN’rs know how important EXECUTION is because we practiced and show up prepared. Lots of little things can take a toll on you over 140.6 miles. Having muscles be so tight on the run from poor form on the bike. Not knowing sodium totals to account for the change in temperature on the course. Not knowing their power meter numbers, not knowing thier heart rate numbers in case power meter fails, etc. Coach Patrick has said how important it is to have multiple "A games" because so many things can change within a race. This is what we talk about when we say "stay inside your box" You can adapt and change to the things outside of your control on the course but that comes from testing, gathering data about your body, how it reacts to nutrition, heat, cold, rain etc. And those results are gathered now. Be a scientist, a student of your body as an athlete in this sport. This is another reason why posting in the forum and weekly training recaps is critical!!!
Here are the sweat test rules in case you forgot or haven't done one in awhile
1) Weigh yourself nude right before a run.
2) Run at race pace for one hour, keeping track of how much you drink (in ounces) during the run.
3) After the run, strip down, towel off any sweat, and weigh yourself nude again.
4) Subtract your weight from your prerun weight and convert to ounces. Then add to that number however many ounces of liquid you consumed on your run. (For example, if you lost a pound and drank 16 ounces of fluid, your total fluid loss is 32 ounces.)
5) To determine how much you should be drinking about every 15 minutes, divide your hourly fluid loss by 4 (in the above example it would be 8 ounces).
6) Because the test only determines your sweat losses for the environmental conditions you run in that day, you should retest on another day when conditions are different to see how your sweat rate is affected. You should also redo the test during different seasons, in different environments (such as higher or lower altitudes), and as you become faster, since pace also affects your sweat rate.
P.S. Ya'll Rock - Now go out there and crush it!
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There are only 9 weeks left to go and 3 of those are taper. Time to make the most of the next 6. Probably the only testing I might try will be the Bike FTP on Thursday morning. I will be doing a 1 mile OWS race Sunday so that counts as a swim test. One of the primary benefits of a late July race is that it provides Memorial Day and 4th of July weekend for volume pumps. I intend to push it hard through Monday, then take either a very light day or off day on Tuesday 31 May.
Paul, good job working around the weather. Our great weather yesterday was taunting me; I should have pushed back the big day to Sunday.
I took advantage of the off day to do some work on the bike, fixing a few things from the crash and making position changes to get lower and more forward. I've started doing all the bike maintenance myself; I can usually finish a job in less time than it would take for two trips to the shop, and with the money saved I can get decent tools. I also have a better idea now how to fix things if something were to break far from help.
I'm also limiting the testing this week to the bike. I'm taking today off to give my body another day to recover. If all feels good tomorrow, I'll get in the bike test. I haven't had a good FTP test since January during the OS. With a couple of half marathons earlier this year I have a pretty good idea where my run fitness is.
Mike - I haven't yet decided which bike I'm going to use. I'm in the process of converting my Gallium Pro to a red shift seat. I just got the new carbon seat post but need to order Enve aerobars that fit with my Enve smart system aero road bars.
Paul, I used the redshift system (non-carbon) last year with my commuter road bike for my first 70.3. It served its purpose pretty well. It wasn't as aero as a tri bike, but I found it more comfortable to ride long distances in the aerobars than the hoods/drops, and I was able to run well off the bike. It's also more fun to descend with road bars; I passed a lot of people on descents in the race.
I get to sleep in tomorrow, plan to swim in the afternoon (funny to only have one wko on a wednesday). I might squeeze in a shorty run since I am not testing Thursday.
@Mike - how have you and Coach Rich scheduled your RR1 around IM Victoria? I think he proposed I do the RR1 next weekend, 1 week before IMVic. I am befuddled by the decision to make RR1 another camp weekends - 112/112/2hr is a big ol' chunk of time to negotiate with the wife. Might do 112 on memorial day instead, then the typical Sat/Sun rides the weekend before IMVic.
@ Mike - You are the first person I know that has a RedShift seat! I got off my butt and ordered the ENVE SES clip-ons to finish my set-up. My intent for this bike is to use it for the really hilly courses where I can get the best of both worlds. Position is 70% of drag anyway, and if you throw in the front wheel, aero helmet, and aero road bar, the road bike with Red Shift will capture 95% of the aero benefits of a TT bike. So the question is whether the better climbing and descending will save more time than lost for that other 5%. The hillier and more technical the course, the more likely that will be true (Lanzarote, Wales, Swissman, etc.).
@ Doug - I think I might have picked up 20 feet of elevation gain in my two runs today.
@Doug, great job with the test! That is a lot of improvement this deep in the season.
I also got in the FTP test. My last good test was back in January, and cycling hasn't always been my highest priority since then, so I was interested to see how it turned out. I ended up 2W higher -- riding outdoors, partly in aero, on a winding course, where my previous test was indoors sitting up. I'll take it. My neck had trouble holding the new position, though some of that could be lingering effects from the crash. I'm going to try moving the pads forward a little for Saturday's ride to see whether that helps. I didn't have time for the run today but will try to fit it in tomorrow since I'm not testing Thursday.
@Doug, I haven't talked with Rich about changes with Victoria. I was planning to keep RR1 in week 15 since I'll be up at Whistler that weekend, so I can do the ride on the course. I would have the RR on Saturday and hopefully that will be enough time to recover. I'd rather go into Victoria rested and have some fatigue for RR1 than the other way around. I agree that if you're going to have a big weekend before Victoria, better to do it around Memorial Day.
@Paul, my guess is that a tri bike will be faster unless the course is really hilly or technical (like Alpe d'Huez). But the road bike will be more fun on the hills. With Redshift I ended up not moving the seat much during the ride; I found I could do it without too much trouble but I was fine with leaving it forward for races and any ride where I planned to be in the aerobars.
Mike - you had me looking up the training plan for the next several weeks. Wow - lots of changes - and challenges - from past plans. I'm looking forward to it.
I got in the swim today with the optional volume to hit 3600m. I was fading the last 1k but it was nice not to have the shoulder pain I had been feeling earlier. I went out for a run too (first since the crash), but my knee was hurting so I cut it back to 30 minutes in z1.
I nailed the morning SLR, 10 miles on the button, but have been somewhat hobbled all day with a flair of achillies tendonitis. Didnt get better over the course of the day, so I am packing it in and bailing on the second run. If still stiff tomorrow, I will bail on that run too, see what the weekend holds.
Friday swim tomorrow morning = getting my butt kicked by the big boys.
PM- Foot tender again today, so I replaced the low priority run with 30 miles Z2 spin on the trainer watching "Sky Ark" --one of many DVDs I picked up at a going out of business sale last weekend. It was truly terrible and I give it one of my very rare THREE FORK ratings. That means you need 3 forks to watch this movie - one for each hand to gouge out your eyes and a back up in case you drop of the other forks. You have been warned!!
Doug - hope the foot turns around soonest! My foot felt better this morning but in an abundance of caution, I put a gel forefoot pad in my Hoka's and then drove to a trailhead to do the Z2/Z3 run off road. Took my time rehydrating after that and didn't start the ride until 10:40 AM. Today's high was about 90, and they said the heat index was 1o7 but I got the 6 x 25 mins in by 3:25 into the ride with IFF at .76. I let it fall after that finishing at .73. I didn't get hot until about 75 miles when I drank two full bottles within 10 minutes and my legs were shaking. That did the trick and I finished up with 90 miles. Today was successful. Now for more interstate driving lessons with my 17 yr old daughter. Getting her ready to drive away to college in another 15 months.
I hit my knee pretty hard last weekend and it has been bugging me at the start of my runs, but the last couple of days it has felt fine once I got going. I was able to do the split long run Thursday (18.5 miles, the most I've done in a day in over 10 years) and had a steady but slow 4400 yard swim yesterday. Some friends were hitting the lake but I decided 46 air temp with 61 water temp was a bit too cold for me; instead I did the swim in the pool with buoyancy shorts to simulate a wetsuit.
Today I thought I could time my ride for a break in the rain, but no such luck. I was rained on most of the way. Between that and traffic (99%+ of the cars were fine, but there were a few close calls), it was a tense ride. I was glad to finish it upright. I've made my position a little more upright and wanted to see how that felt with sustained time in the aerobars, but it was tough as terrain or traffic frequently had me sitting up, and I didn't want to take chances in the rain.
I'm hoping to have better luck tomorrow avoiding the rain. We're into "June gloom" in Seattle with persistent clouds and a lot of light rain.
Mike - after riding "Black Death" yesterday (my BMC TM01) I will definitely take it to Switzerland. My fit is very good on that bike and I stay in the aero bars very easily. Plus it wouldn't be right to go to Switzerland on any other bike since that is BMC home turf.
Got up early today and took the family to the beach ahead of the crowd to get parking. And it just so happened that there was a 1 mile OWS race at 0900 followed by a 5K on the beach at 1000. I had a great swim coming out in the top 10 males. Then I jogged/walked the 5K with my daughter. Foot felt OK, but I won't run again on it until Tuesday night. After lunch on the beach, and then a nap, I got on the trainer for 31 miles (w 5 x 10 mins at Z3) watching IP Man 3. Now, THAT was a good movie!
I had a much nicer ride today, probably my best ABP ride. I waited out the rain and was able to ride in the sun for once in the afternoon. I had some good stretches in the aerobars and the position felt okay; I think I'll stop tinkering with it until after Victoria.