IMAZ Week 7 - Over the Hump!!
All - Only 5 weeks to go from Sunday...hope everyone is ready to crush it this weekend. Tempe Town Lake is almost full (see below) so keep up the swimming. I got in 4000 yards this morning followed by a 4.65 mile run @ 8:11 pace...came back very quick from yesterday's long run/easy ride. I chilled w the fam tonight and finally got around to watching the Prince of Persia on DVD. Tomorrow is a 3 hr Spinerval ride (Tough Love) on the 'drainer' followed by a 10 mile run. On Sunday, I'm doing the Hilly Hundred bike ride. Yeah, I'm a little off track from the plan but have to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. I'll be backing off some next week since I'm doing RR#2 in wk 8. Let's hear how it goes this weekend...time to be getting excited. 
or maybe nervous. 
15 Oct Friday Dam Status: "Town Lake is just four days from being filled with water, according to Salt River Project. The water is flowing at 100 cubic feet per second. Work is starting now on replacing the docks and getting the lake ready to reopen."
Comments
I've still got my eye on y'all!
None of this:
- Still convalescing, Al
So maybe I jinxed myself saying earlier in the week how great I felt, because felt a little weak on the 3 hour ride yesterday (obviously I am following the beginner plan) I did the intervals and finished of course, just was not an agro and had to really push through, kept thinking work is speed......
Today is off, driving to Moab with the fam, running the half marathon tomorrow, not sure if I should run it like my training plan states with intervals, etc..... or just run my hmp? Meant to ask the coaches earlier in the week but oh well, any thoughts?
@Paul: you are a phenom and I feel panicky sometimes reading your posts but then remember this is IM #2 in 5 months for you while this is my first ever so should not compare, but you know it is hard! Sounds like you do have some cool opportunities with the century, etc... which is sort of like me and the Moab half. Spinervals for 3 hours, now that is mental training if you ask me! Thanks for keeping our group fired up!
Happy weekend IMAZ peeps!
Miles 1 - 6: slower than HMP just like the IM execution strategy. But try 20 secs slower for M1-3 and 10 secs slower for M 4-6.
Miles 6- 10: hit your HMP target here
Miles 10-13: here's where you want to push. See if you go HMP - 10 secs since you went out easy. This won't feel good, but it's where the training effect is greatest.
Last .1: kick it in and show em what you're made of. Report back to the group.
No phenom here...just a workhorse with high goals...like getting into Al's league. I've got 15 Spinerval DVDs. Love em! Coach Jacobsen makes you work, and his little quips keep me going (like, "you'll pass out before you die"). Yes, that's my happy thought!
Terry - This is the point at which we ALL believe we have not done enough to get ready, when in fact your training has been on-going for months if not years at this point. Just keep doing what you can every day. FWIW, regarding long runs, I've had consistently good resuls with doing an average of TWO runs over 2 hours before an IM. It often seemed the less I did (e.g., 2:20 insrtead of 2:30, or 16 instead of 17.5 miles) the better the outcome in the race, as long as I got those two longish runs in. For biking, it seemed like 3 bikes of 5+ hours is the minimum I needed. You can't cram for an Ironman.
light, what light, it seems like it gets darker by the day. i am in cram mode as i am also a competitive sailor and lost the last weekend and a half to sailing, so i have been doubling up some midweek exercise. doing a mini tri today, 1 hr in the pool, hour on the bike and half on the run! keep it going!!! thankfully i only have one weekend of sailing left and can start doing weekend rides again :-)
OMG, kept thinking about what Al said about not being able to cram for an Ironman but I am struggling with the anticipation.
Was feeling a little tired last week, ended up running strong in a half marathon in Moab last Sunday. I used Paul's pseudo RR pace plan and it worked really well, I had a hard time holding back the first few miles pace wise but kept thinking this is good mental practice for IM....although after my first RR I do not think I will be anxious to increase my running speed off the bike but you never know
@Paul: so about noon EST I was cursing you at mile 13, since I was going with your "give it all you got," but then when I finished and caught my breath I apologized.....you were probably mile 60 of your century about then. Ended up running 1:50 which is good for me and the best part is that I felt great that afternoon and next day!
You know you are a bit twisted or training for an IM when a swim 80, run 50 day feels lame and you feel like you did not do anything.....and you peeps are the only ones who can relate, right?
Heading out for a four hour ABP ride, work all weekend so moved things around a bit.
Two weeks, stay strong!
keep plugging away everyone! the 'BOX' is in the process of being finalized and reinforced, so do not despair. on race day, you'll add the 'X', 'the line', and the 'one thing'...once they are all set in motion, you'll race great.
stay safe.
GH
I totally know what you mean. I rode for 80" and ran 30" and I felt like I had gone on a short walk!
I am hoping the weather holds out this weekend so that I can get at least one more long-ish ride outside. I have a sneaking suspision that I will be doing RR #2 inside, as we are finally expecting snow next week. Although I cannot wait to ski, I really want to get past AZ first. Actually, I feel lucky becasue I haven't been chased back inside yet.
Keep up the hard work everyone!!
@ Stacy - great job on the 1/2. I hear you about being twisted! This week I'm swimming on M-W-F with nothing else those days. But there's a reason:
@ All - 21 mile run this morning. We're still hitting highs in the upper 80s so this was tough. The weather was OK, but I went through 4 gels and 9 Salt Stick tabs. Despite all the sodium, my calves were getting pretty crampy the last mile. That's my peak run for this cycle. In my IMCDA build, I did that in Wk 10, which was too close. Will drop to 18-15-12 miles the next 3 weeks.
Tomorrow is a 1500 yard swim...no more, followed by RR#2 on Saturday - the Great Floridian (aqua bike entry). The bike course...which I did last month...is TOUGH. I'm going to take the swim easy and just practice staying on someone's feet. It should be wetsuit legal, but probably not by much. If the water is something like 74-77, I'll be wearing my shorty wetsuit so I don't cook. I would like to practice in the full wetsuit, but can't imagine the lake getting below 72. The bike course is 3 loops, but only the first goes up Sugarloaf "Mtn" (17% climb for 1/2 mile). Will definitely take the 12-27 and be standing in the granny gear to get up that hill. I plan to bike the first loop easy, then try to pick it up a little on loops 2 and 3 without trashing my legs too badly. Then I'll run the first six miles at IM pace + 30 secs ... assuming I have any legs after today.
I bought new tires for my best race wheels yesterday and put them on...that's for IMAZ. The "old" race tires have less than 500 miles on them, so I took off the tires on my training wheels (50cm deep carbon) which have several cuts & nicks, and put the old race tires on. I'll use the training wheels Saturday, but put maybe 40-50 miles on the new tires before IMAZ just to make sure they are slightly broken in.
I'm looking forward to Sunday which will be a complete day off. I checked my training log and I haven't had any true OFF Days since the week after IMCDA (took 4 that week), so it will be nice to completely relax. Wk 9 will be my last tough week, then start tapering in Wk 10.
Happy training everybody.
nice job everyone!
i just finished a 7:44ish/mile 16.4mile run. weight is now 159lbs from 167lbs on Oct 3. yeah!
over and out.
GH
That is awesome, congrats and keep up the great work.
Paul, way to persevere and make improvements on top of a tough morning! That is GREAT!
Stacy, you are right.......only EM IM folks can appreciate your sentiment! Keep up the great work and absorb all of the execution guidance from the team and coaches.............You will do great. Remember the 4 rules and you will bust it!
@paul ; how'd your race go today??
@john, way to kick ass on the VDOT jump, gotta be nice to see that a month out
@Gilberto, nice solid run, its amazing how a few lbs can improve your run, i'm still surprised at how noticeable my run improves after dropping a few lbs.
Caught a cold from my son this week(i'd catch anything at this point) and have been down for the past 3 days, however i still got a 21 mile run in just prior at a solid 7:20 pace, so i haven't minded the 3 days of "recovery"
22 mile run on wednesday. For me, i've typically been able to run ironman around 40seconds/mile slower than my last really long run before the race,i can only hope this holds true. Will race to plan.
Lets see some FT improvements on the bike this week, make the week count!!
Re: Correlation of weight to running speed - since running is basically a linked series of jumps, there ought to be a close relationship between weight loss and time drop. It would be great if it were linear, i.e., 1% faster for each 1% loss of weight, assuming you're not losing muscle strength along with the weight.
Todd, GREAT job! That is awesome! You are going to do fantastic at IMAZ!
Friday: 21 mile work on bike with 4 mile brick at 7:00min mile avg.;
Sat: 50miler, 5900ft climbing, 3hr 45min ride;
Sun: 13.1 time trial: rockin roll half in Los Angeles = 1:27:33;
haven't calculated vdot yet, but raced on non rested legs after, 40 miles total running and hard
Work outs all week, so should be a more accurate vdot.
Great work by everyone! Gh.
@ Gilberto - When do you sleep???!!!
Between GH, Paul, Terry, Todd, etc - we should have a LOT of ENers finishing right about sundown. I'm going to park myself at the finish chute and catch all you guys between 5 and 6 PM!
BTW, shouldn't we start a new topic - is it still week 7?