The Ironman in 2019 thread

[tribuddha]

Still in and still rolling strong @JoeX I had to move IMLP to 2020 which works much better for my schedule. I am moving to Amman, Jordan in the Fall for work which will be awesome for training once I adapt. Anyway, plenty of time to prepare now for that. However, I will be really close to Israman in January and I am very tempted to do that too.

Right now, I am working my way through a modified Sweet Spot Base High Volume training plan. Modified it to include more threshold work like the mid-volume plan does so I swapped one 90min ride for a 90min threshold workout which I typically do before a sweet spot workout as a long ride each Friday. 5 weeks in and things are going great.

[TG333]

Hey there, thanks @JoeX for checking in. All is well, more or less. Training has suffered the last week when I went for business to Bangkok and could neither run nor ride properly. Still both in running and cycling I’m ahead of last season by a good margin, can’t wait to go racing!

Right now I’m in Mallorca, just came back from my first outdoor ride here. Love this place and I’m so darn fit compared to everyone else. Grinding away in my basement all winter is really paying off now!

[mathlete76]

I’m about 90% recovered from injury. I’ve managed to do a bit of work on the trainer (including an FTP increase!), and think i might get in the pool sometime this week and test the shoulder.

Weird thing is that of the 3 disciplines, it’s running caused me the most hassle with the sore shoulder.

I don’t think Stafford will be my A race now, but I think I’ll be fit enough to give it a go and probably train through and do an autumn race as well.

[route66]

Pulled out last week as I got sick again and was sidelined for another two weeks. Didn’t want to try and get volume going again aggressively with just six weeks to go. So I will recalibrate and maybe shoot for something later in the year.

[dlukes01]

Thanks for the update! Been reading through the posts and I looks like y’all are gonna have some great races!!

Unfortunately I had to defer IMTX to 2020. Training got derailed by life (it happens) so i didn’t want to push a bad position and have it turn into a year-wrecker.

On the plus side, I should be USAT Level I Coach certified in the next few weeks!!

[rjessop]

@Simo429

I think you were stood next to me when setting off but I didn’t want to say ‘do I know you from the internet?’ And come across as a stalker

You should have said! I only had one clubmate there and he’s in a vastly different age category so I was alone Well, mostly because my buddy who usually does the event decided to swan off to Japan for a vacation…

Race photos are good! Cheap too. It was cold enough that I had to keep a running top and a gilet on during the bike, neither of which are particularly aero! Other than that I don’t think I look half bad here:

Shame I don’t have the fitness to back it up

Heading back to the sea tomorrow and might just get home in enough time to do a workout.

[PDE77]

All good here & thanks for asking. I’m just plodding away hitting numbers in the TR session on the long course tri build HV enjoying the trg on the whole and begining to feel and see the changes in fitness. Also trg for a charity bike ride between & hike over the UK 3 peaks (Ben Nevis, Scafel Pike & Snowden) in August so popping up Snowden, the highest mountain in Wales, this week. Aaaand more excitingly in tri matters I managed to win a lottery entry to Patagonman late in the year which i am pretty stoked about. https://www.patagonman.com/

[moshecattan]

Hey guys,
Just wanted to post this to the thread and in case anyone needs this for future reference…
I submitted my lengthy special snowflake question but simplified it down to: Is Base Specificity necessary? In short yes.
Also big big thank you everyone who contributed in my question, it did help out with my outlook on the upcoming season.

min: 1:15:50

With regards to roll call; two weeks until my current season “A” race - 30k State TT Championships, looking to defend my U23 title (19-22) but all the Juniors err Cat1/2s aged up so will see how that works out. (ps. I recently turned 20 and yes I was 18 when I did IMLP '17 )

IMLP 2020 - hopefully will see some of y’all there, would be pretty sweet to meetup

[moshecattan]

Feature request (lol) to put the races in chronological order in the original post and tag the peeps doing them

@moshecattan

…would be pretty sweet to meetup

[Simo429]

@JoeX

All going very well, as said above Clumber was a great test, need to get out on the road a little more often between now and Outlaw half.
Ramp test tomorrow at the start of Speciality.

All in all couldn’t ask for anything more.

Started to think about what I am going to do once I have finished. Originally planned to do Vitruvian but a week away on a school trip to Austria and a family holiday to Malta is going to derail that. Thinking about just working through sweet spot base, sprinkling in my own work outs and racing a bit more before doing a sept (possibly Robin hood) HM.

Think I’m set on IM Hamburg next year now Maastricht has gone.

[mountainrunner]

Thanks for the ping, @joex. Sounds like things are going well for you. Good luck on the marathon and good to read you’re back in the pool. Any time out of the water is felt. There’s a reason the expression is “it’s like riding a bike” and not “it’s like swimming.”

I’m ignoring the weight issue, which is 6+kg over last year, and 3+kg heavier than two months ago when I kicked the training into gear. I finished Full Distance Tri HV and am now doing a modified plan, hitting about 12-14+ hrs / week (sometimes I try to figure out how I did 20-25hrs / week 15 years ago… then I remember… I was single). Now that the weather is better, I’ll ramp up my running, which is significantly behind past performance due to my focus the last few months on the bike. In total, all is good here though I really should stretch more (er, even a little) and do some strength (even push ups) and get back into planks and buy a kettlebell, but hey…

[Bioteknik]

Hey @JoeX the training is going just about as good as I could expect right now. I’m in the last week of build, but doing a bit of a polarized version for running and biking. Paces/power for all three sports are the best I’ve ever had. Have an OLY race coming up April 20th, going to treat it as a C race. I’m right around 10 hours now, won’t increase it too much from now, except maybe a little bit more as my HIM gets closer, just a bit of a bump enough in my running to get to 30 mpw, currently at 24ish.

Starting to come to the disappointing realization that Xterra might be dying a slow death in the US as things have picked up in other parts of the world. 3 races within a reasonable drive from me are no longer being promoted so now I’m going to have to make some real trips in order to score points next year. I’ll be focusing on now my two xterra races up until the middle of July, and now that the third is no longer happening the planned beach vacation is going to be at the perfect time for a nice week off, then start in to HIM focus then.

[AujujuSauce]

Thanks for the comment @JoeX . All is good here! On to week 3 of HD MV Build. Just finished Owen about 15 minutes ago…oh my that is a doozy! Still struggling to type…max HR I’ve hit in a ramp test is 188 and same when doing anaerobic run repeats. There is lag in HR so I’m sure my true max is higher, but I hit 186BPM today during that 4th interval (300W; 240FTP) and was consistently at 180 and up towards the end of each successive interval. Hard for me to judge my fitness on these workouts, but my ability to hold high % of my FTP continues to improve. I have an olympic distance May 12, hoping to hold 90%+ for the ride and take the run easy as I continue prep for IM 70.3 Wisconsin June 9.

Swim is going incredibly well…truly enjoying it now. That is, until the person next to me was backstroking at my CSS pace lol

[AustinPT]

Thanks for the check up. Just finished 5 months of base (after a month recovery from IM Chatt at end of Sep), with the last 12 weeks as SS Base. 181,000 meters swimming, 2700 miles bike and 250 miles running. TR has been an absolute game changer for me. Saturday I did 3200m swim and 83 miles in 4 hours on a Stages spin bike; Sunday was Petit followed by 12 mile run w/ first half at ~8:03, second half 7:40 down to 7:20 pace. Not bad for almost 52 y/o. Haven’t felt this good in decades. Much welcomed rest week, then begin Build and Specialty. First B race will be May 5th (“x50” race: 1 mi/40mi/9mi). Looking forward to seeing what benefits I have reaped. Hope everyone is healthy and hitting your marks~

[PawelKozela]

Reporting for duty Sir !

It’s been kind of rollercoaster, with quite a lot of extra-sports stuff, but looking at it, I must say I worked pretty well.

Swim: Like planned, I was hitting the swimming pool every single week day and most Sundays, although often for only 1km. But I find that swimming regularly, even if it is for only 1km, is much better than swimming longer distances 2 times per week. Most importantly, for the first time in my life, I’ve done 4km, which brings me the confidence that I will finish this Ironman - swimming was definitely my weakest part (I pretty much learned to swim last year…). I also greatly improved my speed (which was awful) and ednurance - 2’00 for 100m is my average time now on 1 or 2km, and I do 1h03 for 3km without pushing myself too hard.
I’m quite proud of this - last year at the same period, I was doing 28 minutes for 1km and was completely exhausted at the end

Bike: Another ramp test, another strong progress ! 267 this time and I feel I undertested a bit. I was at 191 at the beginning of my training, 246 in January. I’m only doing home trainer though for now, so no idea how this translates outside - I will probably be able to check this week-end.

Run: I’m going easy on this, as I have had a lot of knee issues in the past - so 2 x ~14km per week, and another brick session on Saturdays. I’m pretty confident with this and I will gradually increase in April / May (my race is 30 June)

Food / Alcohol: It’s not up to my training level now - I’m eating huge quantites of veggies, but also quite a lot of occasional sugars And way too much alcohol until now - this is something I’m going to focus on in April.

Mental: It’s a bit ‘too easy’ for now - most things are going according to the plan and I’m getting stronger every day - I challenged myself pretty well in Swim part, but not yet on bike (coming soon) nor run part. I don’t know, I just feel like it’s all going to well to be real

Hope you all guys are doing well too.

The mantra - Trust the process !

[AgilityRay]

Thanks for the call. I’m Ramp testing Wednesday, so will give a progress report later this week. Am keeping up to date with the thread.

[BarnabyG]

Hey all, cheers for the update!
I just finished my last tri for the season, an Olympic at Victor Harbor. I took a minute off my time from last year, but I’m quite disappointed (2:29 instead of 2:30). My swim was 3 minutes slower, my bike 1 minute faster, and my run 3 minutes faster. I’m thrilled with the improvement on the run, but the swim really killed me, and I wasn’t able to put out the watts I wanted on the bike .

In terms of my IM training, I’m taking a break from swimming, and focussing on General Build and building up to running a marathon. I figure that if I work on the two longest disciplines, and especially the run (where things usually go to pot) then I can catch up my swimming in the base/build/specialty phase of the full IM training plan.

I managed to get a couple of my TR workouts completed on a criterium track on the weekend, which was SO much more enjoyable! 10 minute interval sets are a lot nicer when you are whizzing past other riders.

I’m still planning on completing Busselton on 1 December 2019, and have a meeting with a bunch of mates who are considering it this weekend. We are hoping to plan the event together (transport, accommodation etc) and keep each other honest in our training. It will be nice to train with other people for once! I think all of us will struggle with the swim more than anything, so we will probably look at hiring a coach for the group.

Looking forward to the next batch of reports!

[slainster]

Hi Everyone,

I unfortunately came down with bronchitis 3 weeks ago, but thankfully it hasn’t set me back to much. I started HV LDT Build last week, my ramp test had my ftp down a few watts, but I was expecting that after the illness, so have decided to leave my ftp at its old level for now, as the bike training is still feeling fine.

I completed a 6 week front crawl improvers course this last weekend; I do feel like it has improved my technique quite a bit, just need to work on improving my swim speed now

As for the running side, I’m busy working on increasing distance. I’m considering doing a few double days to build up the distance more gradually, feels like a better option than constant running for 2 plus hours at this point. I am also starting track sessions next week which should help spice things up a bit!

Training aside, the all-important road trip planning is almost complete. The wife and I will be driving over to Austria from the UK, so planning route’s, booking hotels, sight seeing ideas etc has been quite interesting.

14 weeks to go, I’m getting nervous…

[Simo429]

Ramp test today, third ever, so far I don’t feel like I have really gone into the read on either. Last time I really under performed and bumped up my FTP by 13 watts and I was fine for every session.

[adriandlh]

Less than two weeks out from my first ironman race in Port Elizabeth South Africa. Busy with my last two weeks of specialty phase. Must admit ready to go, but somewhat mentally fatigued. This morning I just did not have the willpower to complete my “Sonora ride”. I just could not mentally focus. This will be the second time doing the 27th week of the plan, because I had an extra week spare, so not too worried. Also this is the first trainer session that I pulled the plug in all three plans.
Will make my packing list this week, confirm my accommodation and plane ticket.
I’m starting to get excited, but also nervous. I have only done one 70.3 in December 18, and now will be lining up at an Ironman. Not sure if my goals were too lofty, but I have put in the hard work and sacrificed a lot to make this happen. The swim will be a little daunting, because only done one open water swim in my 70.3 race.
My journey is about to begin