Both of those are great places to train or race 
No matter how ‘good’ your position on a road bike a TT bike will always be at and advantage probably at around or even more than the speeds you quote.
A used P2/3 would be a great choice of frame if you do end up looking at a TT bike. With a good choice of other components they can be the match for many a Superbike frame. Not that I’m suggesting you need another bike obviously 
I’m a little bit 
this evening after the mara but another thought occurs: I think it was from the Kona Edge a few years back…when someone qualifies, they often think “Right, now I need to up my game by changing everything” when in fact the training that got them there is the right thing to do.
In short, I don’t think you need to become better rounded. Refining your existing approach to all aspects (nutrition, recovery, training) is more likely to move you up the ranking. A complete sea change is more likely to mess with what was good.
Anyhoo, I’ll review this post in the morning - I’m off for another 
Well, how did it go…?
I heard that on the Steve Magness podcast as well.
I entered the marathon for a couple of reasons;
To better gauge my Ironman run performance by knowing my endurance running capability
To see what it’s like when you start fresh on a marathon run
Upthread I think I settled on aiming at a sensible 4:30, tempted by 4:00 and on the day set off with…3:45 runners! (You can guess what happened next)
It was a great day, cold but not bitter, windy but not soul destroying. Plenty of sun which I caught on my face. The first 10k was great, flying along weaving around the slower runners, missed the first water station as it was too busy. I let the 3:45 runners go, reluctantly as I’d really enjoyed the team spirit. Settled in to a more manageable pace and hit a few hills as we ran along the coast and wondered about how I was feeling and how the half would go…as it happened I flew through the half in a personal best by several minutes and pretty much on target for a sub 4 marathon. If anything a bit too fast, so I took a one minute walk break…and maybe I shouldn’t have. 
When I started running again I didn’t feel good, a bit dizzy, and the feeling got worse so after nine minutes I took another walk break hoping to stop the rot…and like so many stories I’ve heard before, it was too late. It just got worse and worse until I just wanted to call a taxi! 
. Perhaps what started as low blood sugar turned into poor technique and by mile eighteen I knew there was nothing left in my legs, and it was just like Ironman again. Just keep moving forward. 
13.1… 01:57:18
26.2…04:55:28
So not what I’d hoped for, but no injuries and I have the learning I was looking for:
Congratulations for the Finish!
Marathons are bad boys so I am glad you survived it healthy!
Hey guys,
my training is going well so far. I am in week 6 of LV LD Build (after LV LD Base), no missed workouts till now.
Now I need your help on 2 topics:
First is biking.
The plan gives me 3 Rides/week:
So: What would you recommend. Which of these rides could I replace with a longer endurance ride or should I follow the plan as prescribed? (FTP is 320 @77kg)
Second is my swim…
I swim since August 18 on a regular basis, since November 3x/week. I feel good in the water and I enjoy swimming. My front crawl shouldn’t be too bad (for a 36y old beginner), position in the water is good, but I am slow and don’t become faster.
100m is around 1:30, 2500m ist around 2:15 (without wetsuit in a 50m lane). How much of an improvement would be average after 1,2,3 months of regular training?
Thanks a lot!
It could be the way I change the tires. The wheels I have right now are tubeless ready, so getting the tire on takes a bit of work so I suppose I might be getting something pinched in there??? I don’t think it’s getting anything weird on the inside as everything is a pinch flat with the typical “vampire” bite marks on the tube.
Oh, and one of the gatorskin flats I’m going to attribute to the guage on my floor pump going bad. I ended up blowing out a sidewall and when I bought a propper standalone guage, I saw the pump was reading 15-20psi lower than reality. So as a bigger guy I was aiming for the max thus actually going well over.
I also have been using cheaper generic tubes, but perhaps it’s time to see what a good tube can do for me.
Thanks for all the replies everybody.
Without a doubt the hardest thing about a marathon is not going out too fast. Either you consciously (like you did) think you can run in faster, or you get caught up in the event and without even knowing it bump up the pace. But you pay for it HARD with 10-15k to go. The best way to be fast is to run slow 
Must be nice to have that open marathon in your back pocket though. And given this experience I think perhaps pacing, not run training or nutrition are your biggest issues on the marathon?
On the bike side, I wouldn’t skip those workouts. If you did want to get outside a 2nd time each week I would probably suggest you do a 4th ride, and make it an easy 1hr effort or something like that. I know the benefits I’m seeing right now from TR and because it’s having me do very specific things to make me a stronger cyclist that I just couldn’t do when I was biking outside.
Long out door ride, you can replace the long ride on TR. keep the threshold rises on the trainer.
Swimming at this point for you, you should work on technique. Video yourself and work on 1 aspect to improve per week. YouTube is full of videos to help. Don’t try to power tour way to a better swim. It doesn’t work like biking and running.
My husband keeps telling me that before I do an IM I should do a standalone marathon to see what it’s like. I feel like that would be the worst thing ever 
so good on you for your finish and PB!
thanks for your perspectives on my extra two weeks of time at the end of build!
@danielm @JulianM I have considered your recommendations and will do extra weeks of build instead of speciality
@JoeX good suggestion too to catch up on a limitation in run/swim. during the repetition I will do 2 extra muscular strength sets p/w in the swim instead of only the one threshold session scheduled per week.
interesting to read your thoughts. congrats on the HM personal best! 
I second @JoeX - you have the experience and know what works. Doing some “over-threshold” during a period of the year may not be a bad idea to push your FTP while you maintian your strength endurance. I wouldn’t have much else to add except for that I think your plan sounds reasonable to me! If I recall right you had some specific things you wanted to improve in Worlds?
congrats on the marathon, Sir! 
my question is, are you going to adapt your training/goals based on the lessons?
It’s a good feeling and it could be pacing but the reason I don’t think so is that my legs were fine when things started going squiffy, my heart rate was okay I think - mid 150s is not a hard effort. At the time I was breathing easy and saw 54:30 for the 10k (4mins slower than my 10k time) and 1:57 for the half - I think those are almost the right splits aiming for a 2:02 second half.
Always happy to learn though. I’m just seeing the detail splits from my watch now though as it conked out, and maybe there are a few early ks that were too fast…2, 3 and 8 for example
Actually now I’ve posted it I’ve noticed the “Graded Average Pace” is more like my best 10k pace 5:03 
Thanks, Michael. I had a pretty decent FTP jump between SSB1 and SSB2, which has made for a pretty challenging start to SSB2. Guess that’s the downside to moving that threshold up!
Hope all is going well in the FD Base MV starting weeks for you. I was surprised to see week 1 start with a 1:20 weekend run, seemed long for first week? In terms of sticking to TR runs and swims, I am undecided right now. I’ve had a history of shin splints, IT band syndrome, plantar fasciitis, you name it. So anything but slow, Z2 ramp up in running gives me a bit of a scare. What is your plan?
Good luck in training and look forward to staying connected on the long road to November.
Ride
So upthread you’ll see that my approach was to substitute the short intense rides with hilly commutes, and do the long hours on the trainer…it’s not worked for me. I failed almost all the long trainer sessions, and the recent release on outdoor rides indicates I needed a much higher TSS to get the same benefits as the intense sessions. Plus my ftp didn’t improve in Build.
Long and short: do the quality rides indoors, do the endurance rides outdoors with an extra hour or so.
Swim
Looks like a classic sprinter-style tail off, dropping from 1:30 to 2:15/100. I’d do a CSS test which is designed to figure out your drop in pace as you go to endurance times. That will give you something that seems too slow like 2:00/100 and will recommend your 100 sets to be based around this time. The idea is that you never need to swim faster than your CSS (although I do), but a bit like sweet spot, you get the best bang for buck on it around CSS.
Whatever it gives will probably seem to slow, but I think if you’re cruising up and down breathing calmly and maintaining CSS pace for most of the main set, you’re doing it right.
My original plan for 2019 was Ironman Lanzarote. Unfortunately due to life and work commitments that has had to move out to 2020.
However, I’ve just signed up for Lanzarote 70.3 which takes place on 5th October 2019.
Can’t wait. I just love the island of Lanzarote 
@JulianM your recent post got me thinking about the need of different training stimuli during long progressions over many years. generalising here, for instance an athlete who has been doing a lot of volume may see significant gains from switching to a period of high intensity and vice versa.
out of interest, as you have been with TR that long, how do you experience this? what gains do you still experience from the different TR blocks eg SSB, SPB, …? there is only so much you can increase in terms of volume (LV-HV), although the plans utilise different intensities too.
great, I’m psyched for you. I had to laugh a little when I saw the IM in 2020 thread
I was just on Lanzarote for a surf escape & actually also considered the 70.3 there, next to challenge mallorca - but I haven’t committed yet.
