The Ironman Training 2020 Thread

August 8th 2020
https://www.ironman.com/triathlon/events/emea/ironman/finland.aspx#axzz64vh0iSnf

Start now, build slowly and you’ll be fine.

Welcome to the club :slightly_smiling_face:

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Well, a month or so into my triathlon training and it’s been up and down! Had a couple of weeks off running due to some achilles soreness, then stopped swimming as I was getting a muscular niggle in my upper right arm. So upped the yoga and cycling the last couple of weeks.

Did a race Sunday, a short off-road duathlon which went great! Took the first 2 mile run really easy and achilles didn’t hurt, then hit the 10 mile MTB rise hard and hung on for the last 2 mile run. Really felt like stopping and walking the last 5 minutes of the second run! But carried on on was suprised and happy to finish 5th in my age group. It was a pretty low key race but still I was happy with the result - mainly the fact that I paced it well and survived without injury!

I’m going to take it steady getting going with the running again and went for a swim yesterday where my arm seemed back to normal so happy days. Next race in 2 weeks in South Wales, another off road duathlon at Afan - anyone on here doing that?

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Welcome to the thread, and to triathlon!

You’ll want to start swimming ASAP, and easy running in the new year.

Try to find the earliest local triathlon you have and enter that.

Let us know how your prep over winter goes :+1:

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Well, I think I am recovered enough from my chest infection to start training again.

I tried a walk yesterday, will do a short run tonight and hope to restart SSB1 again tomorrow.
After having over 2 weeks off, I think I am going to restart SSB from the beginning … fingers crossed

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Good luck. But I hope you won’t set an example. People who go the full distance so soon are, in hindsight, rarely happy about having done so. If I may give you a bit of advice, race as many tris as you can before Kuopio.

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You should add that you have a solid cycling base though - otherwise you would indeed be crazy :slight_smile:

As others said - you want to focus on swimming immediately - it’s the most technical discipline and the sooner you get comfortable, the better. Also, practice some brick sessions with swim → bike - I overlooked it a bit and on my first tris I struggled to breath correctly after bad swim when I drank too much water / air into the stomach.

Good luck and enjoy the journey !

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After a 45days or so of a break (side brag: acctually I did two epic rides around Stelvio and Mortirolo while travelling with my wife), I did a 5 week prep using SSBI - LV + Long rides in the weekend, while slowly building my swim and run. Peaked at 10hrs last week. Next week I’ll start the Full Distance Med Vol Plan.

Today I starded a recovery week and I did Pettit. Man, it´’s not the first time since joining TR that I had a hard time doing an endurance work, while nailing the hard stuff. Anybody has experienced something similar?

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Do as many tris as you can between now and August. There are SOOOOOOO many intricacies into doing 3 different sports in rapid succession that you need the experience to avoid undue stress, which will already be plentiful come race day. You can read up all you want on checklists, dos and donts, newbie guides, etc. But only experience will properly prepare you.

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Started SSB LV 2 today. FTP +3%

Not sure I should be testing as I’ve been a bit under the weather and my blood pressure is up significantly, nevertheless I didn’t slay myself and still got a bump up which is nice.

Also, as my dumb trainer is stuck at resistance 10, I had to do a lot of low cadence 55-65rpm stuff, so uniquely after a RAMP my breathing was much less laboured but my thighs were like rocks! :sweat_smile:

I might substitute lifting for swim until I see my doctor, and retest in a week or two.

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Thanks Joe! I am doing the WC Taupo in Nov so you can remove the ? from my entry.

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I’ll be doing 70.3 Tremblant and the Full this year! The venue is amazing. Hopefully nothing will change with the change of race directors this year.

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Good news! Sold out already it seems too.

I’m registered for IM Texas. I’m on my eighth week of the TR mid-volume base plan and intend to complete the 28-week build-base-specialize sequence. So far everything is going well. I have completed 74 of 77 possible workouts and am averaging 10.5 hours per week with three swims, four bikes and four runs.

When I kicked off my training I scored a little low on the ramp test, about 10-15 watts lower than I expected. I’ve been tempted to re-test or just raise it a few watts because the rides have not been terribly difficult, especially recently. On the other hand, I over did it on the high volume Olympic plan last year and got a little burned out. This year I’m trying to be cautious. Also, my running and swimming are going great and I’ve been able to do all my rides in aero position, so I think I’ll resist the urge to go harder on the bike and just be patient. I’ll have plenty of time to hurt on the bike in the build phase!

I live in Chicago and we are already in a deep freeze, so all the rides going forward are going to be inside. My next outdoor ride might be in Texas!

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Keep it up on MV to keep motivated. I am heading to Chicago tomorrow for an up and back work trip from ATL and definitely bringing a coat, hat and gloves. We are in a freeze here for us (22 degrees) but nothing like you.

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Has anyone experienced weight gain during intense training? I have gained about 5lbs in the past 2 weeks (152 to 157lbs). I am training between 18-22 hrs a week with 1k TSS average.

Could it be that I am underestimating how much I am eating and therefore getting into a caloric surplus? Possibly, but I time my carbs around workouts and keep my calories between 2500-3500 dpending on the day following the Endurance diet. I weigh things out when I can but not always, so I guess I could be “underestimating” how much I am eating here. On the flip side, it would be hard to replace the calories that I buring in a day given that I typically burn 2-4k. My clothing still fits fine and just doing a simple pinch test, it is hard to find any belly fat. My abs are still visible and even more defined than before. My Tanita scale has me at 13% (up from 12% before)

Could it be muscle? Doubtful beause given the amount of carido I am doing (2-3+ per day), I doubt I can be putting on muscle right now. I do yoga/core strength twice a week and TRX body work once a week, so am not lifting heavy.

Is it water weight? Maybe? But why? How do I get rid of that?

Ideally I would like to get down to the low to mid 140s which I have done before but the opposite seems to be happening. Thoughts? Advice?

I’ve done this with 2 tacx boosters. Level 3 allows to spin at 50w but still do 350w intervals. Just.

I’m now on an Elite Muin I was given for free.

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Gaining body fat on ~20hrs per week is unusual but it has happened to me, and I don’t have a clear explanation in the calories model.

However, I gave up on calories years ago because of this, and I would suspect it’s not because you are not counting correctly, it’s because “calories out” is a totally unreliable figure.”, and how you process food doesn’t match whatever algorithm is generating that number.

What’s your carb in take, and when are you eating what?

Also, bear in mind that if you’re in the northern hemisphere, as we enter winter our bodies are designed to store fat.

EDIT
Just saw that you’re at 12% BF on the other thread, so I’d just suspect it’s seasonal change and allow it.

Thank you everyone for the feedback. Truly appreciate the supportive mood of this forum!

I am already incorporating short brick runs and will start my swimming journey next week. Ran 6.5 km this morning, which is the longest distance this year haha.

Just a bit of background so perhaps my decision will not seem AS CRAZY:

  • I have taken swimming classes before. Never done long-distance but had the ability to swim 200 meters in 4 min 20 sec. is that fast? No. But it is also something not doable by doggie paddle
  • As my FTP is around 360 and I am a “solid” ~4.5w/kg, I am not really sweating the bike split.
  • I have ran a few half marathons with a leisurely time of around 2 hours and my best 10K was 43 minutes and change.

Anyway, I will keep everyone posted and try to enjoy the process to the fullest.

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Thanks for the advice and the insights. I will just roll with it for now and hope that it plateaus soon.

Typically my nutrition goes as follows (Monday-Thursday):
5-6am Pre workout either fasted or a little bit of cereal or oats +coffee
Morning workout: 75 min-120min of intensity either cycling or running
7:30-8am Post workout breakfast: oats or cereal, fruit (apple typically) plus a protein (egg whites or protein powder), coffee
Noonish: Lunch of vegetables, salad, chicken breast, if working out soon rice or WW pita, and/or apple
Pre workout: only if I am sluggish and its a longish workout fruit and maybe some oats or cereal with protein powder
4-6ish Afternoon workout: 120ish min swim plus run, or bike + yoga but low intensity typically
6-7ish Post workout dinner: grilled veggies, rice, hummus, salad, greek yogurt, chicken breast, fish, or other protein source.
Prebed (9ish): Protein of some sort, sometimes cereal if I have a craving for it.
*****coffee is either black or with no sugar cashew milk and liquid stevia.

So all in all, most likely 350g of carbs if you include the veggies?

Long workout days (Friday and Saturday) are different

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