I’ve been pretty much totally indoor biking for a while now, one thing I’ve noticed is executing smooth power outside needs some additional attention before race day, and…practice race day maintenance! When I was a commute rider I was always fixing something, so I didn’t need practice. Plus it’s a distraction during taper
@mitchellgsides
Those goal times are super impressive, sounds like you have the bike skills some of us can only dream of! As it’s your first full, don’t be too hard on yourself - things will go wrong, usually you can recover from them, long bricks at IM pace (not half pace) with all your race day nutrition can help prep.
All is well, I am very grateful at the moment. This time everything just clicks. Two of my projects at work are nearing their end meaning there are very few long days at work, the pool near the office has opened again after renovations and I have been dodging the winter cold and flu until now. No injuries neither.
I have been working harder and more often than ever before and it shows. Still on half distance mid volume specialty, but heavily modified by my coach. I have found a weekly volume that is pushing my boundaries, it appears that 600-650TSS with about half of it on the trainer is all I can recover. I have sleep and nutrition maxed out and immediately feel the fatigue mounting when one or the other suffers for whatever reason. However I did not slow down over the holidays and as a result I am lighter, stronger and faster than ever this early in the year.
Swim: It is coming along. Nothing extraordinary, but I will be able to swim comfortably without losing too much time. I see my 100m repeats slowly improving now after dipping with the club again and having the coach help clean up my stroke a bit. I find it hard to plan my pacing and manage my own expectations. Race day will likely be no wetsuit, swimskin and calm ocean swim, anyone have a clue what split I can expect relative to my pool splits?
Bike: I have successfully brought my year-best 4w/kg from my roadbike to my aerobars. Can hold position at tempo for expected duration without too much trouble. All I am wondering is now what I should be working on until the race. Coach still has me doing a lot of vo2 and threshold work while the TR plans at this stage are heavily skewed towards tempo and threshold. Any opinions?
Run: This will sound stupid and repetitive, but I am extremely satisfied with my running. Running more often, going hard only once per week (and then really going to the well) continues to work for me. My 1000m repeats are down to hi 3:20s, 2000m repeats to mid 7:20s. Last week I hit a sub20 5k within a 4*1000 session, including the 2min recovery jogs. Only uncertainty at the moment is how all this power translates to the sustained race day effort. My long runs sits at 18k in the hi 4:50s, but my speed sessions are approaching 16k as well. The plans says I’ll next start to end my long runs with tempo effort near expected race pace and I guess that’s when I will get a clearer picture of what to expect.
Weekly TSS break down (strictly speaking the last 3 are peak and not build anymore)
I’m fairly comfortable in OW, I don’t flip turn and my swim splits in pool pretty much match OW efforts in wetsuits. Your swim suit will do some to mediate the lack of wetsuit buoyancy, but for me the biggest effect on my swim time is finding fast feet. It’s hard to know how fast you’re going, as the effort feels easier when your on someone’s feet, but someone you can hold on to without feeling it in the shoulders works for me.
As for Coach vs TR, well I’d usually say pick one approach and stick with it, sounds like there may be two competing approaches to training. TR leans towards specificity nearer race day, I suppose I wouldn’t be prioritising VO2 intervals in the final six weeks.
@WildWill. I know how you feel, good work struggling through, the pool is for when your sinuses are clear
8 weeks into my program and I’m doing well in all 3 disciplines. I’m very happy and grateful with that, given that we’ve had our 3rd baby last August and the mom being competitive, she noticed that Ironman preparation is cool and decided to start triathlons too - heck, she’s also trying out TrainerRoad this month ! (she’s loving it so far)
Swim: The adaptation to bilateral breathing is almost done - it feels much more natural now and I start to see progress in speed. I also watched a bit of videos and read about the high elbow catch and although I do see big speed improvement when trying to do it, it still requires a lot of work - on anything longer than 100m I can’t keep it yet in a somewhat correct form. Anyway, I’m around swimming 1’55 for 100m on average now, down from 2’10 in January 2019. And I still feel quite a lot of potential for improvement.
Bike: I’m able to do all the workouts of the FullTri Mid Volume plan which is great. I didn’t do a Ramp Test since July and I honestly don’t want to do it I know I’ve progressed - I’m at 287 FTP now and I feel I will test around 300 now, but I’m not sure I have the mental energy to fight so hard on every workout. It’s already pretty challenging as the recovery is not that great lately.
Run: Given that I live in Paris suburbs and we have strikes in public transportation since beginning December here, running was pretty strong ! I was already commuting ~2 evenings per week by running, I increased a bit now (+ occasional bike commute). My knee seems completely fixed now, and I’m finally able to train enough to progress. Started introducing longer runs last week.
Weight: This was one big error last year - this year I’m quite focused on that and I’m already almost on target for the event. As this is done mainly by dropping almost all alcohol consumption, it’s a win-win. ~77kg for 1m83, I think I will go down to ~75kg by march and maybe drop an additional 1kg before the race.
I’m in my second full tri season, and I still love every minute of training !
Well as a number of people have posted a bit of blurb on where they are and where they want to be for their A race, I thought I’d get a few of my thoughts/goals out there.
This year will be my 19th doing Triathlon and 15th doing Ironman. A have 12 IM’s under my belt with one DNF. The DNF was last year at IM Vichy, a combination of Heat, Hills and wrong gearing and I pulled out at the half marathon stage.
So, this year I am going back to Vichy to prove a point (But they’ve added in even more hills)
SWIM: I have a very uncommon approach to swim training. I don’t do much of it. The last 3 or 4 years I have not started swim training until May/June and then I just get in and swim continually, twice/week, for an hour or 2 using a tempo trainer. (I feel too many people spend to much time doing intervals for IM when the biggest limiter in IM swimming is Strength Endurance and Technique) This approach normally gets my around 1:15 for the swim.
BIKE: I am a crap cyclist - I am too big, too slow, suffer a bit dyspraxia, and have a dodgy back. The bike is where I look to spend time instead of swimming. I’ve just used TR plan builder and will be starting my (MV) plan next Monday. And I am thinking of racing on my road-bike rather than my tri-bike (better gearing) If I push myself, I hope to get close to my best IM bike time of 6:00. Also I have a B event of a very hilly 110mile Sportive at the end of June, to assess my progress.
RUN: Normally, I am so goosed after the bike that my run is more about survival. I am hoping to improve on that, this time round, although my target will be slow for some (5:00), I have gone sub 5 in IM a couple of times in the past, although I can run a stand-alone marathon in 4:15 on 3-or-4 weeks training and have a 3:45 PB . I am to do a lot of brick running and will probably build up to running a half marathon most weeks.
WEIGHT : The least said the better. But I put it here that I need to drop around 20lbs to achieve the above
Thanks for the check-in @JoeX.
I’m currently in long-distance move purgatory; I’ve been running a little but haven’t biked or been to the pool in weeks. We’ve also moved from a bungalow to a townhouse and these first few days of boxes and stairs has been killing me.
Hoping to start with full distance base on Jan 13th.
Thought I would write an update so I can look back on it closer to race day. Going for IM UK in July, up til now I have done 2 sprint tris
Swim:
Seen as though I am very new to swimming I’m happy with how it is going. An added bonus being a lady asked me in the pool yesterday if I swim competitively as I have a lovely style. I was convinced I looked like I was drowning whilst swimming so that was nice. However breathing is still my limiter, I’m breathing bi-lateraly, and can breathe every 3 or every 5 but just don’t seem to be able to get past 400m without a rest. I’m going to see a coach this week so looking forward to that.
Bike:
Havnt been doing specific ironman training, just my usual cycling for fun, but that includes pretty intense enduro/MTB rides and century cafe rides. So did a ramp test last night to start properly training and it ended up as 255, so I feel like I’m ok on that side of things.
Run:
Also fairly new to running so I’m taking things very steady to try and avoid injury, getting out and running 5ks when I can, no real structure. Did an hour on the treadmil, 15 mins at 10kmh then 1min fast walk repeated. Again running seems very hard to me so this will have to be a focus along with swimming.
Weight:
Basically the same as when I was 16, I never seem to put weight on and eat like a horse so unless I have a major metabolism change in the next 6 months this should be fine.
Also, where were people at for there first IM 6 months out? Im only aiming to finish so realistic goal, but I feel maybe I should be further ahead with 6 months to go?
Thanks for the check-in @JoeX. After completing successfully the mid-volume full distance plan in late December, I got sick while traveling over the holidays and couldn’t exercise at all for eight days. At this point, it’s pretty much guaranteed that on my flight to IMTX I will be wearing a mask and dripping with hand sanitizer. I’m almost back to full health now and kicked off the build phase this morning with a ramp test. I improved 8% from the start of the base phase and am sitting on a 3.8 power-to-weight ratio. I’m hoping to get it up to 4+ by IMTX. I don’t think there is anything magical about crossing 4, but it gives me something to shoot for and will boost my confidence.
Turning the calendar over to 2020 sure made this race seem a lot closer!
@Scheherazade It was that kind of heavy work at home that pushed me into lifting last autumn, can’t say I’m super strong now, but I don’t get the aches I did previously from shifting boxes around on ladders and digging, etc.
@pstalley still people checking in at the sick house thread, good to see you’re back quickl;y and FTP still rising.
@simoncatchpowle for my first IM six months out I could comfortably do a 5 hr half distance. You have plenty of time, just make sure to ramp up running early and slowly.
@pstalley even more important than mask and hand sanitizer are good earbuds! Make sure you drown out all the noise related stress.
Hey! It seems like it will be another busy year on this thread!
So, from my side after having a very frustrating day on IMCZ i decided i needed some extended vacation from triathlons and did the obvious solution for any problem in life. I bought a new bike, a Gravel Bike. With that, i changed my training plans for the year 180dgs and i have no plans to swim, bike or run in the same week until late July, when i start training for Taupo.
My race plans are a marathon in early march and got my fingers crossed for the dirty kanza lottery and that’s it for the first semester.
For the second semester i’ll get back in the swing of triathlons with short local races, Waco 70.3 and 70.3 Worlds and that’s it. I’m also looking for a marathon to do on the second semester. NY, maybe, if i’m lucky to get a slot.
And that’s it for me. No full IMs in 2020 and looking forward for lots of fun training.
IMAZ is 11months away and it’s downhill skiing season now. Last year i just skied and enjoyed a long (no triathlon ) training winter. In 2020, I have found that DH skiing wears out my legs/quads the same way than running does so i haven’t been able to ramp back up my running as much as i planned. Biking on trainer is ok however. Any tips on how to combine skiing and running in same week?
As it’s your first full, don’t be too hard on yourself - things will go wrong, usually you can recover from them, long bricks at IM pace (not half pace) with all your race day nutrition can help prep.
I know I’ve progressed - I’m at 287 FTP now and I feel I will test around 300 now, but I’m not sure I have the mental energy to fight so hard on every workout. It’s already pretty challenging as the recovery is not that great lately.
