Oh disregard my advice then. I interpreted that to be ‘first IM.’. My bad. I don’t pay enough attention to usernames… 
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Reminds me. I need to look around me to see what Olympic and sprints are available. I love them except for the fact that sprints at $120+ feel like ripoffs. Nothing like the short hard hurts of sprints. I also love 5k/10ks so I may be wired like that. To me 70.3’s feel much closer to an Olympic than a full IM.
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Prices, yes. I like Sprint events but it’s hard to avoid the “well, if I’m paying that I may as well do the Standard…” mentality.
I’ll have to take more time to find run races and ones that fit into the training plan. I’d like to see if I can improve my 5k time, but I think half marathon racing is where I should be.
So I’ve put a bunch of Olympic events into plan builder, and it’s given me Olympic Speciality > FD Build > FD Speciality. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but sounds good to me…now to see if I can get permission to enter four Oly’s and a 70.3…
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So finally made up my mind. Started a 2.5 year track to get to my first Full IM. This year only doing a Sprint in Sept, after two years of very inconsistent training, family loss and too much work stress, need to rebuild. Next year will target first 70.3 and 2022, for my 45th b-day the full. Compliance is improving, the weight is starting to come down. And getting close to convincing my wife to her first Tri - having my 8 yo push is helping - she already has 3 tris under her belt, with 2 1st place finishes and 1 2nd place in her young age group.
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Welcome Mike, great that your daughter is already a triathlete 
I like a man who plans ahead for IM, 2.5y is a good time frame to build up fitness and figure out what the hell is going on before committing your hard earned cash.
Plan compliance with triathlon is that much harder due to the number of sessions so don’t beat yourself up too much, but you are right - consistency wins.
Yes she has taken a knack for it. DId the smae Sprint race a bit over 2 years ago and missed age group podium by 3 secs - I stopped to say to hi to my daughters just before the finish
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Thought I would post again post new bike day trainer ride!
Previous FTP 291, new FTP 299! I plan to do another FTP test once I get a bike fit at the end of the month and get my position more dialed in; currently I am slammed as far as the uncut stem can go, so I need to cut it to get back to my old position and get my seatpost cut so it looks aero af. However, the gain of 8 watts was pretty good and TBH if I knew I was so close to 300, I would have held on a bit longer 
Max hr was lower than my previous tests so I think I had a bit more in the tank. However, I cant complain about the 4.27 W/kg number on the new whip. It has nothing to do with the SSBMVII I nailed on the ol speed concept though… hahaha!!!
On the mention of new bike, damn is the P5x really, really nice on the trainer. I have a neo but the lack of the seat tube allows for much more movement on the bike and holy hell, is it more comfortable. Like yeah I know its basically the most pimped out bike you can get it better be comfortable yadda yadda but shit man, the lack of seat tube is really noticeable on the trainer. I will need to try longer rides but it was a joy to ride on the neo. Might be placebo affect and NBD feels but it is really, really, really nice. Too bad its gonna be months before this thing can go on its maiden voyage… unless I want to brave -40 lmfao
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There just aren’t a lot of Oly’s in the UK, think race organisers feel that if they are doing traffic management on that amount of road they may as well just do it on 56 miles.
Alright, a roady here officially signed up for first couple 70.3’s - First lower key event (I hope) is the Napa HIT Triathlon April 4th, then doing Santa Rosa 70.3 in May and then planning to do CDA just need to lock down some details first. I plan to continue to road race throughout - my thought is that my high end isn’t going to be top notch, but as I only recently upgrade to cat3 in Norcal, figure the longer duration SS/Tempo work will help me adjust to that peloton anyhow (I hope?!). I built a plan to peak for Santa Rosa that I am supplementing some extra riding in to. Goal is swim 3 days a week, run 2-3 days and ride 5-6 days/~13hrs training a week (8 on bike). I have many questions about all the various little details of Tri I need to figure out so I’m sure I’ll be consulting this thread often. Happy Friday All, talk soon. Stu
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Welcome. I’m actually going to dipping my toe back into road racing this year with a crit or two once I de-convert my Caad10 back to a proper roadbike. (P2 or P3 incoming soon I hope)
Good call on the shorter races at first to help you navigate this weird sport. Swim bike run seems so simple but damn if there aren’t a lot of moving parts.
Let us know how we can help and BTW, what plan are you looking at doing? And are you going to follow the TR run/swim portion as well as the bike?
Not fun news. I went to see my sports doc today, and got diagnosed with Osteitis Pubis. It seems I have tried to ramp up my core and single leg strength training too quickly. Pair that with an 8 week block of Sweet Spot Low Volume, some rides out side, and some swimming and you have yourself an overuse injury.
It’s better than the alternative, that i thought I had a Sports Hernia of some sort. Did a bunch of tests with my sports doc and he’s pretty confident it will heal…with 2-3 weeks of no training 
I’m still in good shape, as I’m training for Ohio 70.3 in July and Wisconsin 140.6 in September.
Has anyone dealt with this injury?
Did my first swim time trial today in a while and am pretty happy with my progress – did a 1kyd in 14:13 and a 100yd in 1:09…my goal of swimming a full-distance swim in under an hour by this summer is starting to look somewhat feasible.
Overall progress is going well. Took a pretty big TSS hit over Christmas and the new year but still managed to get a lot of running in. Last week was pretty rough with a looooong weekend ride and then a two hour run the next day. I ended up bailing on a vo2max workout two days later and doing a recovery ride because my legs were so shot. Next week will be similar with the long ride and run, and then I have a recovery week before going into the mid-distance build phase. I’m really excited to start doing some over-unders and longer vo2max intervals instead of doing Phoenix/Cumberland on repeat every week in the base phase.
Also looking forward to a bit more run speedwork and maybe registering for some 5ks or 10ks this spring to open up and see what I can do with this good base under me.
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Are you doing T26 as well? Because I just did the same test
@Irondad45, that injury will heal quickly. Good thing it’s not a hernia!
@Achin, might as well put it 300. It’s within the error rate of the PM
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Yup. I started up about two months ago and so far have been doing the two A workouts each week, a masters swim group one night a week, and then either the B/C workout or a long base swim on Sunday. I think the technique phase helped out a bit, but more than anything the increase in volume is what I think is making me faster and stronger.
Edit: @Alen how long have you been doing it and what do you think of the program overall?
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Rick Ashburn who was a regular poster on slowtwitch 15-18 years ago created that chart. Friel has used it as a resource since then, but it was created by Rick Ashburn.
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Did not know that - thanks. 
I started last December. I’m quite a bit slower than you are. I told myself that I would give it a 2 year try before I judge it. It seems only fair because gains can sometimes take time. Swimming is frustrating though. I saw a jump in my endurance initially. Then I hit a plateau for 5-6 months after which I suddenly became 4-5 seconds faster across all distances in the pool. I thought I took another step a month ago but then I got sick and I feel I took a step back again. My initial 1000TT was 16:10, then 15:27 last May, and just did this one at 15:24. I feel that I had a bad day/tired in this last one and I’m sure I can go about 15:00.
As far as my race times, my 70.3 last year were 38&39 min. About 1 min improvements from prior but in both races and my IM, I’ve had my best bike times. I can feel that the muscular endurance is higher and I’m fresher out of water.
I think this will be my last year on it even if it is an improvement. It seems like they redo similar plans this year as last. Since there is no on deck coaching, I’m pretty much just paying for a plan with videos.
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I had been considering my first attempt at a full IM this year, but my main focus for 2020 now is going to be 70.3 Worlds in November, so I’ve decided to put off the full till at least next year.
Instead I’ve entered 70.3 Elsinore in June as my first A race (part way through base for that already) and then a bit of recovery before full base/build/spec for November.
Also in the diary as C Races I’ll be doing a spring marathon as one of my long runs, and an off road marathon towards the end of build phase. I have a Gran Fondo lined up in May as well.
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I finally did it! I bought an actual triathlon bike!
After knocking out a 4:59 bike split at IMFL on my Caad10 franken-bike I figured I earned the right to treat myself. So I went to the bike fitter a couple weeks ago, and he recommended a P2/P3 frame for me as that would give me room in every direction to play with my fit. So being the cheap-ass I am, I opted for the P2. It has a pretty lame looking basebar and 105 components vs Ultegra vs the P3. But I plan on swapping out the cockpit with a 51 speedshop or TriRig monoriser and I’ll probably put Di2 on it later this year or next year. I’m a little bummed I won’t be passing people on my creaky aluminum bike and BB30, but very excited to gain that extra min or two over the Oly and couple more over IM.
Also very stoked to get my road bike back, so I’ll probably check out the crit scene here this summer as well 
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Excellent, I’ll put you down for that, pop into the running thread as I’m discussing spring marathon training there myself:
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