I can’t understand how anything swimming related doesn’t have a drill mode - I’m currently testing the SwimSmooth app which has plans filled with drills…and yet it has no drill mode. 
It’s like selling shoes without shoe laces.
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Thank you for the advice! I have a bit of a tri background (competed NCAA sprint distance in college) but this will be my first longer distance race.
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Thank you for the advice! May focus on running a lot more this summer, then add in more frequent swims, both pool and open water. Luckily I live a 10 minute walk from both a local natatorium and a small lake that is popular for open water swim training!
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If you and or your husband have never done ows racing… I would also strongly suggest doing a sprint tri or two before your 70.3
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Ironman Canada has been pushed back by a month from August 29th to September 26th… I’m thinking I’ll continue on and do it, but I have to admit all the comments I’m seeing from locals about the chance of the lake temperature plummeting has me nervous. 
Should be cooler temps overall though, and the sun won’t be up as long.
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As long as you do some acclimatisation to cold water you’ll be fine - even cold showers can help with this. Cooler water makes the swim easier once you get going imo as you won’t overheat, and if it’s anything near “too cold” they’ll cancel the swim anyway.
That certainly defeats the purpose/diminishes the experience for the first one though, and is something that would be extremely unlikely to happen at its normal time of year.
They’re very flexible on the options in how to proceed though:
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Unfortunately the new Canada date is now only a week after the Washington half which makes me nervous. As well as even the possibility of a canceled swim would really disappoint me right now. Given my schedule and fitness I think I’m looking at iron Man California, Waco, or Texas; probably in that order. Anyone have any insight between those three?
Edit: nevermind, pulled the trigger on California
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Ooh, I’m into the Adaptive Training 
Email actually arrived a week ago but I didn’t it notice it.
Not very impressive 
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I ran a new 5 km PB this week, finally broke the 18-minute mark with 17:50. Will test the 10 km in the next week probably.
I blew up on the 20-minute FTP test last week and progressed with the old FTP into the new block. Did 4x10 w 5-minute rest on Wednesday, completed McAdie (4x12 O/U with 6-minute rest) today.
Swam for the 1st time in nearly a this week. Did a Base 1000 meters test today. How I feel is best described with the picture below.
That’s all for now, slowly progressing
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Thanks Joe.
My May went pretty good following St. George 70.3.
Week 1 - 17 hours
Week 2 - 17 hours 45 mins
Week 3 - 15 hours 40 mins (deloading/recovery week of the plan
Week 4 - 18 hours 30 mins
Only took one day off after St. George 70.3 and just kept going on with the plan leading up to CdA Ironman. Been spending more time in the pool, getting in longer swims and starting to feel good in the water again. And just slowly building/keeping the bike and run volumes up. Upwards of 5 hour rides and a few 20 mile runs.
I did decide to make a nutrition change from Ucan to Infinit after St. George. Not because there was anything wrong with Ucan, just wanted to try Infinit, and Im pleased that I did. Will be going with that for CdA and 70.3 Worlds later in the year. Just working on dialing that in and hope to have a decent plan at least.
Keep up the good work everyone!
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Just a quick post race post.
Finish times per race tracking
Swim 34.41
Bike 2.35.54
Run 1.49.42
Total 5.07.24
We had a brutal head wind today. Quite painful watching your speed drop from 38kmh to high 20’s/ low 30’s in an instant.
Overall, super happy with my performance. Not quite the sub 5 I was hoping for, but considering the conditions I’m stoked with my performance today.
Time for some food and beers!
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Great performance!
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So, looking at future training. How would you guys recommend raising race power from around the 200/210w mark to up around the 300w mark over the course of about 10 months to a year?
I say race power instead of FTP because at the moment my ftp is about 239w and raced at an estimated* (strava estimation 213w) 200/210w which actually felt about right comparing to trainer sets I’ve done.
Cheers
I’d call it a ‘stretch goal’, if you were young and untrained. You’re talking about raising your threshold by about 60%.
Once you are at a decent volume of structured training you’re talking about small gains from there, I peaked at 293W FTP after a dedicated bike block using Sustained Power Build MV last year - that was a 10% gain over previous years. I’m at 265W now, and held 195W for a virtual half recently, I think 211W last summer. So I’d suggest your FTP is a bit higher than you’re currently measuring.
Rather than set an arbitrary goal, how about optimising your training and seeing how well you improve?
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Ah ok, I was using the 70.3 MV plan but switched the build out for the POL 8 week plan, so I’d say I have a fairly decent volume of structured training. Might be a long stretch to increase by that much. Over the course of a few ramp tests my FTP has always hovered around the 240w mark so maybe the estimation of Strava and bike feel was lower than the 200w I thought. Once I’ve recovered a bit more it might pay to see about doing a 2.5hr/90k TT on the trainer at around the 200-210w mark to see how I perform again.
What do you mean by “optimising your training and seeing how well you improve”?
Well, I think the TR team talk about process goals on the podcast every so often, as opposed to outcome goals.
We can control how much we train, how hard we train, how much sleep we get, how good our nutrition is and so on - but we cannot decide how strong we will get as a result.
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Well, that’s me deferred until 2022 
With the chaos the is international travel … no option really
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What’s happened?
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There is no way France is going to be on the Green list for England along with England been green from France.
The stress of it was starting to impact my mental health, so I took the defer option.
I think I may switch focus to some ultra running in the UK
My ironman fitness is probably better than it has been in a long time, so it is a shame 
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