The Ironman Training 2021 Thread

Training
1446

Cheers @JoeX for the call up!

All is well. I am just suffering a bit of forum and discord fatigue.

I have just deferred my entry for St George in September to Lahti 23. Even though I am scheduled for my second shot in two weeks I am not willing to bet that I’ll be able to travel by then. They wouldn’t let me defer to Taupo and so Finland it is. This opens up 22 for a casual full distance and I might go for Roth. I hear that the morning after the race you can sign up then and there for next year. Hmmm.

To keep the lights on for this season I signed up for 70.3 Slovenia on the same day of St George. Preparation is okay. After 6 weeks in the pool my swim fitness is coming along just fine. Running is good even though I am still lacking the flat out speed I had last season. And on the bike, I don’t really know. I’ve focused heavily on raising my power output in my aero position. My FTP is 0.2 w/kg below previous seasons, but I can do all of my tempo and SS rides entirely in my aero bars, something I was never able to do before. So it appears that I’ll be able to push a higher percentage of a lower FTP in a race scenario and time will tell whether I made a good deal.

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1447

what have you been doing to get it back up Joe ?

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1448

Just being patient I think.

No great changes, my six week average TSS looks the same for SBR a bit more on the bike perhaps. Although I have raced twice and had a little recovery.

It’s only been three weeks or so since my last test so it should be more a case of revealing my bike fitness built over the year than sudden adaptations I think.

Swam fairly hard the morning of the test and ran the day before too so it’s not like I had extra recovery.

It also gives me confidence that the new plans and adaptive training aren’t making me weaker with the apparently easier workloads.

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1449

I had a steady June hitting all my workouts except for 2 short runs I cut out. Hours and TSS slowly ramping up across all disciplines. I am in my final week of my 2nd build block towards IMC. I’m still following a plan I built myself with a modified BarryP run plan and relatively low structure on the bike, as it is my strength.

I’ve also lost 10 lb in June and am back down to my pre-covid (offseason) weight and feeling good about hitting my target race weight.

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1450

Thanks @JoeX been a way from the computer since the call out. Last months training was pretty good
45k swim
520 bike
85 run, not feeling 100%
5.9 hours of strength work
Started my Build for IM Chattanooga
Raced Kinetic Multisports Jamestown Olympic. I had an absolute horrible swim, but as it turned out just about everyone else did as well. Came out of the water way behind people I should have stayed with. In T2 I decided to just turn myself inside out and hammer the bike and survive the run. PR’d both the Bike and Run which was good enough to pull myself up to third in age group. I was able to out run a good friend by 1 second (he beat me by 15 seconds two weeks prior in a stand alone 10K).

Felt a little off the week after the race, resting HR 8 beats higher than average and a stuffy head so I eased up on my running. Came back strong on my 2:30 run Sunday, two 1:15 loops, first loop pace of 7:43, overall pace ended up being 7:40 with the last two miles being the fastest of the day 7:29 7:28

My training partners and myself have another Hot Olympic on the 18th.

Happy training

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1451

So I’m trying to follow plan builder as close as I can. On the runs, I will sub in my own workout from a library of prior plans. Same with swimming. But I run on the days it has a run scheduled, and try to swim 3x a week (or more), sliding around the swims when I can get them in.

I realized there is essentially no active recovery days. My only prior coached training, Monday was an easy recovery day. Tuesday was a hammer run. Wednesday was a hammer bike. Thursday was an easy form focused run, Friday was an easy recovery spin. Focusing on preparation for a big weekend. Long interval bike Saturday and brick run. Long interval run on Sunday. And fit in 3-4 swims when able. The active recovery days Thursday and Friday were very helpful. But it seems like every workout on the TR plan is a HARD workout. The only “easy” run is the Sunday long run, and typically that’s where I’m doing race pace (or below race pace) repeats. I’m giving the plan an honest shot. But would building one some active recovery days help make the more intense workouts more productive?

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1452

Due to taking the choice to Defer … my IM training mojo has deserted me.
Instead I’m doing a series of challenges.
( so far done a DIY Half and a run 24 challenge)

This month is swim 100k in the month

Currently a little ahead of schedule at 32k

Next month will be a bike challenge

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1453

It’s good to hear you kept it up and it’s working for you.

I bailed on that run format, went back to it, bailed again, now I’ve been using Garmin Coach run plans for 11 weeks now - more than the plan itself, I think it’s the external structure and prompting that is keeping me running, a bit like completing TR plans.

I have not lost my off season weight…so we’ll done :+1:

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1454

Thats really cool actually. I might try that 100k swim challenge actually leading up into my half iron in september. Will hopefully help boost the swim speed

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1455

IM Calgary 70.3 just got a little more interesting only 3 weeks out from race day with the third iteration of the planned bike course–the first one was 94km, the second was 86km and this one’s juuuuust right at 90km. :joy: Of course, there’s now a crap tonne of climbing (~4400’/1340m) to be had and a lot of ups and downs!

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I guess they also didn’t want the bike course to feel jealous of all the turns on the swim course… :rofl:

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1456

I hope you’re good at sighting, lol

1457

See you there. This one will be more of an obstacle course than anything. Not mad at the added elevation. Decent prep race for St. George in Sept.

1458

I’d dig that, climbing and open water skills tend to work in my favour. Not much of that to be found here in Aus sadly!

1459

Same for IMC. Although, this course looks like a constant roller coaster rather than anything long and sustained–interval climb training! :joy:

1460

Hi all. Going to be an interesting full distance in a fortnight. (Outlaw, nottingham, England)

I’ve maintained c.20 hours a week pretty much for 8 months and have stayed clear of injuries do feeling pretty good.

But I’ve not done many ‘big’ rides and longest run days have been 2 hours or some double run days of c3 hours.

Reason is simply that I was focusing on half distance until 4 weeks ago and this has sneaked up a bit.

Targeting sub 9:30 although AG win would be A goal and might need to be a little bit faster.

Good luck to all racing soon!

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1461

Not to mention the U turns. Might be some carnage on that bike course :boom:

1462

@JoeX thanks for the roll call.

Here’s my race report from the recent Outlaw Half Holkham.

Difficult lead up to the race, with demands of 2 kids under 2 ramping up all the time. Lack of swim training was slightly concerning, and I lacked the longer bike rides I would usually have done. On the positive side, a recent half marathon PB and a consistent approach to strength training had left me in a good position. Overall I felt really well prepared for the race, my A race for the year.

Targets:
Swim: 40 mins
Bike: 2:50
Run: 1:55

Had a really long drive down the day before, and lots of delays left me with a drive of 10 hours. Got there around 1600, racked the bike and got to the hotel for a quick sleep. Solid meal then back to the room for sleep. I started feeling absolutely awful not long after dinner, streaming nose, sore head, really blocked up. Great timing :frowning: I was actually worrying at this point if I would get to the start line. I fell asleep at 2000 and slept until 0400, when I got up feeling quite a bit better, at my oats and banana and headed to the race.

SWIM - 45:17 for 2350m
Swim was a staggered start, setting off at 5 second intervals. I had no real expectations for the swim, with it being my weakest discipline, and lack of training due to covid. It went ok - I felt fine, but was kind of put off by all the weeds and the stink of goose sh.t. The sun was really low and bright which made sighting difficult, but looking at other folks’ results, almost everyone was long. Anyway, came out the water feeling fine.

BIKE - 3:10
Started cramping up in the stomach the moment I got on the bike. Never experienced anything like it, least of all this early in a race before fuelling had even begun. Could not apply the power or stay in aero, and actually needed to stop at a porta loo. Quite a nice, rolling bike course which would have been pretty fast on a good day. I was struggling the whole way through to take any nutrition on, and doubting I would be able to run. On reflection I am wondering if I swallowed some rancid water in the lake, because I can’t think of any other reason for the pain. Target NP was 240 and I ended up with 200 :frowning:

RUN - 2:16:41
Getting off the bike releived my stomach cramps, but I had missed out on so much nutrition and spent so much energy that the run became a battle of attrition really quickly. It was painfully slow, I jogged all the way around. Even on a good day it would have been a hard run as it was so hilly.

Overall: 6:21:09

A disaster really. Glad I got it done, but frustrated that I was not able to express my fitness. It was a decent race, not much support from spectators out on the run or bike, but not too bad in the actual park. On reflection I might not travel so far in the car the day before in future. The plan was always to focus on sprints after this one, so onwards and upwards.

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1463

If i have a target power for a half distance event. How do you guys go about pacing the bike leg. With regards to up hills, down hills and that jazz ? There’s about 2800ft of elevation. With only 2 real hills at the end. (IronBourne Middle distance)

1464

See if you can get time to play with Best Bike Split, that route and your numbers.

I simplify it for the basic gradients, for example

Target 200W

-4 0W
-2 150W
Flat 210W
+2 230W
+4 250W

That’s based on my numbers, so probably different for everyone else.

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1465

Shredded my knee this weekend. Going to see a doctor tomorrow, but I am assuming I will be out for a while. It feels like my knee joint is “loose”. When I land on my left leg the top part of my knee joint feels like it slides forward. Not good!

I will have to live my racing dreams through all of you this year. Keep the race reports coming! Good luck to everyone who still has races this year!

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