I guess my bias is the other way. My injuries never come from doing hard efforts (especially when I’m highly trained aerobically); they’re generally overuse injuries due to high training hours and lack of strength in the supporting muscles. On top of that, I find that after big training volumes, I race fast and recover fast (even without short course specific training) which is a lot of fun.
I get the fear of injury 1 week out from an A-race, but for my $0.02, I think it’s very low risk. This assumes he’s done a good job with training the last 6 months and not limping into his IM. That bit of context is missing.
Totally agree with the supporting muscles comment. FD triathletes are at such a huge risk for this. This training breaks down the rest of the body, and it’s a matter of time before injury if a full-body functional strength program isn’t being pursued simultaneously
Yea, this is typically me. I have been pretty consistently injury free. I typically get some Achilles flare ups and tight calfs/hams that give me a bit of knee pain, both from over use. I’ll back off a bit and those subside in a day or two. I am feeling pretty good right now. I guess I’d most likely be fine either way. If I show up, it would be hard for me not to race it.
My concern would be more about how it would affect a taper (assuming a full a-race style taper of course.)
When people talk about recovery from a sprint tri being short, that’s more “recovered enough to resume normal training,” but during a taper you’re looking for more than that- you want to offload some accumulated fatigue and freshen up a bit, and throwing in what is for most of us an approximately hour-long effort at around threshold is…sort of moving in the opposite direction from that. Granted tapering is highly individual so I could see it being less of an issue for some, but a week before your first full distance might not be the best time to experiment.
All out? Put down the wetsuit and back away slowly!
If it were me I’d be thinking I’ve put in 12 months training for IM, ££££, I’m tapering to be at my best, I’m not sick or injured I’m 8 days from the start line and many of competitors are out already - so do I really want to twist an ankle, tear my wetsuit, crash the bike?m and interfere with my taper?
If I went at all I would race at Ironman pace. A literal rehearsal. Practice 65% on the bike, the transitions, jog over the finish line at the back of the pack feeling ready for the real race.
I would be careful with this, my second Ironman I had a few significant problems in training but essentially I though I had “built my fitness” in the first. I hadn’t.
Your main problem sounds like it won’t be which plan, but how consistent your training will be. I got pretty fit using HV Olympic, lots of shorter frequent workouts if 1,2,3,4,5h workouts don’t fit your work travel. Then did LD the last seven weeks.
The last two or three months you will really benefit from long rides and runs though.
Obviously the Sub7 thing has lost a bit of it’s panache with Alistair pulling out.
I’m really interested to see how they deploy their efforts. I think they’ve missed a beat not utilising some of the massive multisport motors. Someone like Dougal Allan (though he’s currently injured) or Any of the Uber bikers as we used to call them. Dougal can do something like 340W in aero for five hours. I’m sure the TT specialists produce more power but it might not be as familiar.
I’d have tried something like have some huge roadie motor sit directly in front of Skipper/Blum, road position style, with three TT positions in front. Really marked reduction in drag to the main guy. Looks like they’ve been practising, but I still think there’s risks of it crumbling to pieces with a TTT that long. At least the course is simple.
Yeah, super bummed about Alistair not being in the mix. I like Skipper but don’t think there will be much of a contest between him and Blummenfeldt.
I suspect most have gone for team TT specialists over triatnletes from a bike handling/familiarity standpoint- teams of that size constantly passibg each other and rotating riders in and out is a pretty delicate operation, and one that would benefit from experience I think. With the front riders switching out fairly regularly i don’t think holding ths highest possible power over the entire distance is as important.
That said i think Spirig’s team is mostky triathletes so it will be interesting to see the difference. IIRC she’s on a road bike too?
I got an email from Ironman promoting races to enter yesterday. It included IM Wales. I’ve had a look at it and the site appears to give options for 2022. I’d enter if I could but Tod be pushing the limits of marriage
Much like my training, my roll calls are full of excuses this year, last month it was a new job, this month it’s covid
Enough about me for now, this is about you!
How was the training? High and lows but did you make it through? Mid season starting to hit in the northern hemisphere and the race reports are rolling in
It’s been another roller coaster month for me, I’ve come back to triathlon from running dir sure and the day I signed up for swim club membership I must’ve caught it there because the next day I was sick with Covid-19. Somebody out there doesn’t want me to do triathlon.
Week
W/C
Plan/Race Week
Bike TSS
Run hrTSS
Swim TSS
Lift TSS
Total Time
19
02/05/2022
Sprint MV Speciality 3
153
99
38
0
4h 54m
20
09/05/2022
Sprint MV Speciality 4
230
90
93
0
7h 34m
21
16/05/2022
Sprint MV Speciality 5
86
59
48
0
2h 51m
22
23/05/2022
Sprint MV Speciality 6
104
123
59
40
5h 11m
23
30/05/2022
Sprint MV Speciality 7/HT
39
0
0
0
1h
As you can tell I have a local sprint tri this weekend I wont be racing
On the positive side, I had a scan recently from a problem the doctor was looking into two months ago and there’s nothing wrong. It just hurt for no apparent reason so I lost two months of proper training there too.
