The wagon is moving and I am chasing it down the road with one hand barely holding on.
Running has continued
Biking is slowing
I may have forgotten how to swim entirely.
With no races on the calendar, I am realizing that it is easier to skip and justify. After writing this I am realizing I should spend some effort time finding an event, any event, to get the ball rolling. Thank you for the call out.
Does anyone know what Gatorade product they’re dishing out at IM events this year?
I assume it’s the endurance formula staff but wanted to double check before shelling out for a tub to test pre-race, the stuff doesn’t seem easy to find in the UK.
Just did a PL4 version. Ran out of time but those “surges” to vo2 are tough to recover at threshold.
No way I could do Spickard +2
Thanks Joe.
I completed 8 weeks of Half Ironman HV Base. Finished it feeling very healthy. This is my first season taking on a HV plan.
I’m now 2 weeks into Half Ironman HV Build. I feel great so far despite the long ride shooting way up in volume…as well as the sudden injection of intensity on both rides and runs. So far I am managing the workload well, and my body is responding better than I anticipated.
NUTRITION: my big change this season, so far, has been semi-tracking my nutrition intake. I had this idea that I wanted to bulk up a little bit during the base phase (I do a lot of heavy lifting during base). Force feeding myself about 4000 calories a day was successfully achieving the weight gain i was looking for. However, once the build phase started my weight gain has completely tapered off. My early/initial takeaway is that I was DRASTICALLY under fueling myself in past seasons.
WHOA
What plan is that?
Long distance, high volume, build. I have an FTP test on Tuesday, so maybe those levels will go down.
An those workouts look ok, it’s the PLs that are mad - you’ll be fine.
On another (unrelated) note, who are you leaving your bikes to?
Those workouts don’t look like tempo. They are sweet spot. There is no way you can be doing tempo and get a 0.86 IF at the end of the ride. That’s why they are mislabeled. Probably best to send a ticket to support. That is about the same as Phoenix+1, which is a SS 7.9
Doing some lactate testing im working below LT1 @ 75%, which would be the racepace Im looking to hold in Roth. Thinking I could go to 85% for a 70.3 and still be under or close to LT1 lactate after 2 hours with the current FTP.
I wouldn’t change my race plan based on a ramp test (or an estimated ramp test result), especially on race week!
Do some race simulation workouts in the next 6 weekend and base race effort on that. Something like a 2hr bike w/ 1 hr run off, both at target race effort and using race fueling. Use RPE from the end of the run to adjust bike effort up or down or not at all.
Guessing you’re not using plan builder then. Ramp on race week is weird for a number of reasons, not least tapering.
I would have practised race watts before then, in a brick session - as you know it’s all about whether you can run your fastest off the bike rather than the fastest bike you can get away with.
I have only tested shortly before a race once, and that’s because I had detonated in training and needed a downshift to finish the race rather than perform at peak.
It’s shown as a B race that happens to line up with the beginning of the specialty phase, so maybe not too odd of a thing for Plan builder to do. I think for “B” races plan builder just gives you a rest day immediately before and maybe the one right after, but doesn’t do anything else.
It’s one of those things that plan builder does that I don’t think a real coach ever would for long course triathlon. For a 70.3 that’s a B race, I think a real coach would move a week from the specialty phase into the build phase to align the race at the end of a recovery week/mini taper and then easy into the week after the race for some recovery from a 4/5/6 hr race.
For a C race, I’d move some stuff around in a week and maybe take an easy day before the race.
For an A, design the full plan and take a full multi-week taper and a legit, full recovery afterwards.
Maybe the way B’s and C’s are handled by plan builder works well for bike-only racings which occurs at a might higher frequency than triathlon? The races are shorter and don’t seem to have the recovery needs that running imposes.
Hmm I’ve not seen that happen before.
Maybe it’s timing,
But maybe there is an option to click for tapering? There is one for recovery I’m sure.
Edit
It’s “add openers for B” I’m thinking of
Using plan builder, but dont think I will stick to the plan suggested. Thinking of it, changing FTP and also then racepace wattage in the specialty block would be weird for me. Because I have a clue where I should be at during the race.
This year my FTP is “only” at 330W, last year I was at 365W in June. But I could not hold 300W+ for 2 hours without bonking off the bike. So this year I think my 70.3 pace would be about 275-290W and for Roth I will go easy at 250W but having an awesome run off the bike 
What I do is use Rouvy or FulGaz to simulate a 70.3 race as an additional ride in the training week. One ride early season with lower watts, then raise that as I feel getting closer to race day.
For long course I’d use Hoffman plus a solid 10-15k run to validate my race watts.
From experience I aim for 0.75IF on a 70.3 if I plan to have a good run. I think only a small percentage of people can hold 0.8 or 0.85 for 2 hrs and have a good run. 0.8 is a bonk on the run for sure for me. I’ll happily give up the 3-5 min on the bike to not bunk.
I have done 4 70.3 races, 3 of them with a bike at 0.85 and 1 at .90.
The one at 90 went to shit, the 3 at .85 was where I expected to be. I usually struggle more to dare to hold the speed in my position since pushing 275W means speeding at 40kph.
This year I want to try to run even stronger off the bike, so I will aim to achieve closer to .80.
