Ironman - Sub 10 Mentored Thread

zico10

Sorry for delay in getting this up, I've been doing Inca Trail for the last four days and had no Internet access on way to Machu Pichu. Here is week 7 in my plan, the final hard week in a three week block.
Regarding Thursday morning's run session, when I introduced myself at the start of this thread I said my training was not very scientific, this was as scientific as it got for me. I worked out my max heart by using the rather crude method of 220 - age and once the session was over I didn't bother analysing how I performed during the session. It was another hill training session, if that's not obvious.

Day|AM|PM
Monday|Weights + Core Total 45 minutes|Cycle - 10 min, 8 min, 6 min, 4min, 2 min @ 20k pace, maintain intensity, 8 min, 6 min, 4 min, 2 mins, active recovery between sets.
Tuesday|Swim - objective: skills ~ 2300 metres |Long Run - 2 hours 10 minutes 25km @ <4.30km, remainder @ <4.15/km
Wednesday|Run Intervals - 3km x 3 @ < 4.00/km|Cycle 20 mins warm-up, 30 mins @ PE of 9, 10 mins @ PE of 6, 20 mins @ PE of 9, 7 mins PE of 6, 30 mins PE of 9, 20 mins cool down
Thursday|Warm up 10 minutes at 2% gradient, 75% of HR Max, 3 Minutes at 4%, 80% HR Max,2 minutes at 0%, Recover to 75% HR Max, 5 minutes at 5%, 82% HR Max, 2 minutes at 0%, Recover to 75% HR Max, 3 minutes at 2%, 80% HR Max, 5 minutes at 3%, 82% HR Max, 5 minutes at 4%, 83% HR Max, 5 minutes at 5%, 85% HR Max, 2 minutes at 0%, Recover to 75% HR Max, 3 minutes at 2%, 80% HR Max, 3 minutes at 6%, 84% HR Max, 2 minutes at 7%, 85% HR Max, 1 minutes at 8%, 85% HR Max, COOL DOWN 9 minutes at 0%|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes, Swim - objective skills / with some pace work - 2500 - 3000 metres
Friday|REST DAY
Saturday|Long Swim - 3,200m|Long Cycle - 30 mins warm up, 30 mins PE 10, 2 hours PE 8, 30 mins PE 10, 30 mins cool down, Total 4 hours
Sunday|Brick - 3 hours cycle at PE 8, 65 min run @ <4.30/km

pgibbo

Jaysus, you're fairly getting around these days. :cool: Fair play for taking the time out to keep this thread updated. Any pictures from Machu Pichu? I'd imagine it;s pretty spectacular

zico10

pgibbo wrote: »

Jaysus, you're fairly getting around these days. :cool: Fair play for taking the time out to keep this thread updated. Any pictures from Machu Pichu? I'd imagine it;s pretty spectacular

Travelling or not, it's actually easy enough find time when you're not working and training 25 hours a week on top of that. Plus not very many people are asking questions, so it's not very time consuming.

Inca Trail was cool, had to go easy on photos though as the battery in my camera needed to last me the 4 days. When I got to Machu Pichu it was cloudy and a lot of the photos I took aren't great. Still though you're right it is a spectacular place.

Incidentally for anybody looking to break 60 minutes for a 40km time trial, you should get yourself a dual suspension mountain bike, an extra pair of balls and go to 'The World's Most Dangerous Road' in Bolivia. If you can ignore the scenery you'd smash the hour mark without even pedalling. Also it's closed to traffic and is actually not all that dangerous.

shotgunmcos

sounds like you are having a great time Zico, nice one!

That thursday morning run by the way is one crazy looking session when written down, I think I'd rather put a link to it in my plan than copy and paste

Question about swimming? You mentioned in Jackybacks log that 2 swims a week is not enough for the IM. Would you like to expand on this? I've also dropped a swim in favour of Yoga as I identified flexibility as a weakness to my running. I went from 3-4 swims a week to 2-3 a week in doing so. I'm generally happy with my swim fitness at the moment as I am hitting my target time for the distance in the pool. With 10 weeks to go to taper what shold be the general swimming focus? Would you bother with the pool at all once you start OW swimming? Did you also practice a long OW non wetsuit swim?

pgibbo

Came across this today. I think it was in this thread that we discussed long runs the day after a long bike. Here's an argument for not doing it. Thoughts guys?

It's home time so I'm too lazy to check if it was here or in MCOS's log that this came up. Either way, the same people will see it.

zico10

shotgunmcos wrote: »

sounds like you are having a great time Zico, nice one!

That thursday morning run by the way is one crazy looking session when written down, I think I'd rather put a link to it in my plan than copy and paste

I found it on a site some years ago, can't remember where exactly, but I find it really good and I've been using it regularly since. I'd write down the times, gradients and HR on a piece of paper and stick this to the treadmill. You'll sweat like a motherf**ker, so the piece of paper will only be good for one session.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Question about swimming? You mentioned in Jackybacks log that 2 swims a week is not enough for the IM. Would you like to expand on this? I've also dropped a swim in favour of Yoga as I identified flexibility as a weakness to my running. I went from 3-4 swims a week to 2-3 a week in doing so. I'm generally happy with my swim fitness at the moment as I am hitting my target time for the distance in the pool. With 10 weeks to go to taper what shold be the general swimming focus?

I'm just speaking personally when I say this, I'm not naturally a good swimmer and I think if I was to only do two swims a week I'd start going regressing. I've only swam once since Challenge Copenhagen, so I'm probably going to need arm bands the next time I get in a pool once all this travelling is over.
You say you're happy with your swim fitness and that you think you need to work on you flexibility, if you feel you need the yoga then it's something you should definitely factor into your plan. That's how I felt about weights and I wouldn't listen to anybody who'd tell me otherwise. If you're confident you can maintain your swim fitness on 2-3 swims a week, then go ahead with it. You know your own abilities better than me. For me I'm sure for the previous three years before my ironman swimming 3,800m would have been within my capabilities. My ironman build was to try swim this for as little effort as possible. My long swims started off fairly short, but I was pushing for all of them and I gradually built up to being able to swim 3,800m at this effort level.
I hope this answers your question, if not ask again.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Would you bother with the pool at all once you start OW swimming? Did you also practice a long OW non wetsuit swim?

I still swam in the pool, I always went to my club session on a Thursday night which was in a pool. It wasn't really practical to do any of my evening sessions in the morning and nor was it practical with work to do OW swims in the morning, so I was sort of tied to the Tuesday morning swim for the months of April, May and June. Luckily being a teacher I had July and August off, so I had much more flexibility then and I was often doing 2 OW swims a week. Not going to work made the trip to the NAC a bit of an ordeal for what would just be approximately an hour's exercise, so it made much more sense for me to go to Seapoint.
I was skinny back then so a long OW non wetsuit swim was never on the agenda. I would have died of hypothermia. Maybe after 3 months of drinking lots of beer and eating empanadas, pizzas and other rubbish in South America it might be manageable. I'm off to Thailand soon though where the water will be much warmer and where even skinny people don't need wetsuits. I'll let you know how it goes then.

Quick question just out of curiosity, where do you do your OW swims in Limerick?

zico10

pgibbo wrote: »

Came across this today. I think it was in this thread that we discussed long runs the day after a long bike. Here's an argument for not doing it. Thoughts guys?

It's home time so I'm too lazy to check if it was here or in MCOS's log that this came up. Either way, the same people will see it.

I don't know if it was discussed as such, I think MCOS tried to start a discussion, but I can't remember there being any takers.
It's an interesting link though and it makes sense to me. Without any foresight on my part, my training plan followed the suggested pattern. That's not necessarily to say I felt as fresh as a daisy at the start of all my long runs.

zico10

Another recovery week;

Day|AM|PM
Monday|1 hour swim, easy|
Tuesday|50 minute run, easy pace
Wednesday|1 hour swim easy|Cycle - 10 minutes warm up, 10 minutes hard, 10 minutes easy, 10 minutes easy, 10 minutes hard, 10 minutes cool down
Thursday|Swim - objective skills/with some pace work - 2500 - 3000 metres|
Friday|Run - Intervals 3 x 2km @ < 3.55/km|
Saturday|REST DAY|
Sunday|rick - 1 hour cycle PE 8.5, 20 mins run @ < 4.30/km|

catweazle

Sneaking in a 1/2 Ironman question in here, I think this will be the best place to get it answered. Zico I read with interest how you trained for the Ironman with a slower marathon pace than you were capable of on its own.

I am hoping to get in under 2 hours on the day, should I do my run training intervals, tempos etc with this target in mind or should I be training to improve my current pb of 1.44.

I am just wondering as I am currently not sure what I should be aiming for, my thinking was that on the day if i was capable of running low 1.40s on its own a 1.55/2.00 would be easier on the day but timewise this will be difficult as i am spending much more time on the bike this year

All this is coming from totally blowing up on the run last year and crawling home to a 2.26 1/2 marathon, I don't want to go through that pain again so early in the run

mloc123

My understand is... Providing you pace the bike correctly your HIM run should be a couple of minutes off your straight HM run time. If you are in 1.40 HM shape now your HIM should be under 1.45 etc..

mloc123

On the 2.26 last year, the damage was done on the bike.

zico10

catweazle wrote: »

Sneaking in a 1/2 Ironman question in here, I think this will be the best place to get it answered. Zico I read with interest how you trained for the Ironman with a slower marathon pace than you were capable of on its own.

I am hoping to get in under 2 hours on the day, should I do my run training intervals, tempos etc with this target in mind or should I be training to improve my current pb of 1.44.

I am just wondering as I am currently not sure what I should be aiming for, my thinking was that on the day if i was capable of running low 1.40s on its own a 1.55/2.00 would be easier on the day but timewise this will be difficult as i am spending much more time on the bike this year

All this is coming from totally blowing up on the run last year and crawling home to a 2.26 1/2 marathon, I don't want to go through that pain again so early in the run

I'll to answer this as honestly as I can. I could be wrong and I'd get a second opinion if I were you. I welcome your question and I've no problem answering it. I'm in no way trying to dismiss you either, but to me training for a HIM and training for a full IM are two completely different things. Training for a HIM bears far more similarities with training for an Olympic distance race that it does to training for a full. I've never had the same specific focus on any HIM race that I've done, as I did for my full distance race in Copenhagen. I've raced in Kenmare twice and my training for these two events was pretty much the exact same as my training for Olympic and sprint distance events. I don't know if a long run is the correct terminology for a longer than average run in HIM training but I was comfortably covering 21km by the stage Kenmare came around. Both times though I had entered a marathon in October of those years, so I was also training with this in mind both times.

Now to get onto the question of what speed you should be running your intervals at, for me in Olympic and HIM training mode intervals were pretty much done at top speed. With the club we sometimes did intervals as short as 200m and that would be all out sprint.
Mloc is right in what he says about your half marathon time in a HIM shouldn't be a whole lot more than your half marathon PB. At least that's my experience. So expect to do closer to 1.44 than you might think. Why I predicted a slower marathon time for my ironman, should I hope be obvious. I've no idea of how the rest of that race went for you, but again just guessing I'd say Mloc is right, the damage was done on the bike. Maybe you went too hard, but I'd say the more likely explanation is you didn't fuel/hydrate properly while cycling. From this point of view it's all about the bike.

interested

My 2c worth below. Have avoided looking at this thread since Zico's descriptions of far away lands, food and beer consumptions makes me envious on a regular basis

Quote:
Originally Posted by shotgunmcos
Question about swimming? You mentioned in Jackybacks log that 2 swims a week is not enough for the IM. Would you like to expand on this? I've also dropped a swim in favour of Yoga as I identified flexibility as a weakness to my running. I went from 3-4 swims a week to 2-3 a week in doing so. I'm generally happy with my swim fitness at the moment as I am hitting my target time for the distance in the pool. With 10 weeks to go to taper what shold be the general swimming focus?

IMHO, for you mcos, dropping a swim session for either rest or yoga makes sense at this stage. Based on your times you've posted here your swim fitness is in the bag and the target time you're hoping for will come with doing maybe 3 sessions weekly (Id go with 2 pool and one OW for now - building the open water duration from 10 or 15 mins to 30 or 40 as the water temperatures come up since you've dropped weight and need to be careful of staying healthy). Its all about maintaining a feel for the water at this stage and believing in the hard work done all during the winter and spring to get you in the position youre in now.

That said, I think Mr Zico (who wouldnt be a natural swimmer if I may say so) made great efforts to do the smart thing and the right time when it came to his open water swimming. As in drafting, pacing and being sensible about his target to ensure it didnt negatively impact his bike and run targets. Ive said it before on here - pushing harder in the swim to go 5 mins less that your target time for that discipline has a good chance of having a much bigger negative impact on the rest of the targets on your long day.

A man made lagoon in Copenhagen probably offered very similar swim conditions to the canal in Roth .... and from the little I know a slow moving river or lake OW swim near Limerick should simulate the environment perfectly.

One thing of note for you Mcos is that - based on my own experiences at a Challenge event - the waves, you may find yourself swimming alone or out of your own wave and effectively through stragglers from previous waves - in a narrow canal. How the waves are seeded may vary from race to race but at Barcelona I was in the final wave of about 10 I think, with only the relay wave after us. Id given a reasonable swim estimate which I bettered on the day so Ive no idea how things were seeded.


Quote:
Originally Posted by shotgunmcos
Would you bother with the pool at all once you start OW swimming? Did you also practice a long OW non wetsuit swim?

Again, IMHO, Id definitely do at least 2 pool swims a week ... again to maintain your stroke. You may also find that one of these could become a recovery swim to help get over tiredness, soreness from either a bike or run session.

I believe that staying fit, healthy and training consistently off the back of what you've already done is pretty important from here on in. Executing your plan on the day will come down to confidence in your own ability and , as always, a dash of luck

@Zico, enjoy the travels champ !

catweazle

zico10 wrote: »

I've no idea of how the rest of that race went for you, but again just guessing I'd say Mloc is right, the damage was done on the bike. Maybe you went too hard, but I'd say the more likely explanation is you didn't fuel/hydrate properly while cycling. From this point of view it's all about the bike.

Thanks for that, yes Mloc is right, my average bike pace was more or less the same as what I can hold for sprints. It was a fast course and I was feeling great so I pushed way too hard. It all went pear shaped very early on the run, my fueling was poor too, i could feel some energy coming back after some food at each pit stop. So hopefully I will have learned my lesson this year. I will keep what I am doing at so on the running.

mloc123 wrote: »

If you are in 1.40 HM shape now your HIM should be under 1.45 etc..

Its hard to know where I am at the moment, training is going well but legs are nearly always tired. I doubt I am anywhere near 1.40 shape but I would hope to be by the end of july

zico10

Day|AM|PM
Monday|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes|Cycle - Hills 6 x 1 minute max effort, full recovery
Tuesday|Swim - objective: skills ~ 2300 metres|Long Run - 2 hours 10 minutes 25km @ <4.30km, remainder @ <4.15/km
Wednesday|Run Intervals - 1km x 10 @ < 3.45/km|Cycle 20 mins warm-up, 30 mins @ PE of 9, 10 mins @ PE of 6, 30 mins @ PE of 9, 10 mins PE of 6, 30 mins PE of 9, 20 mins cool down
Thursday|Run - Treadmill, 9 minutes warm-up, (90 seconds 18.2km/hr @ 0% gradient, 90 seconds 11.5km/hr @ 0% gradient) x 15, cool down|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes, Swim - objective skills / with some pace work - 2500 - 3000 metres
Friday|REST DAY|
Saturday|Long Swim 3,500m|Long Cycle - 30 mins warm up, 30 mins PE 10, 2 hours 25 minutes PE 8, 30 mins PE 10, 30 mins cool down, Total 4 hours 25 minutes
Sunday|Brick - 3 hours 15 cycle at PE 8, 70 min run @ <4.30/km|

zico10

Day|AM|PM
Monday|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes|Cycle - Intervals (1x2km, 2x1km, 2x500m)x2, All done @ 10k pace with appropriate rest between each interval
Tuesday|Swim - objective: skills ~ 2300 metres|Long Run - 2 hours 20 minutes, 30km @ <4.30km, remainder @ <4.15/km
Wednesday|Run Intervals - 2km x 5 @ < 3.55/km|Cycle 20 mins warm-up, 25 mins @ PE of 9, 8 mins @ PE of 6, 25 mins @ PE of 9, 8 mins PE of 6, 25 mins PE of 9, 8 mins PE of 6, 25 mins PE of 9, 20 mins cool down
Thursday|Run - Treadmill, 9 minutes warm-up, (90 seconds 18.2km/hr @ 0% gradient, 90 seconds 11.5km/hr @ 0% gradient) x 15, cool down|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes, Swim - objective skills / with some pace work - 2500 - 3000 metres
Friday|REST DAY
Saturday|Long Swim 3,800m|Long Cycle - 30 mins warm up, 30 mins PE 10, 2 hours 50 minutes PE 8, 30 mins PE 10, 30 mins cool down, Total 4 hours 50 minutes
Sunday|Brick - 4 hours cycle at PE 8, 75 min run @ <4.30/km

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Zico, did you do many OW swim sessions along the way?

zico10

Joyce Noisy Bubble wrote: »

Zico, did you do many OW swim sessions along the way?

I always went to my club session on a Thursday night which was in a pool. It wasn't really practical to do any of my evening sessions in the morning and nor was it practical with work to do OW swims in the morning, so I was sort of tied to the Tuesday morning swim for the months of April, May and June. Luckily being a teacher I had July and August off, so I had much more flexibility then and I was often doing 2 OW swims a week. Not going to work made the trip to the NAC a bit of an ordeal for what would just be approximately an hour's exercise, so it made much more sense for me to go to Seapoint.

The first part of this reply is an answer I gave to MCOS earlier in the thread and without being 100 per cent sure this is exactly what I did, it is nonetheless still pretty accurate. Tuesdays and Saturdays sesions I'm writing up could just as easily be done in OW as a pool. At this stage in my training I'd say 2 out of 3 of my long swims were done in OW. Obviously it's very difficult to measure distance in the sea, so for the weeks my long swim took place in OW I'd gauge myself off time spent swimming instead. And if truth be told I'm sure I never covered 3,800m in OW until I got to Copenhagen, as the longest time I remember spent swimming in OW was a hour. But I was confident from my pool swims I'd have no trouble with the distance, so I wasn't too upset for not having swam an extra 15 minutes or so.

zico10

Day|AM|PM
Monday|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes|Cycle - 12 Hill repeats, hard for 600m, seated recovery roll back down hill, spinning pedals
Tuesday|Swim - objective: skills ~ 2300 metres|Long Run - 2 hours 30 minutes, 30km @ <4.30km, remainder @ <4.15/km
Wednesday|Run Intervals - 3km x 3 @ < 4.00/km|Cycle 20 mins warm-up, 40 mins @ PE of 9, 14 mins @ PE of 6, 40 mins @ PE of 9, 20 mins cool down
Thursday|10 minute warm up, 40 minutes fartlek running, 10 minute cool down|Weights + Core, Total 45 minutes, Swim - objective skills / with some pace work - 2500 - 3000 metres
Friday|REST DAY
Saturday|Long Swim 3,800m|Long Cycle - 30 mins warm up, 30 mins PE 10, 3 hours 20 minutes PE 8, 30 mins PE 10, 30 mins cool down, Total 5 hours 20 minutes
Sunday|Brick - 4 hours 15 minutes cycle at PE 8, 80 min run @ <4.30/km

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

That is a heavy schedule on the Saturday/Sunday:eek:

shotgunmcos

Hey Zico what stage is week 11 relative to race week? sorry kind of lost track of this thread. I have 2 weeks up, 1 down, 2 up, 1 down, 1 up, 3 taper to go... Need to get more race specific about it now.

zico10

Joyce Noisy Bubble wrote: »

That is a heavy schedule on the Saturday/Sunday:eek:

Ye, just looking back at it now the cycle part of the brick is a bit long. Took too big a jump between weeks 9 and 10. Sorry about that, that's what happens when you don't keep a proper record of your training. Just looking back at email correspondence I had with one of club members last year the longest brick cycle I would have seemed to have done would have stopped at 3 hours 30 minutes. (Apart from what's coming up in week 13.)

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Hey Zico what stage is week 11 relative to race week? sorry kind of lost track of this thread. I have 2 weeks up, 1 down, 2 up, 1 down, 1 up, 3 taper to go... Need to get more race specific about it now.

Week12 is a rest week. Then there will be 4 weeks before race day itself, with the final week in the plan, week 16, being the week immediately preceding the race.
Sorry don't get what you mean about '2 weeks up, 1 down, etc.' Is this your own programme you're talking about?
I've been dipping in and out of your log, you seem to know what you're doing and are certainly far more knowledgeable about training than I am. Hard luck on the DNF in Limerick. You did the right thing pulling out, but I think entering in the first place was the wrong call. You've already covered the marathon distance once that I'm aware of, was another time really necessary? What good would going sub 3 have been to you if you finish outside 10 hours in Roth on account of it? I never actually covered the distance in my training, nor did I ever feel like pulling up short on one of my long runs.
I don't want to come across as a know it all. I certainly don't, but here's my opinion for what it's worth. From looking at your training stats and Connemarathon result, you most certainly do seem to be in sub 10 shape, but at the same time as the DNF is evidence you must also be pretty close to doing yourself a running injury. You talk about getting more race specific now. When's Roth? And what have you being doing up to now if not concentrating on Roth? How many races have you done so far? And how many more do you plan to do? I only put it this bluntly as I know you won't take it personally.;)
Might be a few days before I get back to this, but I am genuinely interested in what you have to say.

shotgunmcos

zico10 wrote: »

Week12 is a rest week. Then there will be 4 weeks before race day itself, with the final week in the plan, week 16, being the week immediately preceding the race.
Sorry don't get what you mean about '2 weeks up, 1 down, etc.' Is this your own programme you're talking about?
I've been dipping in and out of your log, you seem to know what you're doing and are certainly far more knowledgeable about training than I am. Hard luck on the DNF in Limerick. You did the right thing pulling out, but I think entering in the first place was the wrong call. You've already covered the marathon distance once that I'm aware of, was another time really necessary? What good would going sub 3 have been to you if you finish outside 10 hours in Roth on account of it? I never actually covered the distance in my training, nor did I ever feel like pulling up short on one of my long runs.
I don't want to come across as a know it all. I certainly don't, but here's my opinion for what it's worth. From looking at your training stats and Connemarathon result, you most certainly do seem to be in sub 10 shape, but at the same time as the DNF is evidence you must also be pretty close to doing yourself a running injury. You talk about getting more race specific now. When's Roth? And what have you being doing up to now if not concentrating on Roth? How many races have you done so far? And how many more do you plan to do? I only put it this bluntly as I know you won't take it personally.;)
Might be a few days before I get back to this, but I am genuinely interested in what you have to say.

Thanks for the response Zico and I prefer the direct approach to the fuzzy one ;-) Don’t worry about not checking up regularly, you are out living and exploring and are very good to be dipping in and out at all.
2 Marathons was not in the plan in the lead up to Roth. I originally wanted to run the inaugural Limerick Marathon in 2010 but it fell on the same day as Joey. So, I entered it last year for 2011. Going long wasn’t even on my mind. The 2011 plan was actually to do HIMs and go long in 2012 but Life stuff coming up this year meant 2012 may not be good. So I decided to jump in and go long in 2011 instead. I figured Limerick would be a good benchmark en route. However my OH, Caz decided to do Conn and I went along for the ride. I was not expecting to run as I did.
Limerick was not necessary, in particular achieving a time. In the end I could have pushed on the last 5 miles and got the sub3 but the risk was not worth it. Yes the DNF should have been a DNS but I couldn’t resist going out for a trot around my own town with mates J you are right that no time would have been worth jeopardising the sub10 at Roth
Roth is July 10. So basically 9 weeks to go after this one. I was asking about your week 11 as I roughly calculated it to be a 22 hour week with plenty of intensity so it seemed pretty heavy to me. So your last 5 weeks are a recovery week followed by 4 week taper? What is the point of a recovery week before taper? Is week 13 a big week, which would mean the taper is only 3 weeks then?
I’m keeping this week easy so I have 9 weeks to race day. What volume pattern would you recommend?
Race specific training: I just mean incorporating race strategy into sessions, like taking in a climb at a similar point on the long bike than the race itself. Following feet and sighting on long OW swims etc... All of my training has been Roth focused.
Races: A half Marathon, A 10k and 2 Marathons done over the last 5 months. I have an OLY, a sprint and a HIM pencilled in over the next 6 weeks. None of which are priorities. I have 2key session left, a 160km/16km TT (to practice race intnsity) and a long training day 3.8k swim/5hr bike/22km run all with 30-40 mins transitions (to practice being out for the day).

zico10

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Thanks for the response Zico and I prefer the direct approach to the fuzzy one ;-) Don’t worry about not checking up regularly, you are out living and exploring and are very good to be dipping in and out at all.

Got Internet access quicker than I was expecting, so here I am to answer you.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

2 Marathons was not in the plan in the lead up to Roth. I originally wanted to run the inaugural Limerick Marathon in 2010 but it fell on the same day as Joey. So, I entered it last year for 2011. Going long wasn’t even on my mind. The 2011 plan was actually to do HIMs and go long in 2012 but Life stuff coming up this year meant 2012 may not be good. So I decided to jump in and go long in 2011 instead. I figured Limerick would be a good benchmark en route. However my OH, Caz decided to do Conn and I went along for the ride. I was not expecting to run as I did.

I realise tri-life is complicated, doubly so for people with partners and double again (maybe more) for people with kids. It's not as if you can p*ss off around the world when you feel like it and I applaud anyone who manages all three. I still think you should have reevaluated the marathons when you decided on going long.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Limerick was not necessary, in particular achieving a time. In the end I could have pushed on the last 5 miles and got the sub3 but the risk was not worth it. Yes the DNF should have been a DNS but I couldn’t resist going out for a trot around my own town with mates J you are right that no time would have been worth jeopardising the sub10 at Roth

You realise that now, which I think is something. Don't know why anyone would want to be running around Limerick City though, you could nave been stabbed.:D

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Roth is July 10. So basically 9 weeks to go after this one.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

I was asking about your week 11 as I roughly calculated it to be a 22 hour week with plenty of intensity so it seemed pretty heavy to me.

It's hardly anymore intense/heavy than some of the stuff I've seen in your log.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

So your last 5 weeks are a recovery week followed by 4 week taper? What is the point of a recovery week before taper? Is week 13 a big week, which would mean the taper is only 3 weeks then?

This is one more reason why I really should have kept a record of my training. Your last question is the one with a yes answer. Think I've said in a few places before it was a 4 week taper, but it wasn't. Week 13 was a motherf*cker of a week. Then it was taper on from week 14 to race day. Sorry for any confusion.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

I’m keeping this week easy so I have 9 weeks to race day. What volume pattern would you recommend?

My very humble opinion, with Limerick marathon in mind, would be to forget about running all together for this week. You're not going to lose your running fitness in such a short space of time. Spend 50%/60% of the time spent training as you did in week 8. Mix it up between biking and swimming, with some short bursts of intensity.
Try a 20 minute run on the Sunday, with middle third being run at pace. If you'll feel any discomfort whatsoever, stop! Any running you've planned for the following hard week adapt it too a cross trainer. Don't know how you'd feel about doing an entire long slow run on a cross trainer, but try spend as long as you can. On the following Sunday repeat the 20 minute run from the week previous. Based on what your body tells you, you should know whether it'll be another week on the cross trainer or getting back to the road. I can only speak for myself, but that's how I'd go about things.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Race specific training: I just mean incorporating race strategy into sessions, like taking in a climb at a similar point on the long bike than the race itself. Following feet and sighting on long OW swims etc... All of my training has been Roth focused.

That makes sense.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Races: A half Marathon, A 10k and 2 Marathons done over the last 5 months. I have an OLY, a sprint and a HIM pencilled in over the next 6 weeks. None of which are priorities. I have 2key session left, a 160km/16km TT (to practice race intnsity) and a long training day 3.8k swim/5hr bike/22km run all with 30-40 mins transitions (to practice being out for the day).

The Olympic distance and sprint distance tris, and the 10k should be no big deals and in the context of IM training are hardly worth mentioning. But having said that, what you have down here strikes me as a lot of races. I'm sure I mentioned somewhere else in this thread that IM training could be about doing as little running as you can get away with. With two marathons plus a half on top of all the other running your doing, it appears to me you're doing as much running as you can get away with. Undoubtedly your run fitness has improved, but is to the detriment of something else?
With 9 weeks to go to Roth, I also wonder do you need those two key sessions on top of a HIM? To be honest even with the 3.8k swim you've planned, there's f*ck all difference between them. They'll both take a lot out of you and with the HIM sandwiched into that 6 week block, you're not giving yourself much recovery time. I don't see how doing all three would benefit you. The HIM or the key session with the 3.8k swim would both suffice for race day preparation. (In general if one even needs to do a HIM is debatable.)
I haven't my HIM included in the training plan, but conveniently it came at the end of a recovery week and I just took Monday morning off and began the following hard week 12 hours later. Also it was over 3 months out from my ironman. I did plan a mock race with two club mates one Saturday with an hour swim in OW followed by a 5 hour+ bike ride 30-40 minutes later. Between one thing and another a run never happened, but from doing umpteen Sunday morning bricks at highish intensities I wasn't unduly concerned. I'm thinking this probably happened at the end of the current week in the training plan I'm obviously doing a somewhat haphazard job of revealing. As you can see, this 'mock race day' is not hugely different to the Saturday I had originally charted.* Had a run happened on this 'mock race day', I would have probably just cancelled or seriously curtailed the run part of the brick on the Sunday.
Final point I don't think you need to hang around for 30-40 minute transitions. I have read it's okay for IM training, but equally true is that 5/6 minute transitions are okay as well. Unless it's necessary (i.e. you have to drive 30-40 minutes from the OW to where you want to cycle, as I did) then why not just do quick transitions and get the whole day wrapped up quickly? With a bit of luck, you might even be home on time to see either of the Limerick GAA teams lose an early evening first round qualifier match, on a Saturday evening.

In other news travelling the globe is not always so wonderful. Try running 10km in Thailand in the midday sun. Talk about heat and humidity.

*I swear there had no prior thought put into this. I'm increasing the weekly volumes in this thread, as I see fit. This is not a blind approach though as it's how I planned each weekly session in the middle of my actual IM training, by looking back at the previous week's times on the Garmin.

shotgunmcos

Good Man Alan and thanks for that. With 9 weeks to go, 3 week of which will be taper I'm wondering if it is necessary to take 2 reovery weeks? I was thinking of building the next 2 weeks, the takinga recovery week, then building 3 weeks with a full rest day in each and then 3 week taper? Thoughts?

What struck me about your programme is the running intensity, I haven't been doing any speed work so I'll incorporata weekly session in the remaining phase. You also have a tempo/fartlek type run and long bike intervals at PE9! Is that 9 outof 10 or 9 out of 20? PE 9 for me is way above IM pace so doing 2*40 mins at it would dust me off.

On the benchmark sessions. If I can shorten the transitions on that long day I will. I'm in 2 minds about the HIM. I'm drawn to the 1.9k OW swim, transitions where I'll practice changing from cycling to running gear in T2 and bike nutrition all in a race environment.

I may drop the 160k/16k IM pace TT as I'll be ding a coupl of 5/1 bricks anyway.

As for Limerick GAA, well, I'm more of a Rugby man Yeah it gets unreal humid out there. I lived in Japan a few years ago and I remember trying to run during the day.. the sweat..

zico10

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Good Man Alan and thanks for that. With 9 weeks to go, 3 week of which will be taper I'm wondering if it is necessary to take 2 reovery weeks? I was thinking of building the next 2 weeks, the takinga recovery week, then building 3 weeks with a full rest day in each and then 3 week taper? Thoughts?

Taking 2 weeks out of 6 as recovery does seem like a bit much. Your training up to now hasn't followed this pattern, so your body shouldn't need so much recovery. I think what you've got there would be a good way of getting the maximum benefit from the time you have left. Your comment about rest days strikes me, does this mean you haven't been taking a regular rest day up to this point?

shotgunmcos wrote: »

What struck me about your programme is the running intensity,

I half acknowledge that, but I had a lot of running in my legs over the previous four years and I did caution people at the start of the thread about this. When you look at things in balance my intense runs so to speak, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday mornings were all approximately 10km, short enough not to risk hurting yourself. A long run Tuesday evening, followed by the two morning sessions the days after was not ideal, but I'm not a pro and it was hard to fit everything in. On the long runs and brick runs, for me personally I would consider sub 4.30/km to be a very comfortable pace. And again with this I think the risk of injury for me was small.
What strikes me about your programme is the fact you ran in two marathons. I understand your reasons, but I think it would be a good bet that you have more running miles in your legs than I had at a similar stage in our plans. I could be wrong and it would be interesting to hear someone else's opinon on it, but for me that's a bigger injury risk.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

I haven't been doing any speed work so I'll incorporata weekly session in the remaining phase.

This sort of surprises me to be honest, you've been doing speed work in cycling and swimming, haven't you? Why would running be any different? I've heard people don't be running fast in an IM, but you don't be cycling at a 40km TT effort, or swimming at your 100m pace either, so I don't buy into that.
Do what you feel is right, but at the same time though my number one bit of advice to you would be not to make any drastic changes to your plan. Perhaps doubts are starting to creep into your mind about the race, they did with me too and probably 90% of other people in their first IM. Have confidence in the training you've done up to now and stick with it. I genuinely believe you're capable of going sub 10, you just need to convince yourself of this as well.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

You also have a tempo/fartlek type run and long bike intervals at PE9! Is that 9 outof 10 or 9 out of 20? PE 9 for me is way above IM pace so doing 2*40 mins at it would dust me off.

9 out of 10, just about holding back off your 40k TT pace. It was above my ironman pace as well, but not way above it. I don't know what time you have in mind for Roth, but if you think that a 5 hour bike, which by any standards is fairly impressive is still only 36km/hr. I averaged out at 33.58km/hr, the one leg of the race I was disappointed with, and I think my lack of intense bike sessions such as these was one of the factors that led to this.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

On the benchmark sessions. If I can shorten the transitions on that long day I will. I'm in 2 minds about the HIM. I'm drawn to the 1.9k OW swim, transitions where I'll practice changing from cycling to running gear in T2 and bike nutrition all in a race environment.

That's the one I'd probably be most ready to sacrifice to be honest. Transitions in an ironman will be totally different to transitions in a HIM here in Ireland. You'll take things much easier and make sure you're comfortable starting both cycle and run. Apply sun cream, put on socks, double check things, etc. There'll be hundreds of others in the tent around you, you'll be handed your bag, your bike will most probably be taken straight off you after the dismount line. It's nothing like any HIM I've ever done, where transitions are no different to an Olympic distance triathlon.
Bike nutrition is vital, but it's still something that can be practised in training.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

I may drop the 160k/16k IM pace TT as I'll be ding a coupl of 5/1 bricks anyway.

It's up to you, I think dropping 1 out of the 3 would be enough, with the HIM getting my vote.

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Yeah it gets unreal humid out there. I lived in Japan a few years ago and I remember trying to run during the day.. the sweat..

I'm going to have to get used to it though, I'm going to be teaching English over here for a year and I've entered Laguna Phuket Triathlon in November. No bike yet, but hopefully I'll pick up a cheapish one somewhere in Thailand. If you happen to know anything that could help me it'd be great.

zico10

Day|AM|PM
Monday|1 hour swim, easy|
Tuesday|50 minute run, easy pace
Wednesday|1 hour swim easy|Cycle - 10 minutes warm up, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 minutes @ 20km pace, Rest in between efforts of 8, 6, 4, 2 minutes, 10 minutes cool down
Thursday|Swim - objective skills/with some pace work - 2500 - 3000 metres|
Friday|Run - Intervals 6 x 1km @ < 3.45/km|
Saturday|REST DAY|
Sunday|Brick - 1 hour cycle PE 8.5, 20 mins run @ < 4.30/km|

shotgunmcos

Thanks again Alan,

Rest Days: Nope, not every week. I took one easy day with just a swim on training weeks, and then took a full rest day on recovery weeks. Full rest day included for each of the remaining weeks.

Running speedwork: I identified my running weakness as base endurance and cadence and this is what I worked on for the winter. The running volume I did was 99% at base heart rate. With the added volume I didn't do the speedwork as I didn't want to risk injury or over doing it. I'll incorporate some intervals and fartlek into the programme now that the runningvolume is lower.

Bike target. I've penciled in 5:15 which is 34kmh. I'd be confident of holding that or even 35-36 but have no idea what the climbs will take out of that. I'll cycle on RPE and HR and if that gets me 5:15 or better, happy days. If I can get the swim + transitions in 1:10, the bike in 5:15 comfortably it leaves me a 3:30 marathon to run which should be doable. My easy pace off long bikes has been 4:45/km

Oh and I've dropped the HIM, so just a sprint distance race over the next 9 weeks is all

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Bike target. I've penciled in 5:15 which is 34kmh. I'd be confident of holding that or even 35-36 but have no idea what the climbs will take out of that. I'll cycle on RPE and HR and if that gets me 5:15 or better, happy days.

Is there a table anywhere that shows required wattage to hold a certain average speed? What wattage would be required to hit a 5.15 bike split?

shotgunmcos

Joyce Noisy Bubble wrote: »

Is there a table anywhere that shows required wattage to hold a certain average speed? What wattage would be required to hit a 5.15 bike split?

Have you got a Powermeter JB? I was cycling with a couple of lads last week who agree that the Taxc numbers are generally a bit higher than PM Values. Tunney did his IM bike split last year in 4:59 AFAIK and on 205watts. So 36kmh for 5 hours on 205w?! 205w on the Flow corresponds to 31kmh or so. Unreliable. So if a table does exist what would you base your wattage estimates on? I'd love to be doing this IM on power numbers that I have trained on and I know well enough to rely on RPE too but alas not to be. I'm very interested to see that tables or stats etc. around this though