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Iron Distance 2012 Training Thread
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Wishing you a safe trip and a fantastic race, WW. Knock 'em dead!
Thanks for the feedback, folks. Really appreciated. Perhaps I'll save the steep hill reps for the bike, and do longer, shallower gradients in my running. Running is my "limiter" so it's the one I get most twitchy about.
Was talking about that Outlaw wind with Muffin yesterday when she was out on her first post-Outlaw trot with me. It must take a lot of mental re-programming when you've been looking forward to the bike leg for ages on the basis that it's flat, fast and smooth...... and then you get there expecting a certain pace/PB and it blows a bunch of old boots and hail in your face. I spectated at the entry to T2 and didn't see many happy bikers.... even at the pointy end. I wonder whether some people got caught out on the expectation that it might be easier than it was??
The pain in my hips tells me it was pretty hard.....
So outlaw has been and gone.....
There is that pesky event down in Wales, but thats just a minor affair, in a minor principality, and is not really worth mentioning, (*ducks from the torrent of abuse*)
Then we can all get on with the main event for the rest of 2012.......
starting to train for extravalanza 2013
OC ... its gonna be a long old 11 months
Good luck WW! I too am in Germany for a Roth outing - give me a wave if you see a tall blonde out on the course wearing a Dubai Tri-Pirates outfit
I'm still not 100% recovered from my various illnesses, but hopeful that I will get to the start and double hopefully the finish too
You'll do great PuP I'm sure
If nothing else those 5-hour turbo seshes will have given you a real mental toughness and the ability to carry on through the sheer boredom of it!
Good luck
Go for it PUP - looking forward to your race report
So... pretty much 10 weeks till IM Wales. I have my first of two big days training scheduled for tomorrow (Gordo & Friel recomendation).
Hours swim with the tri club at 9am, scheduled 4-5 hour ride at 11:30, then a 2hr jog/trundle at arround 6pm. I guess im going to be wet for most of the day then
Next week for me is an easy week as i'm away with work at a Trade show so only running, maybe a little OW in the lake near hotel. But mostly recovery.
Then it's the last effort to get a bit faster before the race. I keep worrying about swim and bike cut offs. Even though I did the longcourse weekend bike leg in 7.5 hours, that was with drafting and no swim first. I think for me it's bike, bike and more bike from now on.
It's starting to get real now.
Aha, Crux, no wonder you were feeling a bit low last night, with that lot looming today. Good luck with it all - report back later, please!
Hi i have been signed up for a bit but have not posted, I completed the Outlaw and thought the whole pirate Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} support was just so good and uplifting, i have question if any body has an answer why does the roof of your mouth hurt so much the day after? its almost painful to eat!!
Big day training is really valuable and a good confidence builder
I did similar sessions before my first as well.
1 hr swim
5 hr bike
90 min run ( i cant remember if i intended 2 hrs ir not)
The run will probably be an eye opener.... Your legs will be tired and it will not feel anything like a normal run.
Just go easy and get the the run done. feel free to run / walk the run.
Dont injure yourself ; ie dont try to run fast. you wont be running fast on IM day.....
If you find it easy, ride the following day
If you find it hard work( more likely) then its a good daya training. its supposed tk be a hard day
If you crash and burn on rhe run, then your bike pace/ effort is probably too high.....
You can always do a repeat in a few weeks time
Goog luck PuP.
Purely Cornish, dunno. I was the same so I'd be interested to find out too.
The club swim set the tone for the rest of the days training. It was speed sets and single arm drills, by the end I was blowing bubbles trying to keep up, worse I cramped up badly at the end and even needed a pull buoy to finnish the last 50 meters.
2K total, 55 mins (sTSS 68)
However a load of porridge and tea plus a bit of rest got me back in the mood for a bike ride. Unfortunately I just could not take good advice and go easy, I had to blast it having a great time in the sun. Really happy to stay aero for most of the 5 hours (clip on bars), plus it makes such a difference to speed. ??Normal pace over this loop for me is 15 mph average. Today it was 16.9 mph average. But boy was I ready for a break after that.??
84.5 miles, 5 hours, 3'600 ft climbing (TSS 246)
Massive bowl of paella, milk shake, slice of Spanish omlete and a load of electroligths with a 90 min rest and I'm ready for the run. Decide to do an 11 mile route and not look at my HRM or pace, just trundle away at whatever pace the body wants. Felt surprisingly good, just a little indigestion! So good in fact I forgot to fuel until 60 mins into the run and then just decided not to bother with the gels. Body finally gave out at 95 mins, legs just stopped and I was walking. Maybe I could have gone more with a few more gels, but I'm very happy with the day. Especially 9 min miles while I lasted.
10.56 miles, 95 mins (rTSS 136)
Now recovering, but my calves are wrecked ... Glad its an easy week comming up!
So you had lots of rest and managed a 9 mile run before walking
You need to run 26 on race day......
So what did you learn?
There in lies my biggest unknown, I have no idea how to pace for the IM Wales bike corse. It's just too bumpy to stick to a flat heart rate and I do not have a power meter.
All I can think of doing is having a HR limit for the hills, another HR limit for the flats and free wheeling the downs.
How that will all stack up in terms of pace and time I have no idea!
I'm not even sure how to train from now on. Continue to go hard and try to get faster in training (to make the bike go easier on the day). Or get specific and ride only to my target IM HR limits now?
FWIW I did all my bike training to a Z2 limit, including on the flat and climbing. I would set land speed records for the first couple of hours, then tail off. On the day I went easy for the first hour or so - not even getting in to Z2, then picked it up a bit. Of course, the HR could be low because I'd spent almost an hour and a half horizontal.
What was the running pace for the first 2 miles? I have found that running off the bike makes me underestimate the pace. My first mile lap at Outlaw was 8min/mile, and it was very hard for the first few to keep to a lower limit. I ran in Z1, with the HR creeping up in to Z2 later. This was cardiac drift rather than an increase in speed.
Pacing is key. Within the HR limits you could use speed zones - 20mph is coast, 17.5 is pedal lightly, 15 is normal effort and so on. There is no point in beasting down hills because you like to, it just burns more energy and increases fatigue.
Excellent. As you say bike pacing is key. I also think you have a good approach. I used a hr cap at Lanza this year - 155 max on the hills
I was aiming for a hr of 140 avg. in reality, i get excited in races and my hr was 150 most of the way, but i still kept my hr cap in place
As a result i ran really well off the bike
The cap was about my hr average for a half IM bike leg if that helps
I am pretty sure going long/ Gordo mention that as well
In the mean time hills on the bike are good. You don't need to hammer yourself going up them all as fast as possible, just get stronger/ do lots so they no longer seem as daunting
In your long rides go easy, then put blocks in at IM target pace.
Remember that you still need to go fast on the flats so some tt work is good.
Another idea is an over distance ride, ie 120 miles just riding easy
Finally it's good to do a 20 -30 min run off te bike after every long bike. I usually fail at this, but it's supposed to be good to understand / help pacing the bike
finally finally i end up doing an interval session in my second ride of the week....
Cool advice, OC. Meant for Crux (we must have finished the LCW sportive within shouting distance of each other), but I'll pick bits out of that myself if you don't mind!
Lovely session on Saturday. 10M rolling run in 99 mins. That's relatively quick for me on that course, and I felt really fresh in Z2 all the way.
Yesterday was a bit of a shocker but I turned a sow's ear into as silky a purse as I could. Set off for a 4-hour ride. Big front tyre blow-out after 3.5 miles, changed the tube and realised it was a 60mm valve on a 60mm rim
. So i had my tdf moment - MuffinTop rolling down the bypass in her big Skoda while I stood at the roadside waviing my wheel, and she kindly dropped off one of her Mavics. Bad news is that I think the carbon rim cracked and may be knackered. Whizzed home to change the front blocks, then out again on a route around LBS's to stuff my pockets with 80mm tubes. Then out again, but 36M in and going up the first decent hill, I thought i'd shelled my chain. Looked down and the rear mech had come off - mech hanger snapped. So needed rescue again 
.
Went home feeling fairly flat, but Muffin convinced me to jump on the turbo and I got another 90 hard minutes done over-geared and hopped off for a 2M run.
So in the end - a positive but expensive day!
I blame the Cornish bread......
IronCat5, are you referring to Fink zones?
Running pace started about 8:55 ended at about 9:05 min miles. That’s the pace of all my long steady runs. Well it’s actually a run/walk (9/1min intervals) so the running is a bit faster, then the walk slows down the average. Left to my own devices I default to that pace, I’m thinking about trying to hold it to 9:30 pace or even 10:00 at the start of the run but it’s so difficult to train at that speed when you’re fresh.
OC.. Thanks for the details, this has been a really useful discussion/learning process for me. I will have to test my HIM pace because I have no idea what it is
I have been using TrainerRoads and virtual power recently to do a 2x20 threshold session each week and then some over gearing work. I think this is paying big dividends in bike fitness and has also given me some good data about power/HR, both at and below threshold. I now have an idea of what average HR I ‘should’ be pacing at so I’m going to do some test rides to see how my HR drifts and how hills affect it.
I did a lot of reading yesterday about the Ironman bike leg and pacing, and it seems that going out too hard even though it feels a dead easy pace at the time is probably the most common problem for poor runs. Short of having a power meter to follow it must be real hard to know when you’re going too hard at the start.
Hey Slower,
Bad luck on that ride, sounds pricy! Still, impressive to get in the time training despite it all.
I should have arranged to say hello in Tenby on the LCW. If we finished in a similar time on the sportive then I was maybe drafting you for a good chunk of time as I saw the same bikes come and go, over and over again towards the end
thanks guys! what an awesome race Roth is, new PB of 12:41 including 6:37 bike time
hope you had a good one PUP.
chuffed for you WW. Great racing.
Enjoyable session for me tonight. 45 mins turbo in front of the Tour TT that I'd recorded. Tried to match Wiggo's cadence and failed spectacularly.... even in the most pathetic gearing
! Then dropped into a threshold run - bit more than 3 miles around the block. Looking forward to developing that session. I think my focus on run economy is working. Couldn't be any worse, so improvements are easy!
Well done WW. Good jawb!
Crux - yes, Fink HR zones.
Slower - I bought 4 80mm tubes, and have to remember to take the correct stock out with me. I think I'm going to need 2 new race tyres soon, as some training on them has caused some damage. I'm amazed the front is still together with the impending hernia. How I sliced the tyre like that I don't know.....sure it wasn't like that the other week. Doesn't bear thinking about
.
Well done, WW - and it sounds like you had a great time there
.
Sorry to hear about your ride on Sunday, STIL, though the TdF session today sounds a bit serious!
Rest day for me, as I'm recovering from Cowman yesterday. It was completely un-Piratey as far as I could see, until an incognito Plum revealed himself to me (as it were
) out on the bike - great to meet you, Plum!
I didn't enjoy the race that much, perhaps partly because it came after the great Outlaw weekend, though nothing really went wrong.
Swim - really busy and lots of biff until the second buoy, never getting into a rhythm until the second (of two) laps. Thought my time of 40 mins was OK though, until I saw that most people were 35 mins or below!
T1 was was wobbly as transition was a quagmire.
Bike was the most enjoyable bit. We had very little rain, light winds, and the course took me along roads I used to run on years ago. Legs were burning quite early, for a relatively low speed, but I put that down to the after-effects of the Outlaw bike last week. Pirate kit brought out a few cheers of support. 57 miles in 3.02.
Run was short, rerouted because of the wet ground. Since I was fading by the last third, it may have been a good thing.11.85 miles in 1.35. There was a slightly uphill out & back loop, and seeing people appear to fly back down was quite encouraging!
Only 2 fast people showed up in my age category, so I fluked a third and actually stood on an actual podium, actually
!
So, no more racing now until IMW - just steady training and a bit of volunteering for a few Big Events before then...
Legend, Joddly! Admirable sandbagging that your podium only happened because all bar two of the competitors were bobbins
. Congrats and well done.
orsum, well done on the podium joddly!
Crikes Joddly you always end up on a podium these days!
Well done great bike time.
WW - congrats on Roth, sounds like a great race
I've just entered the Little Woody - sounds ideal really - a proper grass roots tri and free camping! Really looking forward to a focus again - sad isn't it
Well sandbagged .. yet again Joddly