This is Week One of 12 week Ironman Race Prep.
Wellness Check…Body Comp – doing very well with hydration, sustaining 58.X % body water. But as usual, I;m having trouble keeping my weight up – slowly dipping down from 146#. More ice cream on the menu, I guess, along with numerous mid-day snacks, and more attention to calories during long rides, and after swims and runs. Knees are holding up very well, they are especially pleased about the walk/run mode for all runs.And, my bladder symptoms have lessened. See the doc Jul 30th for that.
Last week – A full plate @ 15 hrs, 40′ 1 hr 20′ of body work over two days. Swim x 3, long @ 1:33, another OWS @ 1 hr, and a 30′ session of descending 8 x 50, then 10 x 25. It’s hard to compare this summer’s swims to last yuear, as I was doing much less running, less biking, and I am swimming longer – now @ 4000 yds an OWS session compared 2200. Year-on-year, I seem to be 2″/100 slower, both in the lake and in the pool.
Bike – Long bike was not in the mountains, 3hr 20′ in the lowlands, with a couple of 5-10′ hills for effort. A weekend ride of 2:30. And a Zwift iTT – 22′ @ 1.0 for both IF and VI. Here’s a screen shot of just the race:
Don’t know how much you can see. Ignore the erratic red line – HR dropouts. The yellow power started “easy” for the first 2-3′, then steady until a downhill late in the course. I had a loooong warm-up – 51′ on the Champs Elysee in honor of the TdF, then over to the Chain Chomper. I worked hard, “won” the Cs (but I forgot to wear my HR, so no trophy.)
Run – Practiced 5’/5′ run walk during 6 sessions covering 4 hours, 19 miles. Don’t know if you saw my replies in the thread I created about this project, I wrote this in one of them: What I am finding is that I am viewing the run intervals as my “break”, and the walking where the mental work is. IOW, yes, I can run along on auto-pilot at 10:1X’/mile for 5′, and then I am using a lot of mental energy to focus on my walking. For starters, I am treating it as an ABP workout. I am constantly paying attention to my cadence and stride length (not on my watch, just kinesthetically), and discovering when I do that, I can walk 13-15’/mile. I’m actually relieved when I start running again, knowing that (a) I can give my mind a break, just zone out and run and (b) I only have to run for 5′, which is very stress relieving, as I HATE to run. For 22 years, I have had to force myself out the door for each and every run workout. Now, with something new to work on, and knowing I will be walking half the time, I’m actually looking forward to it.
Upcoming week:
Swim: Plan calls for two sessions, I’ll do an OWS on Wed of an hour, and another of 1:30 on the weekend. If I’m feeling chipper, I may throw in 30′ of pool intervals. I have stopped extending the time and distance of the long swim, so now I can attend to seeing if I can pick up the pace.
Bike: I’m going to repeat the iTT tomorrow same course and distance. Plan calls for Primed FTP, 2 x 8′ @ 100%, so 22′ non-stop ought to do the trick no? I’ll try to get 4 hours on Thursday, and 2:30 on the weekend. There’s an optional bike which I slotted into Friday, but will hold as a low priority.
Run: The plan calls for 6 sessions (counting a split run as two). I’m adding time to each of them. maybe 45′ total, to account for the walking/slower speed. My main focus will be working the walk segments as hard as I can, and observing the pace I reach, as well as considering the intervals. Question this week: should I try shorter intervals?
Coach reply:
Al Truscott – I did see that race; that zwift image looked like a crime scene so much red. Very well done. I continue to be pleased with how hard you can go on the bike and still do the rest of your training. Very good sign IMHO.
For the swim, it’s all bonus points now with this extra distance. You are normalizing the work of the race itself; a lower perceived cost of swimming — regardless of time — is a win in my book. I like the idea of slightly faster, curious to know how you plan to go about it? You could speed up catch, hold the finish, increase arm turnover, etc. Thoughts?
I don’t think we need to adapt the run walk just yet, but If you wanted to you could go 6 run / 4 walk. Right now 5/5 gets you an 11:28 mile, or 5h marathon. A 6 run / 4 walk split shaves 7 minutes overall off that time…nice to have but not mind blowing by any means. Let’s have you continue to optimize the mental game and technique to see if there’s speed in there without running more. Why holding back? Not going to lie, I like that the knees and bladder are happy!!
Enjoy that ITT!