Ironman 70.3 Vineman : Official Thread

Participant list is posted

??

Im in!!

For a summer 70.3 race how much winter training is necessary? I am planning on consiistant base training on the bike and runs but maybe add some hill  repeats in the mountains this winter too. We have a local marathon that runs near the famous Superstition Mountains (Lost Dutchman Marathon) that has some good hills for hill repeats, running or biking.

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/fullscreen/150682509/

OK, time to get serious as official training has begun!  Since we are all going to become best friends on this thread, I'll introduce myself.  My name is Tom and my history with fitness hasn't been the best as until I turned 51.  I really did not engage in any sweat producing physical activity on a regular basis except for a year-long love affair with the bike.  Some family illnesses turned on the light bulb and I decided at that point things had to change.  Started out by joining a gym, engaging a personal trainer, starting to run and ended up doing 3 marathons and 10 half marathons in a year.  As you would expect, this drove lots of changes to my body and my health, most of the good.  However, I did find all the miles running were taking their toll and I was always dealing with or on the verge of injury, with the result that I took almost a year off of racing (not fitness!) to let the body recover.  I decided to add biking and swimming as a way to maintain aerobic fitness for running, and that morphed into a desire to enter the world of Tri last year.  I did two 'Tri for Fun' events designed for first-timers/beginners, then set my sights on a fall Oly in Pacific Grove.  I set my goal at finishing with a sub-3 hour time and managed to come in at 2:54:42 and was inordinately pleased with myself.  Pleased enough that I decided to pursue the next step, a HIM, and thus I find myself here with you getting ready for the Vineman 70.3!

This week marks the beginning of my (first) training program for the race.  I say 'first' because I've also signed up for the 12 week program offered by the organizers.  Why?  Since this is my first HIM (and only 3rd Tri), my kickoff plan is a fairly benign one that I picked up off of the TriNewbie site primarily because it was 1) fairly benign and 2) I could more easily work it into my life schedule than any other plan I reviewed.  That being said, I started my base-building back in January and found myself ahead of my kickoff plan in the swim and bike categories before I even got here.  The run, that was a different story as I managed to break a toe the last week of January and have been healing ever since with NO running, just using the elliptical to maintain running fitness as closely as possible.  Good news is that this is the week I get back to running and have been able to step into the mileage of the kickoff plan without missing a beat.  I'll judge my fitness as time progresses and decide whether I want to migrate to the 12-week organizer plan after I have a chance to really review it.

This week:  6300 yds swim, 102 miles on the bike, and 15 miles run.

The swim: I have never been a real swimmer and only got in the pool for the first time in 40 years last summer as I trained up for my races last year.  During the winter, I unfortunately let my swim fitness drain away, so had to build up distance again and did using the zero to one mile program here (http://ruthkazez.com/ZeroTo1mile.html).  It worked for me last summer and again like a charm starting in January.  I'm finding I'm not a big fan of swim drills, so have recently used a combo of 2x/week intervals (21x100) and continuous swims (2100).  I'll use this pattern to get up to 2500 or 3000, but will have to find a way to mix it up and keep it interesting after that.  There may be some coaching in my future.

The bike:  A relative newbie here too.  Back in the early 90's I would ride 15-20 miles at lunch every day, but then the company moved to a location that was completely bike-unfriendly.  The bike went into the shed and stayed there for 20 years.  When I pulled it out to start training last summer, I was surprised at what great condition it was still in.  Some new tires and cleaning and it was good to go.  Unfortunately, it was a 37-pound hybrid, so not really a racing bike.  I used it for the first couple of months but knew a new bike was going to be required.  I started looking around and after I'd seen a couple of models that appealed to me, I approached a friend of mine who is a competitive cyclist and asked him to help me on my quest.  We discussed the various options and he presented me with yet another.  Turns out he had recently bought a new bike for himsel (Cervelo) and had his previous bike sitting forlornly in his garage.  I took it for a few test rides and it was a no brainer.  The bike was a carbon Trek Project One with Dura-ace components, etc., and a total weight of 17 lbs.  Night and day compared to the hybrid.  Needless to say, I bought it from him and am loving it.  Over the past 2 months have ramped up the miles slowly getting to the 100+ for each of the past 3 weeks.  All of these miles have been on flat to modest rollers until 2 weeks ago when that same friend invited me to ride with him and he introduced me to his 'easy hill rides': 

I loved it.  Now I'm riding with him at least once a week and seeking out routes with more hills I can ride on my own.  That being said, the course at Vineman does not look that hilly, but hill training can't be bad.  Just have to do sufficient training on the flats to get aero position training done.

The run: I think I'll be OK here now that I'm able to run again.  I've got enough running experience that I'm comfortable I'll be able to get back on track here completely and be ready come race day.  Right now, the legs are more tired than I would have expected, but it is a good tired feeling.  The decision I'm facing now is whether to cut back on the bike for a few weeks as the legs acclimate to running again, or keep working on the bike to maintain the fitness I've acheived there.

OK, let's get this party started.  Tell us about yourself and where you are in training and let's start cheering each other on as we go through this journey together over the next 4 months!

Hey Zann, nice to meet you!  It's great that we've got someone in the group with lots of strengths and  experience in all the disciplines AND has a lot of knowledge of the Vineman course to help us understand it better.  What will it take for you to qualify for Vegas? 

I'm hoping to make it up to Napa a couple of times before the event to ride the course and would appreciate any suggestions you may have on how to get the best out of it.  That won't be for a while, so I may come back and ping you on that in a while.  Hope all is going well with your training.

Hi Tom & Nann!  I'm Elena.  Several sprints, 2International DU's several half mary's, on my resume. This will be my first HIM.  So excited! 

I could not bear waiting to find out whether or not I made it into Vineman last year (I was on waitlist)...so I ended up signing up for the Half Aquabike event instead.  Same swim & ride route and distance but without the run.  Awesome course.  Beautful!  After completing the race i realized I TOTALLY can do a HIM!!! 

Training so far is not nearly as precise as it was last year.  Been missing workouts here and there, but yet feeling pretty good at this point.  Must focus.   

Last week was 4 miles swim, 84 miles bike, 19 miles run and 2 hours pilates for a total training load of ~12 hours.  Had another challenging bike ride today with my cycling buddy.  Think I'm going to swap it for the longer ride I had scheduled for later this week as it was longer and hillier than the plan calls for.  Looked like this:

Definitely the most challenging one I've done so far and I was happy to see HR only got up to 167 at any point during the ride.  Hopefully that says the aerobic fitness is coming along OK.

I'm suspicious I may have some plantar faciitis starting on my right foot as there is some tightness and pain in the heel region. I've started with the rolling of the foot, Strassburg sock at night, Motrin, streching out of the achilles tendon, etc., and hope I can nip this in the bud. Had it once before and ended up having to do 6 weeks of elliptical prepping for a marathon as it went away. Any other home treatment approaches welcome. If it worsens, it'll be off to my sports podiatrist in short order.

On a fun note, my 30 year old daughter is training for her first tri. She, like me, has a running background and felt tri's were the next progression. Yesterday I went with her to do a wetsuit rental and she got to experience the fun of a first-timer trying on wetsuits. The person helping us actually had to get her a bottle of water between the first and second suits as she had worked up quite a sweat. Everything worked out fine and she walked out with a wetsuit that seemed to fit her like a glove.

Hi everybody,

I'm Greg, age 44. This will be my 4th Vineman. It will be my 8th 70.3, and I did one full IM, Canada, 2011. I'm doing IM Canada again in August, so Vineman is a BIG training day, and not my "A" race. I'm pretty decent on the bike, still learning how to swim, and I just get through the runs. I'm a school teacher so I'm about 10-12 hrs a week of training until June, then I get up to 18 or more.

Vineman is an awesome race. The swim is in a narrow river that is between 6 and 2 feet deep. The race has 16 wave starts so the spacing is excellent--never too crowded. You can stand up at any point you want, so it's never scary. Last year we had to walk/run around the turn around bouy (a couple hundred feet) because the water was so shallow. The bike is quite rough (the roads are bad) and technical for about 16 miles, and then its smooth sailing. There are two hills, the second one (Chalk Hill) being a pretty steep but doable grind. Very pretty bike course. The run is rolling hills--actually more hilly than most runs. It usually gets hot during the run. If you get an early swim wave (6:30) it's usually not above 80 degrees when you finish. If you get a late start (after 8:00). It can be Hot!

Hope this helps. Hope all your training goes well.

It's rough, but I ran 120 rear, 110 front, just like I normally do.