Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 10)

Howdy all, Just about to get started (24 week plan, on 1/7) training for my first IM. Really pumped about it as I'm originally from the CDA area (we've been in Chicago for the past 9 years however) so the prospect of doing my first IM in my hometown has really got me jacked up.

Have been getting in the pool a bit lately but have mostly been focused on wrapping up training for a half marathon here in Chicago (F3..held on the lakefront..in mid January...tropical!) and no time on the bike in a while. Looking forward to really hating my bike trainer in the near future

Just wanted to toss a quick introduction post out to everyone and am very much looking forward to reading all the posts and gearing up for the big day with you all. T minus 171 days!

I started my training in December. I was going to the pool three days a week, doing two days of indoor trainer rides, easy two hour rides on Saturday followed by a run and running outside a few days a week.

My Christmas break came, family came to town and my training completely stopped. 

I feel like such a loser for not training over the Christmas break 

My Fink plan started on Nov. 26.  Pretty happy with my December numbers, I only missed one 30-minute run workout, and that was in recovery week so I'm not too bothered by it.  My bike mileage seems low given the number of hours - but it was all done indoors with TrainerRoad where 14 miles on the trainer is like 20 miles outside... and more painful.

S:  19250.00 Yd - 8h 30m
B:  175.83 Mi - 12h 29m 51s
R:  66.84 Mi - 10h 57m 50s

Yep, still skiing instead of other things...

I've got a question for you guys.... what HIM are you doing to prepare for this?  I'm debating between:

NOLA-  pros: I have a free place to stay 5 blocks from the finish, cheap airfare  Cons: maybe not a good test of my cycling since it's pancake flat.

St George - Pros: about 10 people from my tri club are doing it, so we can carpool and split hotel rooms.  Cons: I'm worried the bike may kill me.

Knoxville - pros: nice amount of bike difficulty.  Cons: $$$ (airfare and hotel)

I'm not considering Galveston b/c I've done that race 3x and I hate hate hate that run.

UGH.  This should not be a hard decision... but it is.

Good to see this start to come back alive with old and new posters!

S: 6950.00 Yd - 2h 11m 55s 

R: 36.35 Mi - 5h 03m 16s 

As you can see, December I didn't do much of anything, heck that run total includes my 13 mile run!  Honestly, I wont be far off from those totals this week, pretty dumb really but my motivation was pretty shot.  I am feeling great physically, and more importantly, mentally now.  My "official" plan doesn't start til February but it assumes some things before the start that I can do now, but I better be on the ball from now til then.

I am seriously looking at Troika half distance but, I am not 100% sure if the timing is right or not May 18th)?  It would be my first half and fitting it in the right place is sure to be very important.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My training was decent though missed some due to work and being sick

S:  21350.00 Yd - 7h 15m 30s 
B:  364.83 Mi - 21h 47m 48s 
R:  104.03 Mi - 15h 02m 25s 

I am thinking about doing that myself but haven't committed yet because of funds.  But it would be a good primer and the time would be decent I think if you used it as a training day rather than a race day IMO.

Interesting, I didn't know they moved it from August to May.  My training plan has me doing a HIM at week 22, but I was planning on a simulated race because I didn't think I had any options within reasonable travel distance at that time of year. 

That would be at week 25 in my plan - five weeks before IMCDA (two weeks before taper).  I also would appreciate any advice as to whether or not that would be a good idea (keeping in mind the recovery time required by a 53 year-old).  I'm thinking if I treated it as a peak period workout, it might fit in pretty well.

Since we're sharing:

S: 7.5mi, 4:06

B: 146.25mi, 6:09

R: 15.25, 2:46

Yeah, I'm slow, but better that than nothing!  I'll never break any records, but I *will* finish!!!

Funds are my issue right now too.  

Looking at my plan, that weekend calls for s: 3800 m,  b: 85 miles and r: 16 miles.  Seems like a half would fit nicely, but I just don't know.

One other thing about Troika besides the date change, it sounds like the course is going to also change some as well.  It's not on the site yet but we have a thread talking about it a little in the Washington forum.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=466781&posts=22&start=1

http://www.troikatriathlon.com/

I'm gonna pass on Troika.  The organizers don't appear to be very organized, and I'm not going to pay upwards of $250 for a race that's not well-run.  They're website has the 'register now' button front and center, but everything else shows last year's information (course, dates, etc).  You'd think they have it together by now.  Just my $.02...

St. George! The bike may be hard, but it will be a huge benefit come race day in Cd'A.....my 2cents

It's $175, and not sure what site you are looking on, it has shown the new date for quite some time now.

You guys and gals are on the ball.  Here are my totals for December I missed two work outs last week due to the flu/cold I've been fighting. 

Run-Close but not enough for this time of year

Swim-more than I want, but just what I need.

Bike- Enough to watch any new movie at the library 2-3 days a week.  On a side not Total Recall the new version.  Not great, but if your library has it it can keep you biking for 90 minutes or so....

I'd have to ask my coach those numbers.  They are all in time not distance anyway.  Some of you are going to do really good come race day.  Those number totals are impressive. 

I found I burned out last time I trained too hard for a big race, so I'm trying to keep this training fun and different.  I have a 15 mile snowshoe race at the end of the month.  That should be fun.

I'm not sure I'll get a half in before CDA.  I do however foolishly have a 126 mile bike tour Michigan Mountain Mayhem to do on the 8th of June.  Not a ton of hills in southern Michigan so I picked this tour to get me mentally ready for the CDA bike course.  The tour covers 10,000 ft of rise in the 126 miles.  I am thinking of it as a great end to my training and then it's all taper to get to CDA.

Looks like it has the same race director as Race the River and the Coeur d'Alene Tri - those are both very well organized.  They're probably waiting to finalize the course details before updating the web site.

Well with a HIM I would be having my HR around 155-160 for the bike and the run about 160-165 but I were to do Troika I would try to keep my HR down around 140 for the bike and 150 for the run to more simulate Ironman.  You could do it the same way as well. I don't your training plan either but I am sure the times would be close to what your day would be like. 

On another note doing Troika would be more a force to get me in that cold water although I bet it will be a little warmer than CDA will be a month later.  

So how about today's temps at a record breaking (not really) 9 degrees out on north side of Spokane? Boy my run this morning was cold cold cold. I got warmed up 45 minutes into my 50 minute run at 5:30 this morning. 3 long sleeve shirts, cold weather biking jacket, cold weather biking gloves, hat, cold weather biking tights, and running pants over the top of those and I still wasn't very warm lol.

Finally got around to doing something with this - at the end of the day, I wasn't super happy with the results. As the video was recorded in a moving car, slowing it down works "ok" but at 1/4 speed was like watching paint dry. 1/3 wasn't much better, 1/2 and full speed were at least semi interesting. I also tried to tie in Google earth and while it worked had some issues with the display that I never bothered to look into... Basically I think I'll just use the full speed, and maybe 1/2 speed video's to keep myself entertained while I do some custom workouts on TR over the next few months. Here's what I've been doing.

I decided to create a ~1 and ~2hr workout that had under/overs timed roughly to the hills. That way when you watched the video and were going up a long hill your interval was the "over" part, and downhill or flat was the under. Early part and end of the video were warmup/cool down. Worked reasonably well, I've done this workout a few times now and with music on was more interesting to me than just a plain old TR workout with Netflix on.

Here's what the 1hr version looked like recently. I have this set up to be something like 105-110% of FTP on the "overs" and I think 95% of FTP on the unders. The entire ride, if done as written ends up with a ~0.8 IF or greater which I think is good for a 2hr ride. I have an .xls sheet with the mileage/elevation information I put together to create the TR workout and time it with the video if anyone wants it. I believe TR is close to releasing a new version of the workout creator which allows you to control the video as well, which would help a bit more with synchronization (I found I could be about 20 seconds or so off depending on when I hit "start" on the video and when TR decided to actually start the workout)

My plan doesn't officially start for another couple of weeks, but the offseason was solid for me. Feeling good and have made substantial improvements in run and bike over the last 3-4 months since my last HIM. Starting to feel real now!

Why not try the HITS HIM in Marble Falls?  Decent amount of climbing and the timing is right (late April).

*brain dead double posting*

I'm also doing the Mountain Mayhem this year.  I've done it the past three years and really enjoy it.  I was considering only doing the 100k this year just because it is getting close to CDA. 

My 24 week plan starts on Tuesday.  Anyone else using Matt Fitzgerald's Essential Week-By-Week Training Guide?  I've used it for my previous IM's, maybe next one I'll switch it up and try something new.

Hey guys, as mentioned this is going to be my first IM. I'm using Huddle and Freys "Ironman Start to Finish" book as my 24 week training schedule. Anyone have any thoughts/feedback on the program? I'm pretty much commited at this point since I officially start later today but thought I would ask.

Thanks,
Brian

Got a foot of snow over night, at my house just outside Cd'A - and it is supposed to snow all day. 

Gonna have to rearrange this week's workout schedule, the roads haven't been plowed yet and there is no where to run, and it looks like I'll have to skip Masters tonight to dig out... I guess another trainer workout is in order - or maybe I'll just count two hours of shoveling snow as a strength workout.