Ironman North American Championship Mont-Tremblant : Official Thread (Page 11)

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GOOD LUCK lepfan72 and Fred on your races this weekend!

I have a 100/2.5 brick tomorrow and a 4k ows swim "race" followed by 90 min easy ride and a :15 run on Sun.

37 days to go!

x2 - Good Luck!!

FRED - I've raced the Musselman 3 times and really like that race. It's well organized and the town really comes out and supports the race. Not a big fan of that path along side the cornfield, but overall Musselman is a very good race. Enjoy!

37 days!?!

Good luck, be safe and have a great race Fred.

How did everyone do racing this weekend? I heard Musselman had some challenging weather - hope anyone racing that had a good day!

I was lucky - great weather conditions and overall just a super race; feeling much more confident with only five weeks left to MT.

I got in a 105 mile ride today where I rode every hill I could find to finish with 6000 feet of elevation gain. Or so MapMyRide said. Question - I've seen different figures for the elevation gain on the course. Some sights say 6000 - but mapmyride says it's only 3200. Either way, I'm good - but what do you all say?

Coolest part of today's ride (in No MI) - a mama black bear and her 4 cubs crossed the road about 100 feet in front of me. I don't think I've ever hit the breaks harder!

Hope everyone's training is going well.

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Hope everyone's racing and training went well this past weekend. Overall I felt like I had a pretty solid week, 9k yd swimming + 1 hour OWS, 202.2 miles on the bike, and 43 mi running.

Did 9 k swimming in the pool with a 1 hour OWS. The OWS was not encouraging, I kept veering to the left and had to sight every 3 strokes to stay on course. I was in a lake, and could swear that there must have been a current! My guess is that I am probably stronger on my right and pulling harder. I hope I get on some good feet at IMMT. I don't have enough time to get out and swim OWS and fix my issues with what time we have left.

Doing well on the bike. I'd like to have gotten another workout in, but there is only so much time in the week. I did a metric century where I pushed the pace, my 100 mi endurance ride with 6k elevation gain, and a 40 mi ride where I do 8 x 5 mi loops where I progressively try to do each loop faster. It's tough, I also hammer up the one significant hill in the loop. I will probably do the same this week, but will try to fit in a 1 hour trainer ride where I'll suffer through a set of 5 x 5 min intervals.

My run is where I am feeling the strongest. Even after the tough week, I did an 18 mile run early Saturday and kept my pace in the 7:40s - 7:50s and felt comfortable. Last year, on less base training I was running about 9 min/mi on my long runs and was pretty sore. I ended up averaging about that pace for my IM. If I run sub 8 min miles for this IM, I would be ecstatic. I'm not saying it would be easy, but based on my current training, I'd say it is entering the realm of possibility. I want to really get my bike dialed in, make sure I am solid on my nutrition plan, and pray for good race day conditions so I can hit the run feeling good and see what I can do.

Question for Fred and the IM pros:

I structured training pretty badly this year. I did relatively nothing this winter through March due to a lingering major sinus infection that ended up requiring surgery. Recovered from that and hit the bike and swim hard. Saw improvements, legs felt great, was really optimistic. Didn't get cleared to start running until late May after finally figuring out what was causing my ankle pain (peroneal tendonitis, bike fit needed major adjustment).

Training was going super well until mid June (about 2 weeks after I started running again) and it's rather fallen apart since then. I've continued putting in the miles and time and my legs and body have felt relatively fine, but speed just isn't there. If anything, I'm getting slower as the season goes on rather than faster. Did a ride last weekend that I do each year and I was 0.5 mph slower than last year (and I certainly felt like it) and legs felt like they were dying at the end.

On my long run this morning, it finally clicked as to why training is not going so well - no base, built too quickly, threw running on top of bike/swim schedule with not only no reduction in hours on those to account for extra run but actually increased those at the same time.

I have 4 100 mile rides under my belt this season. I planned to do 2 more and then start taper (65-70 mi ride 2 weeks out, 40 1 week out). At this point, I realize my speed/fitness isn't where I want it to be, but there's nothing left to do other than try to press on.

Any advice? Should I taper more than usual to account for the accumulated fatigue? Should I press on?

TIA.

Edited by thedallasceliac 2014-07-15 11:44 AM

I am not an IM pro. Not even close. But I'll share my opinion.

Normally I would say you need a recovery week, but for most of us, this and next week are the peak weeks of training. So it is a bit late for a full recovery week. However, in my opinion, missing a day won't touch your fitness, so taking an extra recovery day mentally may be tough, but physically, you may need it now.

Another thing to consider is your fueling. You may be glycogen depleted. If you do not have the same base fitness as you had in the past, on each long effort you are digging deeper into your energy stores, and probably need a bit more time to refuel. I would make sure you are getting enough calories daily with a big focus on fueling up before, during and after your training sessions, especially on your long efforts. Also, spreading out your long run and long bike during the week if possible could help.

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Fred and Rich, thanks very much for your thoughts.

I posted in the main forum.

I'll take that extra recovery day this week and trim back volume on the run.

I agree with what has been said already - the extra rest will likely help.

That said, what do you do for recovery after your long runs and bikes? I know my legs like hot baths when they're feeling sore/tired/slow. I use the hot bath trick every once in a while and it really helps my legs recover. Do you get massages to work out the lactic acid? Stretch? For me, recovery is almost as important as my pre-run stretching.

Fred I wanted ask specifically about this comment - in your opinion, what is an appropriate taper? Standard seems to be about 3 weeks; although for various reasons my coach has structured mine to be more like two weeks (I've got a really easy week this week to recover from my 70.3 last weekend; then two more weeks of heavy training before taper).

Just curious more than anything - I'm still very much a novice and trying to learn.

Thanks!

Just as an fyi, I usually do 1 week tapers. I don't have alot of science to back me up on 1 week vs. 2 or 3 week tapers, but I agree with Fred about losing fitness and thus, I do 1 week tapers. It might be all in my head, or it may be physical, but I'm of the mind that I lose fitness with more than a 1 week taper....though I can't prove it. I won't go crazy hard the week prior to my taper, but I won't be slacking either.

I look at races as I would a test in school - study/cram right up to the last minute and take the test. Same basic concept with tapering, imho.

But I too am interested to hear what Fred has to say.

FRED - btw, how was the Musselman? I heard the weather was rough.

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Fred - just read your Musselman race report....DAMN!!! you had a great day - congratulations!!

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Pardon the stupid, but when you say 2 week taper, does that mean the long ride 2 weeks from race day starts the taper, or taper starts after that? I.e. should the ride 2 weeks out be 100, or something shorter like 70?

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I concur. Great race.

I really need to figure out how you and people like you ride so well on so few watts. With the winds, you put down a solid time, and your HR looked good too. I thought I've got my position looking pretty good, but I guess it probably still needs some work. Also not sure where your FTP is, but if in the 300 - 310 range, you probably had a pretty full tank heading into that run, and it showed. Great execution all around.

And really, over 300 miles riding over 5 days earlier that week? Crazy. Good job.

30 days from today people!

I had my second to last long run yesterday. It was a little rough but it's done. Hope everyone's training is going well as we head towards the blessed taper.