Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 16)

An 11/23 on hills.......earns you two 'atta girls' redeemable on the CDA bike course.

Congrats on the new bike purchase....good luck picking the scheme. I hate picking colors to paint a wall, can't even imagine doing it for a bike.

Curiousity question, what made the biggest difference in getting to the 'magic' spot?

Yeah, you definitely get bonus points for riding the 11-23.  Ouch!  And congrats on the new ride and good fit, it's amazing how much difference a good fit can make.  Enjoy.

I watched that recently on the trainer. 

And...what did you think?

Saturday is going to be Rush 30, nothing but Rush, all Rush and loud Rush! Rush-n-Roll!

OMG!!!! I'm looking forward to Saturday's ride

There was a goo dthread on Slowtwitch yesterday about the CDA swim.  It's already buried, but if you use the search function you can find it. 

Ghost protocols was ok.  I watched MIB 3 wed night and I was very surprised at all the swearing.  I only say that because my 8 year old daughter was (that ended quickly) watching it with me.  My review is it was ok.

It is a decent enough movie. The one part if I recall correctly when they are in the tower in Dabi or wherever Ethan is hooking up something to the server. Umm bad prop on the server there. I think it was either a dell 2650 or 2850. Those models of servers have to be at least 10 years old so why would that building have such old servers in it?  so yeah I'm an IT guy lol. 

I have 2:50 on the trainer on Sat so I will be looking for a movie to watch tonight.

I'm feeling frustrated on the bike.  I have a 3 hour ride tomorrow and that feels big when I haven't felt comfortable or strong on the bike yet.  I've ridden more than that before (on a 30 year old bike) and now that I have a "nice" bike, it's giving me trouble.  I think most of it is in my head, but the bike appears to be my weak link.

I'm impressed that you guys can stand being on a trainer for that long...I go bonkers on a trainer after about an hour.  I got to ride outside all week this week and tomorrow is supposed to be clear (but cold)...

Keep up the good work!

I am curious what you guys are doing for your longer rides on the trainer? Intervals? Steady at speed? We have been doing trainer roads and the workouts are a good mix of intervals, speedwork and recovery.

Thanks for the movie recommendations.....going to watch bicyle dreams tomorrow.

I hear ya, 3 hours on the trainer is tough. The kind of tough that gets us ready for race day. Hopefully you start feeling more comfortable on your new ride. Mine is a year old and I am still doing some adjusting.

I have been and I'm going to be doing a ride like this tomorrow

2:15 Hours

Warm up: 15 min at 50% FTP
Main set:
Ride 1:45 at 70 percent of FTP on an even 80-85 cadence.
Warm down:
15 min at 50 percent of FTP

During the week, I usually have some kind of 10, 15 minute intervals including 100% at FTP

Hope that helps.

My long rides have been on Sunday (program calls for Sat but I really like knocking out the long run on first on Sat). Later in my program I'll be doing more intervals etc on the long ride days, but as of now it's staying in zone 2-3 then during the week intervals, speed work etc.

At 35 years old I still like rockin the video games so I'll usually spend 2-3 hours in zone 2 playing video games..keeps me entertained between the hours of 5-8 anyhow .

Off topic but it seems like most folks are coming from higher elevations and/or living in the CDA area so are comfortable with the elevation. I've been gone from CDA for 10 years and have spent that time in the lower altitude of Chicago. Really curious and vagualy concerned about how this will effect me come race day. Any thoughts or suggestions on how to handle that elevation change from 6 months of training to the change for the big day?

Intervals are the only thing to keep me focused on the trainer.  That way I'm focusing on the little interval segment I'm on instead of "OMG, I have how many more hours left?!?!?"  I watch TV shows instead of movies.  Movies take a while to get to the point, TV shows are more compressed and you can watch more variety over a long ride.

My longest trainer ride was 4.5 hours.  But that's only because I was supposed to do 6 and it was snowing outside.  I may have cried a tiny bit when I saw the snow.

IM is a mental game - long trainer rides will help with that.

For my longer rides it's generally been a steady at speed ride.  Leaving intervals and the like for the mid week rides. Hoping the weather picks up around here, I don't want to be doing 3+ hours on the trainer again this year.

For my long rides, I've done TrainerRoad "Balcony" a couple of times - 3hr endurance @50-80% FTP.  It has enough variation that it doesn't get too boring.  At first it seems like it's too easy, but after a couple of hours it starts to wear on your legs.

How the heck do you play video games and stay focused on intensity levels etc? I know I couldn't do that.

Have you been properly fitted to your bike since you say you haven't felt comfortable?

I struggle at times on the trainer on the longer rides. I think I did a 4 hour ride on mine last year. I was mentally drained more than physically drained after that. 

I'll be watching some movie off of Amazon Prime and maybe a couple of TV shows too. I have an app on my phone that lets me enter in everything so the workout is simple to follow.

My workout for tomorrow consists of: (had to do some adjustments on times so total time might be off.)

BIKE 2:50

WARM UP20:00 gearing pyramid-- 2:00, 3, 4, 5, & 6:00 intervals, increasing your gearing by oneand increasing your intensity gradually to 75%

DRILLS (30:00 total)4 x 3:00 ILT w/30 sec recovery after each-- each repeat should be3 x (20 sec one leg / 10 sec transition / 20 sec other leg / 10 sec transition);--

straight into4 x 3:00 VG Sets w/ 30 sec recovery spin after each.Each VG Set done as follows, 2 x through:40 sec in a moderate gear @90-95rpm;20 sec easy gear @110+rpm;30 sec hard gear @85 rpm

MAIN SET -- BIG TARGET!These are descending aerobic intervals. Record your times, average heart rate, and speed (if possible) for each of these & compare them to previous similar sets (such as Sat, 2/24).

(11.2mi / 18km / 32:00) @75% - 3:00 recovery spin @60-65%

(9.3mi / 15km / 27:00) @75% - 3:00 recovery spin @60-65%

(9.3mi / 10km / 25:00) @84% -- NOTE HIGHER INTENSITY! - 2:00 recovery

(6.2mi / 5km / 17:00) @84% -- Finish strong!

COOL DOWN

Continue spinning, gradually reducing the intensity to 60% and below.

I just setup alarms on my heart monitor to go off if my HR goes below 2.5 or above 3.5. This is just for the long rides where I'm in that HR area for 2-3 hours so no need to pay attention to intervals there just yet. First IM so we'll see if that aspect of the plan pays off for me down the road or now

for my 2 additional rides during the week I do intervals, and thats where netflix/itunes comes into play. Earlier in the week it was Dave Grohls "Sound City" which was awesome if you're a rock music fan and get the chance.

Hey rbalazs I just moved from ATX to Boulder CO. I do miss the Austin weather for training but I have to say, the weather here in Boulder this winter has been awesome, a little chilly at times but doable. 

Tell Jack I say "hello". Do you know Hollie Kenney? 

I love all the races in Austin, I know I'm going to miss them this summer.

I kind of like trainer rides - I can start whenever I want (as early as 3AM sometimes), watch/listen to whatever I feel like and no worries about a flat or the weather. I do tend to break down the hr into 15 minute sessions though. At 15/45 I sit up from aero for a bit at the hr and 30 after I will stand, or even get off briefly to stretch.

In other news, I finally booked a room today too (in this case procrastination paid off well, I found an apt with only a 3 day min) about 10 min from downtown. Sure beats my plan to stay in Spokane and drive in. All that's left now is to actually train.  

I just had a great bike/run/bike workout.

1 hour easy spin

30 min run with middle 10 mins fast, back on bike

30 mins

4 x 3 minutes hard, held power over 280, HR over 140 and cadence 90+ for each of the 3 minutes.

Great run in the snow!!