Jim Kelley's (Birkierunner) General and Long Course Group (OPEN) (Page 18)

Hi Thomas.  I think most age groupers training for an IM would benefit more from a higher frequency/lower intensity running schedule each week than they would a higher intensity/less frequency approach.  You want to build run durability in your legs through more frequent runs versus fewer, harder runs.  More experienced runners may be able to get by with the latter approach but for the general AG population I would recommend more frequency at lower intensities.  As you mentioned, you are getting a lot of quality intensity work via swimming and running, which are much less brutal on the legs.  The Ironman run is not sexy...it is NOT about being fast.  Its ALL about slowing down the least...especially in the last 6 miles.  As they say, the marathon is 20 miles of hope and 6 miles of reality.  Having said all of this, I still prescribe bouts of strides (e.g. 20-30 second pickups) in my athlete's run workouts about once a week.  Also, fartlek runs are a great way to get some intensity into your runs withouth having to slog through long, hard runs.  There is no standard format for a fartlek run but its simply mixing up different paces for certain durations within a workout (e.g. warmup, then alternate 5' @ E pace followed by 5' @ M pace for duration of workout).  As your key IM race approaches you will eventually have to have some key run sessions that prep you for the pace you want to race at.

Hi Guys. I have no time! LOL.  really...I can't keep up and can't find the energy to go back and read the threads! I am training...really just staying active and will start focused training in May - ish for my October race. Not sure I will do any tris before the Ironman Distance Race.  I have little in the way of funds, my bike is in need of love in the form of cash and I have one kid going to college in the fall and a teenage daughter who is expensive  It's all good...just a broke single mom teacher!  I hope everyone is having a good start to their season. I keep meaning to pop in on folks and say hello....but then don't!  Cheers!  Mimi

That is what my coach always said, Jim!! it's not who is the fastest...it is who slows down the least  One of the best pieces of advice - and the only advice he gave to me the morning of my best IM was "Let the day come to you".  

I did my last BIG work out on Saturday.  It was a metric HIM.  

I found myself getting board on the swim.  All that time with nothing to see but merky brown and the fact that I am used to laps in the pool with a lot of turns made me lose focus and want to role on my back or lift my head too much and for too long when sighting.   I was swimming without my wet suit this week since I put a 1-1/2" rip in it while setting up and practicing my T1 the night before (I was planning on getting Aquaseal on the race expo in three weeks and was hoping I wouldn't need it before then, I now have some on order to ship to me).  The water temperature was actually about 10 degrees warmer than the air (65 degs.) since we have been having temperatures in the 80's the past 10 days and things dropped to 55 degrees with an overnight rain shower.  

This was my first swim to bike brick and my heart monitor was going crazy.    I put the heart monitor on in the T1 area.  Is that how people do heart monitors on race day, or it is something that can/should be worn under your wet suit.  Electronics and water always leave me guessing as to what works and what doesn't.  Anyways I checked my hear monitor about 15 minutes into the ride when I felt like I was at a very easy effort and wondering if my Heart Rate was where it needed to be for the ride.  Well, it was about 50 BPM over my lactate Threashold.  I slowed down even more and the HR was jumping all over the place between about 10-50 BPM over my Threshold HR.  I stopped once to adjust equipment on the back of the bike and the HR is go down below my Threshold, but within about 10 second back in the pedals with only light effort was back up to 50 BPM over the Threshold Heart Rate.  I turned the Heart Rate Monitor off and just focused on my Revolution per minute, breathing, and perceived effort and the ride felt like every other ride I have have been doing for the last 12 weeks.  When I got home the Max HR was listed at 224 BPM and my average was about 30 BPM over my threshold.  I assumed that the HR monitor was just miss-firing, but remembered this morning that my first bike to run bricks the HR monitor did the same thing, but after a few bricks the HR monitor was dialing into the the same heart rates on the run as during running sessions.  So...do I just need more transition training to get the heart to transition from the swim to the ride or is the HR monitor on the fritz?

The run was solid.  My lap memory on the Garmin filled up on the 35 mile bike ride so I dropped the Garmin at the T2 and just used my wrist watch on the run and used my mile markers that I am well familiar with from when I run the same routes with the Garmin.  I really have been nailing the runs for the last 2 weeks and wish wish that I could be peaking in the Swim and Bike like I am in run.  I have been run training since August though and only swim and Bike Training since January.  

What should I be doing for my taper the next 2-1/2 weeks?  I know I need to cut my weekly volume, but am not sure the most effective way to do that.  How long should my longest swim, longest bike, longest run be during the next 2-1/2 weeks.  Do I need any speed work for the Bike & Run the next  weeks or should I just take it easy to let all the micro tears, etc to heal up?  Should I be doing short brick work outs everyday or getting longer continuous mileage in each disciple by just doing on sport per session?  Should I be doing tempo working out that spend time at race pace or keep everything low intensity?

I had a nice swim after work in Lake LBJ last night.  The buoys that mark the swim area were what I used to chart my course.  These were spaced a lot further apart in some areas than previous OWS's.  The buoys that were in a row were easy to follow, but when I had to turn a corner to find a buoy It was a challenge to find the next marker.  I am going to have to count boys on race day so I know how many I will be passing before turning corners.  

I did this swim in my drag suit.  No wet suit yesterday.  My legs were riding really low in the water. It looks like I will be doing kicking exercises next week.  I really get a good evaluation of my form when I am not pushing off a wall every 30 seconds and don't have any flotation devises (wet suit). :-)

Originally posted by Kaper I just got back from my Florida trip. I didn't get as much open water swimming in as I had hoped but got some biking and running in. I realized it was my first time on my bike outside in over a year and a half. I really enjoyed getting out. I also did the Escape Fort DeSoto triathlon on Saturday. It was only a sprint distance and I didn't do particularly well placement wise but I was really happy with my race. I also had a chest cold the week leading up to the race, my last run before the race was brutal. I still managed to beat my goal time by about 4 minutes (and my goal time didn't factor in transition). It was a fantastic race all around. I'm still nervous to take the plunge and sign up for a HIM. I am already at the running distance. I'm pretty confident that I can do the bike but the swim makes me nervous. I'm heartbroken to be back home on my bike trainer

Wow...if I beat my goal time by 4 minutes without even factoring in transitions I wouldn't care if I was last place placement wise.  Especially if I was going in with a Chest cold the week before and was uncertain how that would effect the race.  

Great job!  

As far as going to the HIM distance, I can understand the pull when people all around you are training and talking about their long course Triathlons.  When I started doing endurance running I was in a mentored 1/2 marathon running group that meet 2-3 times a week.  Everyone else in my group was training for a full Marathon and I was the lone halfer.  I did my half and it went great, but because of the comradery of the group I wanted to do what they were doing.  So I did a full marathon before I was ready and it went terribly.  I tried again with much better preparation and cut 30 minutes off my time, but found that the half marathon was really what I enjoyed the most and so I went back to a half marathon focus.  So...there is nothing that says you have to do a 70.3 and if are enjoying the distance you are racing at now and improving your times.  I tend to stick with one distance for about 5-7 years and after I am to the point that I am not longer able to PR at any given race I go longer.  Going longer keeps me from getting complaisant with were I am at all my PR's start over so I don't have to compete with what I was able to do when I was 7 years younger.  :-)     

Well...I am one week from race day and haven't had an operable bike in 10 days.  Very frustrating.  I hope that I can get it repaired tonight and be back up in running tomorrow. 

I took it in to my bike mechanic for a pre-race tune up a week ago Tuesday.  It was supposed to be ready for pick up that same Thursday, but wasn't ready until after I was out of town for the weekend on Friday.  I tried to pick it up on Monday after the weekend, but schedules didn't work out and I didn't get it until Tuesday.  I had ordered some Continental Grand Prix tires for the race to switch out the CST Czar training tires that my bike came with.  I had changed a flat tire a month ago with out any problems, but the new tires were tight and really hard to get on the rim and I managed to pinch not one but two tires on Tuesday night.  On Wednesday I got a patch kit since I didn't have any new inner tubes but wasn't paying attention and got the sticker patches instead of the glue on type and they are worthless.  They wouldn't hold air in a 40 PSI tire let alone a 120 PSI tire.  On Thursday my daughter had a tee ball game so I wasn't able to do anything.  On Friday I did get the glue on patches and got my all three of my inner tube patched but had to junk one that was leaking near the value stem.  I got the other two back on the bike, but when inflating the front tire it got up to 60 PSI then leaked.  I got the front re-patched and back on on Saturday morning, but didn't have a chance to ride the bike at all.  I will be doing 20-30 minute rides for the next 4 days (and getting more 650 x 23c inner tubes).    All of my bike training time for the past week has turned into run training time. I hope everything comes together this week.  I am ready for the run, but the swim and the bike are still very shaky.

Well, I got the bike tires all repaired and holding air on Saturday morning, but opted to go to the lake for an Open Water Swim at 8:00 AM rather than test ride the bike.  This morning I took the bike out and was going really slow (about 5 mph) to make sure the tires were seated properly, holding air, balanced, and aligned well.   After about a half mile I shifted through the gears and made the unfortunate discovery that one of the pins on the chain was about 1/8 of an inch out and it caught on the derailor locking up the crank.  I headed back to the house doing a 1/2 crank foreword and half crank back so that the I wouldn't hit the spot on the chain that was causing problems but the chain broke 1/4 mile from the house so I had to run the bike the rest the way home.  I have a set of bike tools that I got from my brother-in-law for Christmas about 10 years ago, but until this morning I had never used the tool for braining the link on the chain.  I think the pin may have been a poor fit. I noticed that it didn't match the rest of the chain.  I am certain t was where my mechanic broke the chain to remove it when he was working on the bike.  I did my best to get the pin back in, but I was sticking out 1/8" on the front side and not coming through the back side of the link.  So...I will be going back to my mechanic at lunch today to have him help me get the chain fixed.  

I see the wisdom in the advice I got to schedule pre-race tune ups three weeks before the race.  Ideally you would have the bike turned around in 2-3 days and running like new after the tune-up, but when everything goes wrong (Murphy's Law) those three weeks are a nice time cushion to work everything out before the race.  I really hope everything comes together this week.  

I know that some people really struggle to cut back the volume during their taper and aren't as rested as they need to be for their best performance on race day.  I guess with not being able to ride my bike at all for 2-1/2 week leading up to the rate I at least won't be one of those people.  They say that once you learn how to ride a bike you never forget.  I think that that I may need some retraining to sharpen up.  After riding every other day from the past 4 months two and half weeks off feels like years.

On a bright note, I wore the wetsuit for my open water swim on Saturday.  I used the 1000 meter course that I swam without the wet suit last week as my warm up.  and swam it in 3 minutes faster than with out the wet suit.  I didn't swim as hard and wasn't as tiered when I got out either.  In the wet suit I did have a hard time fully extending my arms on the entry though.  It felt like I had elastic medical bands that I was stretching out with each stroke.  After the first 1,000 meters I removed my bike top from under the wet suit and worked the wet suit over my shoulders a little better (easier to do when the wet suit is dry than wet) to see it it made a difference and went for two more 10 minutes sets.  The motion in the arm was a lot better on the last two sets so that is what I am going to do for the race this weekend but I still didn't have as much motion as I do with out a wet suit.  I am willing to give up the extra reach for the 18 sec/100m that I was able to improve on my pace in the wetsuit versus no wet suit.. 

Well...the late start will make it easier to make sure that your breakfast is 3+ hours before start time.  I wouldn't eat a big breakfast though.  I ran at an invitational Cross Country meet in high school that had an 11:00 Am start time for the Varsity Boys teams and our coach said that since our race was so late we could eat anything we wanted for breakfast.  The all you can eat buffet has sausage links which are one of my favorites and I probably eat ten of them.  I had a full stomach at the start line 4 hours later, ran a terrible race, and threw up all over the place after the race.

With a late start in June heat would be my biggest concern.  A year ago September year when I was training for an Ultra Ragnar Relay I had a 12 mile training run one Saturday that I didn't get in in the morning.so I ended up running it in the afternoon when temperature were getting close to 100 degrees.  I took it really really slow and drank plenty of fluids but that run was probably the hardest that I have ever done in my life.  The following Saturday when I got out early to do a 20 miles run I rolled right through it and it took much less out of me than the 12 miles had the week before.  I hope you don't have a hot day, but if you do, be prepared to slow down.  The heat will slow your digestive system so you won't be able to refuel as efficiently and you will lose a lot more water.  Both of which can derail what you have practiced in training.  I would just keep the nutrition simple and listen to the body.  Don't over think it and I am sure that you will do fine.  On an IM even if you start at 5:00 AM you are going to be out in the heat of the day and it is something that people conquer year after year.       

Jim et al,

Thanks for letting me dominate this board for the last 2-3 weeks.  I have always been someone that excels when training in a group or on a team, but when training alone I never seem to be able to perform as well.  

Moving from a big city with 400,000 people in the greater metro area to a small town with less than 10,000 people 4-1/2 years ago was a big adjustment.  I went from running with organized groups 2-3 times a week to not even being able to find a safe place to run.  I eventually found a trail that was suitable for my runs and did a token race every year to keep fit and so I wouldn't loose all my speed.  

Starting a new sport 4 months ago I really needed a group that had challenges in their training that I could relate to and experience and ideas in areas that I lacked knowledge.  Thanks everyone for your input and contributions to this group.  Being able to report what I am doing and get feed back has given me the focus that I needed these last weeks of training.  

Today and tomorrow are rest days and Saturday is race day.  I am not as prepared as I would like to be, but I knew when I started training 4 months ago that I wouldn't be able to master every thing in the given time and that I would have to just focus on what would give me the biggest returns before race day.  I feel that I have done that and so I am going into the race very optimistic about how I will do.  

Thanks again,

Well, my first triathlon is now in the books.  

I had a very respectable swim time, two flats on the bike :-(, and and major cramping and an unnecessary 1/2 mile  miss route which put me 30 minutes over my goal on the run but was still good enough for 28th run rank out of about 90 people.  PR's all around and plenty of room to improove the bike and the run.  .

Wow...great work on the bike split.  That is a huge accomplishment.

 My hydration system works great.  I am not  sure how hydro it is, but it keeps me from having to put anything on the front of the bike so I think that it is probably better that  having a bottle between the aero bars.  I have rode my 30 km route that that I do from my house in the mornings with and without the hydration system and haven't seen any difference in my time.  I may need to do the hill test (start at the top of a steep hill and coast to the bottom on up the hill on the other side to see if I coast any further with out the hydration system than I do with it).

If you are 8 weeks out then an extra rest week probably won't hurt your training too much.  Skipping your next rest week doesn't sound like a good idea though.  Rest is just as important to your performance to your training as your work outs are.  How often are your rest weeks?  Every third week?  Every fourth week?  Adjust your schedule to keep your taper the same as it was laid out, but adjusting so that you still have rest weeks spaced out leading up to your taper.

P.S.  My work is transferring me to a city 6 hours away from where I live now.  I am house hunting this week and on Friday night as I was getting ready for bed I decided to look at the local news paper to see if any community events were taking place that weekend.  I found that there was a 5K run early the next morning and decided to run it.  I ran a 17:54 chip time.  It was my first sub 18:00 minute time in about 7 years and the course even measured slightly long. :-)