JohnnyKay and Fred Doucette's HIM/IM focused Mentor group-CLOSED (Page 45)

No buckets in transition! 

See that's an interesting thing. I actually perform much better in races then I do in training or training tests. I don't know why, but I am not able to give efforts like I do in races in training, ever.

But its so very hard to think less.

Morning everyone!

I had a solid bike this morning and I'm being allowed to run tonight on the road rather than in the water.  Rule is that if the pain gets above a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 then I need to stop and get on my bike.  I'm hoping all goes well.

Missed my swim yesterday so I could get my bike shifters and cables changed out.  I think my body appreciated the day off though.  Going for a easy 40 minute run this morning, then a moderate interval ride this afternoon testing the race wheels.  It's been really windy here this week, so it should be pretty good simulation for what I should expect next week in Kona.

New avatar -- sweet picture!

Tis the season to be changing avatars I guess!  Speaking of seasons, this morning I did my long run for the week and I was wearing running tights, long sleeve compression shirt and windbreaker along with gloves.  5 degrees colder and it would have required a hat.  Two days before Memorial day weekend and I am running in gloves?  WTF!

I don't think there's anything magical about running 13 miles.  The plan limits your run time to 2 hours to help prevent injury and to appropriately build on your previous training.  Its not worth pushing to 13 miles at the end of your last build week just to end up tweaking something.  You've done the work, you'll be fine on race day, trust the plan.

If it makes you feel better my longest run in my IMLP build is 3 hours split (90 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes as a T-run after a 2 hour bike in the afternoon).  Based on my current training paces that will put me around 21 miles.  My longest run not split is 2.5 hours, so about 17.5 miles.  So, I'm well under the 26.2 I'll run at IMLP.

If you've been training by time up to now, I don't think it will be a good idea to suddenly change to distance.  Your race is approaching...there isn't much you can do now to increase fitness...especially on the run. 

I think I build myself up with expectations of how I "should" do on race day, and if things go wrong then I tend to fall apart a little bit.  I've also run into some issues where I stitch really badly - typically at a high exertion level.  I can deal with it on the bike since I'm not moving around very much, but as soon as I start the run I'm reduced to a jog/walk and it takes a few km to work itself out.

Not really excuses, just what has happened in the past.  The big part is getting down on myself during a race if I'm not doing well - I need to try and stay positive even when things are going wrong, but this has been a struggle for me, and tends to make things worse.  I'm my own worst enemy for being too critical.

Had this a couple of times when swimming in warmer temps (pool water too warm) and found that I do better when having an electrolyte drink before/during rather than just water.

Good news.  A race I signed up for in July got moved one week back to avoid the jellyfish invasion that would have happened on and around the original race date. 

Will be off soon to test the 404 set in the wind.  Should be interesting.  The 404/disc cover setup was never a problem...but recently I was getting blown around a bit on my 30mm deep training wheels.

Only was able to get in about 12 miles on the bike yesterday.  For some reason there was hundreds of bees swarming around one end of the short out and back I was doing.  They were litterally hitting my face, arms and legs as I had to ride constantly ride past this one area.  I'm guessing the high winds yesterday must have blew their hive down.

I took it as a sign I should just cut the workout short in lieu of getting stung in the face, or worse having one of them fly in my mouth.  One actually flew in my helmet and hit the top of my head...but then found it's way out.  Very interesting to say the least.

What I did notice though after the ride is that my left aero bar pad bracket is cracked...about 85%...and was really not sure how the thing was still hangin on.  Luckily it's the profile design clip on bracket...so finding a replacement bracket shouldn't be too hard on short notice.  I've seen them in a few shops. 

That sounds like a nightmare. I would have cut the ride short too!

So me and my 3 other training buddies have been doing tri's together for the last few years now. I've pretty much dominated all of them, but I knew the other guys made huge fitness gains leading up to IMTX. Long story short, I got beat by one of my buddies...by 7 stupid minutes. Now I'm thinking about all the ways I could have made up that time...here are our splits...mine first, then his:

Swim: 1:06:23 / 1:26:31

T1: 4:28 / 5:56

Bike: 5:54:49 / 5:27:23

T2: 5:40 / 3:05

Run: 4:34:05 / 4:35:20

Swim - Obviously this was his weakness. I really could have pushed harder on the swim...I don't think it would have had a huge impact on my overall performance since I'm a front quadrant swimmer and you really don't need your arms feeling fresh for the bike or run. Both of us went sans wetsuit. I think a couple minutes faster on this leg wouldn't have been a huge increase in effort. Oh, I cramped my left calf twice too which didn't help.

T1 - I was happy with T1 - nothing to change here.

Bike - This was clearly my buddy's strength. He biked over 27 minutes faster than me. I was really happy with my time and effort management though. Here's the kicker - he has a Cervelo tri bike and aero helmet. I have neither. His aero set up on a flat course like this was easily a 5-10 minute advantage.

T2 - I changed socks and didn't have Yankz. I know he did have Yankz. My fault for not taking advantage of that really. It probably cost me another 30 seconds.

Run - This was purely a mental game I think. The course had three loops. I saw him on loops one and two, and knew I was about 8-10 minutes behind him. I hit a really rough patch at the start of lap 3, had to walk and just couldn't get started again. More mental toughness in that moment could have cut my mile walk down to half a mile - that's probably a few minutes saved. Also, I was walking longer than I needed to through the aid stations. It's just not necessary to walk through the WHOLE aid station. Grab what you need, get it down, grab your sponges, and get going again. That strategy would have easily saved me another few minutes. Little did I know that my buddy was hurting worse than I was on lap 3. I actually made up a little time on him that lap despite my full mile of walking.

At the end of the race I definitely had some gas left in the tank. He ended up in medical getting two bags of IV fluid. I'm glad I wasn't in his situation but I wish I had pushed a little more.

Okay I'll stop whining. There's always something to improve right? I don't know if I'll ever do another Ironman...but these lessons could probably be applied at the Oly/70.3 distance too - which I'll definitely stay active in.

Happy Friday 'yall.

PS - I think over half my toe nails are black or are about to be. =)