Fred D and Jason's (Tri808) Half Ironman Mentor Group CLOSED! (Page 46)

So tomorrow marks the beginning of my taper, or so I thought until I added up the training hours.  Race is on July 14, so two more weeks of training, but next week does not look like significantly less than this week's.  Below is my schedule showing this week's actuals along with the next two weeks plan. 

So as you can see, next week is only 70 minutes less than thisweek.  My taper experience for long races is for marathons, and two weeks out there is certainly a larger drop in volume than what I see here.  Is it really that different for a HIM or should I look at reducing the week 17 training load a bit. HTFU is completely OK if this is the way it is supposed to work.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?

I think the general consensus is that if you've trained by your plan this far, you should trust it.  That said, if you made your plan up yourself and/or your body is telling you that you need more of a break than that, I'd consider tweaking it.

Did an 80 mile race pace simulation ride -- pretty pleased that a) I did 80 miles (longest ride for me so far!) and b) I was able to manage my HR where I want to keep it for Vineman in a couple weeks.  

Still really not loving my saddle and considering going back to my Adamo Road or trying to pick up an Adamo Attack.  I only have two more outdoor rides before the race (unfortunately, Tri Team Transport will be picking up the bikes Saturday and won't be able to get them till the Friday before the race -- may be able to sneak in a short ride then).  

Also did an 8.6 mile walk yesterday.  Walking for that distance / amount of time is actually more difficult than I would have initially thought.  Just being on my feet for that long is tiring.  Hoping to run some amount of the race....will run when I can, walk when I can't.

Got back to the car eventually and while driving home pulled over a couple times but ended up not throwing up till I got home.  I'm really hoping this is a stomach bug or something, my wife had one late last week, not something having to do with the heat or the ride, because the ride is similar to what I have to do in a little over a month and the heat will probably be about the same too.   Doesn't lead me to be overly optimistic about my race.  I've been in bed almost all day since I got home, small fever, was severely dehydrated when I got home.  Can't really eat, but have been taking in fluids all day (mostly gatorade, water, and orange juice).  I can count on one hand the number of times I have thrown up in my life from a workout.  This doesn't feel quite the same as the other times did, so again as ridiculous as it sounds I'm hoping it's a stomach bug.

The other thing is that during a lot of the climbing my heart rate was out of control.  I know for a HIM I'm supposed to focus on keeping the HR down, so I don't blow up during the run, but how do you do that during a climb?  As in this workout, my HIM as about 1300ft of climb, almost all during the first half.  Do I just take the climbs as easy as I can and then focus on recovering during the second half with mostly downhill?  I'm to the point where life has gotten in the way and my goal here is just to finish and have fun.  I'll keep up the mileage during the offseason and hopefully do the same race for time next year.  After today though I'm worried about even finishing.

This is where making sure you have proper gearing for the course becomes important.  While it's okay to put a little more effort into climbs, generally you should have enough gears so you're not even close to red lining.

Also, from the description, it sounds much more like a viral GI infection than anything from the race or the peanut butter (unless the PB was rancid, but you'd have discovered that pretty quickly on eating it!).  I'd not worry about it means for the effort level, and rather worry about recovering from the bug and getting back in the saddle when you can.  There's also a good chance that PB is just fine for you, but you ate it close to a stomach bug and now have developed an aversion to it by association.  Happens pretty commonly (in general, not just with PB, of course).

Hope you're back on your feet soon.  Being sick and stuck out on the road is a terrible feeling...

As a follow up to the follow up on the gearing question, is it OK for the HR to rise say 10 bpm over target or so while climbing, or is one "supposed" to keep it as tightly to the target as possible and mercilessly minimize variability?  

Matt

RR up.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=493897 

Had a GREAT time at my first Oly. 

Matt

Question about bike aid stations and bottle hand-offs (for WTC events): how long is the aid station from the point where you get a bottle to where you can throw it away? 

I had originally thought I'd throw my bottle away before grabbing a bottle from a volunteer.  But now I'm wondering if there would be time for me to grab a bottle of water, drink some, pour the rest on me, and then toss the bottle....all while keeping my bottles with electrolytes on my bike.  Possible or dumb idea?

Nicole, what I did for Mont Tremblant for a couple of the aid stations was eat a few chews and some waffle right before getting to an aid station.  I then grabbed the first bottle of water I could and slammed as much of it into me as I could while going through the station and then chucked it at the end of the drop zone.  I was able to get about half of the bottle into me that way.

Doing that let me hang onto my other bottles until I was finished of them.

That's kind of what I'd like to do (in fact, I think it might have been your RR that gave me the idea).  How much did you have to slow down through the aid station?  I'd mostly just like to be able to get a mouthful of water to wash down all the sugary stuff....after a bunch of waffles and Skratch, water can be very refreshing!

I suppose if worse came to worse, I could probably just crumple the bottle up and throw it in one of my pockets....I think there might be enough room.

Well, the aid stations were both at the top of a climb so we were going fairly slowly to begin with.  That certainly made it easy as it didn't really affect my speed much at all.

IMHO, track workouts or speed workouts for running fall into that category of "if you have to ask...you probably shouldn't do it."

If you are really disciplined, you could just show up and run the intervals at your own prescribed pace.  For example if they want you to do 800's at 5k pace, just do them at 10k or HM pace instead.  Or maybe instead of doing all the intervals at 5k pace...slowly work yourself up so that only the last interval is 5k pace.

I'm probably the last person that will advise doing track workouts to begin with as I prefer to run more volume...but there is more than one way to skin a cat. 

I take a slightly different approach.

Like Arend, I try to take in calories before the aid station, but I also try to wash it down with water and spray myself down with whatever is left in the bottle before the aid station.  That way...when I get to the aid station, all I do is chuck the empties and grab new ones and get the heck out of there.  Aid stations are generally where crashes tend to happen since riders don't have 2 hands on the bike and are doing multiple things at once.

Aid stations are so frequent on most courses that I've never had the situation where I was empty before rolling into one.  If I was empty, then I would likely do what Arend did, then grab another full bottle at the end.

In the middle of the West heat wave right now, so headed out for a morning OWS and run.  Temp was in the 80's by 8:00 so getting into the black wetsuit in the sun was a fun and sweaty experience.  Got to the water and found it to be 78 degrees.  Combined with the hot sun (even at that hour) made for a more challenging swim.  I get an inkling of why they only allow the suits to be used up to a certain point - with race exertion it would be easy to overheat.  Garmin is still providing wonky data on the OWS so just swam for 45 minutes.  Out the water and into the transition run and had a really nice run of 40 minutes with two 4 minute intervals at PRE z4.  I was happy with the way the HR recovered after the two intervals, hoping that indicates a strong aerobic base.  Looked at the "average" temps for the race venue in two weeks time and it is very close to today's conditions, so a good taste of what may be to come.  More hopefully, it is not like the weather pattern now which would put the temp for the run at over 100!

Any idea what current water temps are in the Russian River?  I'd be pretty stoked for a non-wetsuit legal swim....but I doubt I'll get that lucky.  Most of my training since May has been in the 90's (feels like 110), so I really wouldn't mind if it turned out to be a hot day!  Of course, all my training has been on extremely flat terrain and I haven't done any running, so it's not like I'm going to be competitive anyways :P

I haven't trained in 100+, but my fair share of 90ish with humidity.  I agree that slowing down is the key along with hydration.  When temps are hotter, finishing times are slower across the board...even for the pros.  There is no magic recipe or salt tab that allows you to perform at 100% in the heat.

My Masters swim finished about an hour before my ride too.  So really I was pushing it, but didn't have any of the same issues as last time, so I really think it was primarily a stomach bug.  Which is good news, in a roundabout way.

Burned a half a day of vacation to do the swim and bike ride this morning.  Worth it.

These high temps here in the West mean a lot more time spent in Air Conditioning and has resulted in clogged sinus, drainage and a little chest congestion.  At least that is what I am choosing to believe - that it is not a summer cold, but I'm upping the vitamin C just to be sure.  Just went on a 1.5 mile walk and things got better, so seems to be a case of 'dry air sickness'.  We'll find out later when I go out to train.  Today was supposed to be a triple brick (2500 swim, 2 hour ride, 20 minute run) but I may choose to skip the swim as breathing could be an issue.  But I'm waiting until later in the day to train and make that call as I want to train in the heat.  Here in the SF Bay Area we have microclimates so today it is supposed to be 86 where I live, but a 30 minute ride away it is going to be 102 - so that's where I'm headed as the extended weather forecast I checked yesterday had the high temp on race day at 101 degrees.  Guess I won't have to worry too much about overhydrating . . .

Fight the good fight.  

I hear you, though.  My main season was going to finish with the Oly in 2 weeks time, until I added the HIM in August.  Now I'm almost to the point of counting key workouts until the peak and taper for that race!  Three or four (haven't decided on the last one yet) sets of true key workouts per sport left (maybe a couple extra swims), what with a short rest before the Oly (that thankfully coincides with a CA trip) and the peak/taper weeks for the HIM.

As this is my first full season of tri racing, I'm at the same time looking forward to and am concerned about being done with the main tri's!  I have a couple sprints and a marathon in the Fall, though, so that should help...

Keep at it - almost to your race!

Matt