Fred D Mentor Group - Part II (Page 49)

Rusty - what type of reduction would you be looking at.  i.e. 8-10 hours down to 4-5 hours, or somehwere in the middle of that?  Thanks for the help.

I would go down to 75-80% this week and to 30% next week

I reduce the length of the workouts, keeping same intensity.

I personally run and swim as frequently as I can, biking for me is less important.

Ask Bryan what he thinks. He knows people there. I suspect you were unlucky

That would be waaaaaay too much of a reduction for a HIM taper for me, but that is probably because I am not training enough to begin with!

I am similar to Marc in that my reduction is not across the board. For instance I cut my running back in the week before HIM way more than my swim and bike simply because running beats me up so much. I don't really think of the reduction in time. Instead most of my SBR workouts are broken up into sets and intervals, and I just reduce the number of sets or maybe the length of the intervals. So if I would normally have a main set of hard 4x300s in the pool, I might instead do 3x300 followed by 5x50 (25 build/25sprint). My last bike (not my pre-race brick) would be something like 1.5 hours with a long warmup and cool down with 3x10 minutes in the middle at race watts (5 minutes recovery between each). Run would be 45~60 minutes with about 35 minutes at race eFfort, really watching form and pacing on the hills.

I do best with a short taper (6ish days for HIM, 9~10 days for IM). For Half IM I have performed the best when I have a hard but short weekend prior: sprint tri on Saturday and a hard 2 hours on the bike on Sunday w/ Monday off for a Sunday HIM.

Like I said before though, a proper taper is highly individualized - so it is important to look back in your logs to see where you performed the best. It took me a long, long, time to figure out that I needed a shorter rather than a longer taper - I went the other way first.

I don't have much to add to the taper discussion ... however just want to throw out my current dilemma and see what you think.

So, I was swim training with a coached group from March to now - the next session starts mid-September and runs Monday and Wednesday evenings until the end of June.  Hubby and I have worked out the cost (it is expensive) but I have really enjoyed the swim group and getting good feedback on how to improve and having workouts set as well as the motivation of other triathletes to swim with.  

Now with the go on the cost, I have to decide whether or not to do it.

My real issue is kind of two fold:

1.  The time. I could access two local community pools most nights of the week and would save some travel time. The community pools are less than ideal and only have about an hour of lane swim.   I do like to be home and cook and after all the ironman training part of me just wants to not have a weeknight commitment.  (The swim coach can't get the pool to give her morning time slots - which would be ideal)

2. Training focus: I am not sure what the next year really holds in terms of training and racing.  We are hoping to start a family but I don't want to drop everything all at once - however, how much do i need to spend 2.5 hours a week with a training group?  I can likely still do shorter quality workouts on my own - but will i?

What say you? Should I sign up?

I don't have it with me right now, but in Raceday Apollo they have a cool chart that shows the benefit of a work out versus the race date. So I am making these numbers up, but it looked something like 10 days out you get 100% benefit from a workout. 7 days out 60%....4 days out it has a negative effect.....

The amount of taper also depends on how much accumulated fatigue you have in your body. This is where training peaks ATL CTL measures provide some guidance.

Rusty is right that 30% is very little. When I said 30%, that is based off a pretty heavy week (15hrs). Spread over 5 days that's 1 hr per day. 30% of a 9hour week would be another story. Sorry if I wasn't clear

I find that with minimal effort I can maintain my swim form. But I will not improve

If I want to improve, I need stroke correction (coach) and a lot of training which means finding ways to motivate myself. A team probably does a better job here.

I could put all the time, money and effort in to get maybe 1 min  or 2 on a HIM or Oly.

If that 2 min was negligible overall or if I thought I wouldn't use it because I wouldn't race, I wouldn't do it.

If I thought that 2 minute would qualify me for something really important for me, then I would,

But that's just me.

Swimming alone in a crowded pool takes a lot of willpower to do

Unless you are super motivated and have a good swim background, in my opinion you are going to work much harder (and thus get faster) swimming with a group than on your own.  Just my .02 from my experience.

Even if you are starting a family, swimming will be the one thing you can really carry through the entire process.

I am giving it a go again this winter as well.  I tried it winter of 2010 but was 30# heavier and, just like every year, got injured.  I was also doing jorge's winter plan, so there was a lot of training load on top of the weight. 

This year (knock wood) no injuries so am planning on trying it again.  I am still trying to figure out how to do BarryP but still get stronger on the bike.  Putting swimming on the way back burner I think

I pretty much did this, or tried, this winter/spring.  Although slow and inexperienced, I think it is fanastic if you commit to it.  I saw real returns over about a fourth month period.

Extremely limited experience, which would be when I've been well of the last few months or so. In fact, it's how I'm structuring my IM run training. I'm almost never going to be doing "long" runs--the longest ones so far are 1:15 and they're never going to get much above 2--but I shoot to run six days a week.

My extremely limited experience is that it's been awesome and the greater frequency has been key in getting the "long" runs to feel like nothing at all.

I also feel like it's made it a fantastic transition from being a run/walker to an all-runner.

It's a really DOABLE structure.

Drat, I hate dropping chains. But for all that and the other course conditions, you were awesome!

Wishing you a smooth recovery and like the others, I think the swimming group is a good investment in your health, over swimming alone.

Woot! Really hard-earned podium right there.

You. Are. IRONCRAZY

Salty and I were following you and discussing you on the other thread ... also, there was a Manatee watching you during the run. Well done!

Congratulations--on the improvement, placing, points, title--and like everyone else said, GO!

Whew. I think I finally caught up. If anyone feels ignored, I have a {MELON PRESS} for you!

Been very busy myself at my folks' place--just a lot of old-age and for my dad end-of-life issues, always so many things to take care of. Also here it was the biggest holiday of the year, the celebrations for the end of Muslim Ramadhan fasting month, so we had a big all-day party at the house last weekend so it's kind of been like what the Christmas/New Year's week would be for Christians. (I'm Christian. Half our family is Muslim and the other half is mostly Christian with some awesome pagans and atheists thrown in to keep us humble). But most people in Indonesia are Muslim.

Also, I was pretty sick, mostly in bed last week. I've been nowhere near as sick lately as the last two years (hard to beat the tropical plagues for all-out sick), but it seems to me I might be somewhat broken down from all that, and seem to catch everything contagious that comes around. I might not be cut out for Ironman-volume training right now. I don't know. Just some things to think about.

Shoe photos on my training log.  I'll pass em along to Zoot

That is ridiculous!! Definitely give Zoot a shout. Unacceptable.  

A volunteer actually saw it and was yelling "39" at me.  Took a minute for me to stop as I realized she was yelling my age on my calf.  She runs up with some glue.  Didn't hold very long but that was pretty awesome.

Btw: I like their shoes in general.  This is my 3rd pair... never had a problem before.