Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 51)

I have nothing against JoPa or Penn State....on the other hand I would rather peel my skin off rather than wear a GA Tech or any other SEC schools shirt.

"The off-the-hook salmon fly hatch I mentioned previously is Mid-June through early July.  The later into that stretch you come the more options we will have, as all of the rivers will be coming back into shape.  Mid-June is almost exclusively Rock Creek season, which is as close to extreme fly fishing as one can get… Fast water, unpredictable obstacles, and LOTS of boats, but the fishing is bonkers.  For my money, and especially if I only get to do it once every few years, I would come the last couple of days of June through the first week of July so we can hit the last days of Rock Creek (closes to floating June 30), Blackfoot, Bitterroot, Clark Fork and all in one week.  With our excellent snow pack this year, runoff will be later, and I’d hate to have eveything blown out on the rare occasion you’re here. July also opens up about 30 other hatches, with size 2-22 bugs all in play, not to mention we could hike through the last of the snow to a high mountain lake (again, bonkers after melt off, but smaller fish) or hit the North Fork (where we went last time) or another hike in river again."

geotarheel - Welcome to BT and welcome to the IMCDA thread.

It is difficult to really give specific advice on how to get faster on the bike without knowing anything about your cycling past.  My first piece of advise would be to encourage you to use the BT training logs.  That way when you have a training question it is easier to get an idea of where you are coming from.

Building bike speed and endurance takes time in the saddle.   I do not think that you can ride too much and the risk of injury from riding is much smaller than from running. 

Right now I am trying to ride 6 times per week to get my base back.  None of these rides are really long, most are in the 45 to 60 minute range and I’m concentrating on keeping a quick cadence (95 to 100 rpm).  I plan to keep this frequency up until the beginning of April.  During this time I will build up my weekly long ride into the 2.5 to 3 hour range.  After the beginning of April I will transition from riding a lot to riding long. 

Welcome Stef!

Great to have some new blood on the boards.  i think you will find some really good advice if you look back through the chat, it has been very active.

Since bike is by far my strength, I feel i can add some here...

As mentioned, bike is all about time in the saddle.  Ride as often as you can over the next few months (Feb and March) and build your base, even if it is 30 mins here, 60 mins there.  For the average amateur I guarantee you will not have the hours in the day to overtrain on the bike...  Once you get to the point that you can comfortably ride 2-2.5 hours you can work in some drills (on the trainer of course, so you can control effort and focus on the drills, not the cars...). 

ps - Ride in the aero as mach as you can stand it.  If you are going to ride the QR in the race in an aero position, use THAT bike on training rides and on the trainer.  you use different muscles on a road bike with a 73 degree seat angle then a tri bike with a 78 degree angle in the aero position.  this will give you some muscle specific training

A few I like:

Single leg drills...  when doing a moderate effort ride, go down 1 gear (easier), unclip from 1 pedal (I like to rest the clip of my free leg on the trainer, but be careful the first time, spokes bite) and spin with 1 leg for a minute.  Clip back in, spin for a minute and do the other leg.  This builds strength, but also teaches you to use the full rotation in the effort... biking is as much about pulling up as pushing down..

Tabatas:  great way to get a good ride in when you only have 20 - 30 mins.  Warm up at a moderate to easy pace, high cadence for 5-10 mins.  Then, put in in the hardest gear you can tolerate and pedal as hard and fast as you can (95-100%) effort for 50 seconds, STOP for 10 seconds...  repeat 3-5 times.  Cool down with the same effort as your warm up.  I built it up to a 10 min warm up, 6 reps, 4 min spin, 5 reps, 5 min spin for a 30 min work out.  if you do it correctly, you will feel like you just rode 50 miles.

down - up;  Say you have a 12-25 gear set...  Start on about the 23 or 21 and click 1 gear harder every 5 minutes until you get to the 12, then go back to whatever you get back to when you decide to call it.  try to maintain the same cadence the entire ride.  It has been suggested that an 80 cadence is the perfect IM cadence, but that is person specific. When i did IMLP I finished with an 81 cadence and it worked great for me (ps - when i ride OLY distance I will ride ~110 cadence, so i am actually a natural spinner).  Use whatever cadence you feel you will ride the race in.  Will feel easy on the 23/21 cog, but should darn near kill you on the 12 ;-)

Long rides - Find a group that does saturday rides and just ride long come april and may.  You will be AMAZED how much food you will need 80 miles into a bike ride!  It will take a few major bonks at 60-70-80 miles to really learn what your body needs and how much you can comfortably consume without getting cramps.

As far as bars, I reccomend 3Bar.  A friend of mine in tampa owns the company.  100% vegan, gluten free, etc... but I really like them.  tri3bar.com.  I am the type of person that could never go on just fluids, it just does not work for me, i need sustanance (sp?).  Give them a shot, Erin is super awesome to work with.

Good luck!

Gary

My advice will, as it seems it often does these days, be contrary to some you've received.

1) You should go back to your fitter with the info you've provided.  Most reputable fitters will provide "tuneup" fits at little to no charge.  It sounds as if your fitter put you in an aerodynamically superior position but closed your hip angle so much you can't generate power.  Bike fit is all about finding the sweet spot between aerodynamics and power (with sustainable comfort being the wild card)... in the end if you are slower in aero than on your road bike that's a big problem.

2) I am not a fan of one leg drills.  The science behind "using the full rotation" is not good, imho.  I'll dig up a link or two since I'm sure this will be controversial, and you'll have to decide for yourself if they are the best use of your limited training time.

3) I do not think you should force yourself to ride any specific cadence... self-select what feels right.

4) I whole-heartedly concur that the best way to get faster on your bike is to build a small base, and then ride HARD frequently.  There is a winter bike program on this site that you can borrow workouts from that should leave you begging for mercy.  The plan and discussion groups can be found here.

What nutrition will be available on course?
Bike course aid stations will offer the following:

• Ironman PERFORM
• Water
• PowerBars
• PowerBar Gels
• Bananas

There will be aid stations approximately every mile on the run course offering:

• Ironman PERFORM
• Water
• PowerBars
• PowerBar Gels
• Fruit
• Defizzed cola