Beginner Full Ironman Plan Group (Page 7)

Yes. I'm fine. You're just trying to kill me  s l o w l y.

Welcome! I am so excited for you! IMAZ is such an awesome race!!

Awesome! I love hearing positive feedback and sharing in your successes! Thanks for letting us know how things are going.

I don't think it is at all necessary to do a stand alone marathon to be fully prepared for an IM. In fact, it an often make things worse if your focus is in more than one place. Same goes for racing shorter races. Once your IM plan starts, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stop racing! It's hard to train for something for 20 weeks and not have any chances to race, but when training for an IM it can often be detrimental to your long rides and runs if you race on the weekends.

Hello out there!

I am 49yo and signed up for the Cda IM for this June.  I am a newbie.   I was following a 24 week training guide from amazon.com, but after reviewing the BT full ironman, I felt like I was not getting enough out of my original plan.   I have been on the  BT full ironman plan now for weeks 19, 18, 17, and 16.   And as stated by other users.....it is kicking my butt.   But the increase in intensity seems to have eased some of my worries about not being prepared.   On some of the days I have not done any speed workouts, due nursing some mild injuries.    Really looking foreward to the weather being better for more outdoor workouts.

Cheers

I'm in week 10 of the plan at this point and all the traveling I've been doing has finally caught up to me - feeling like I'm coming down with a cold or something.  At this point, if I take a few days to rest am I doing any harm to the work I've been putting in? Am I just being overly cautious?

Well, I don't think you should have to pee that often. I think I peed twice on the bike, and yes I peed ON the bike. You can stop at a porta-pottie, too. If you are peeing once or twice an hour you are drinking too much and might be risking hypernatremia.

So I knocked out my first 4 hour bike ride last week on the trainer. I was nervous about going to hard and I think I went way too easy. I never really broke much of a sweat - it wasn't dripping off my brow like it usually does when I push hard during a 1-2 hour ride. The next day I was only marginally more stiff than usual.

Do you read this as smart pacing (saving your legs for the run) or way too conservative and giving up too much time on the bike?

There's another long bike next week (I'm on a recovery week now) so I have a chance to refine my pacing strategy again. Next time I'll throw in a short T-run.

I take it you don't use a heart rate monitor? You should not have sweat dripping off your brow for a long endurance ride, so I think you probably did it right!

Hi everyone,

Glad i just came upon this thread, it has made for some interesting reading so far! I've just signed up for my first IM, IMNZ in March 2012! Lots of time to get ready but will also have a HIM booked in Dec 2011.

Have previously done some 160k bike rides, a couple of marathons and a HIM in Dec 2010 (6:39) and got another marathon coming up in 2 weeks. Hoping to beat the 4hr mark this time - last year was 4:03 but was pretty tough weather conditions.

WRT my training schedule, i have seen a few posts similar to what i am planning but FWIW here it is -

After a couple of weeks recovery i'll be starting a 12 week strength period where i'll do weights but continue to schedule in a couple of runs and bikes. Significant constant distances during this time will be a 17k run and 40k+ bike. Will also get some swimming in there too but the focus will be the strength training.

Essentially all i've planned to do is to overlay the IM plan over the HIM plan with the finish dates of each being the race dates. This means i will start with the BT HIM plan of which i'll do weeks 20 through to 9 and then go into the BT IM plan doing the full 20 weeks. My HIM will therefore be on week 13 of the IM plan (after 20 weeks or training) and i imagine week 12 will be more like a rest week than anything else.

This will mean i'll have a 30wk leadup to the IM though, which after reading some of the previous posts concerns me with burnout. But considering week 12 will probably end up as a bit of a rest week, and then weeks 10 and 9 are xmas and new year weeks and i'd be suprised if they end up being full training weeks, i'm looking at a 4 week downtime/low training period leaving just weeks 8-1 until the IM.

Does anyone see any real issues with what i'm planning?

Anyway, i'm looking forward to starting, like one of the other posters i'll have to move sessions around as i like to do a long bike on Sundays and then a long run on Mondays commute but i'll just see how it goes! The swim for me is definatively going to be hard...

At the moment i generally train for about 8hrs/week and having family commitments i'm not sure how i'll manage with the required hours, but i guess we'll see. It certainly doesn't look easy and i'll be keeping a watchful eye on this thread!

Cheers, Lewis.

Hi Lewis! Thanks for joining us!

I do have concerns about all the training you will be doing, but you know yourself best and what you can handle. I agree that the Xmas holidays will proved a break, as long as you don't feel guilty about letting your training drop off during that time. If you feel guilty for those weeks, you really won't feel refreshed and ready to go again after the New Year.
I'm excited to see how it all works out for you!

Let us know how your training is going and if you have any questions! Being a strong swimmer and cyclist is a great place to be as you get ready to take on an IM. Keep that cycling strength up as you work on your running fitness. Remember, you can easily finish the race with strong swim and bike fitness by walking the entire thing, so building your run fitness will just be icing on the cake.

My name is Aaron and I have a few questions regarding this plan.  I am signed up for IMWI this year and am about to start the full IM plan at the end of this month.  I was thinking of doing the 20 week intermediate plan but am not sure really what the difference is between the beginner plan and the intermediate plan.  The beginner plan has quite a bit more volume later in the plan than does the intermediate.  I like the weekend schedule of the intermediate but there is always a swim and bike on the same day during the week and that doesn't fit into my schedule.  I can't really move the swim either as it will affect a recovery day.  The beginner plan has a better during the week schedule but has quite a bit more weekend volume.  I have 2 kids and another one on the way, so I am trying to limit my time away from family.

I guess my question(s) is what is the reasoning behind the intermediate plan having less weekend volume than the beginner plan and will I be prepared for the race by using the intermediate plan.  I would rather do more training during the week and then one long bike and run on the weekend without the other items. 

I am currently using the 20 week HIM plan to get me going and will be doing Kansas in June.  Should I stay on the HIM plan until Kansas is over and then pick up the IM plan at that time??

Sorry, I am kind of all over the place here with my questions.  I guess I am just looking for some direction on which plan would be better suited for me in the long run.  Like I said I like the weekend volume of the Intermediate plan but would have to move the Thursday swims to Fridays and miss my recovery day...will that be a problem??

Thanks again for the help.

Just noticed the last long weekend workouts (weeks 8 - 5) of the final build session do not include any swims before the long bike ride.  Anything wrong with adding in ~30 mins of open water swimming before the long bike rides and short run?  I guess I just expected to build into some kind of race day simulations towards the end.

thanks!

Hi Aaron. Let's see if I can help. First, I am not a huge fan of total rest days. I don't see a problem with swimming on your recovery day as long as you feel free to take a day off when you feel the need, even if that means missing a workout. When I was training for IM distance races, I would take a whole day off when life dictated it, not just because it was a certain day of the week.

The big difference that I see between the plans is that your bike and run ALTERNATE each week, so you go high in one only each weekend but they both get to where they need to be by race day. So instead of climbing in volume each weekend in both sports, you save some energy and time by alternating each weekend.

I encourage you to pick one plan, but then alter it to suit you best. That may mean you follow one plan to the letter except for the weekends, which you steal from the other plan.

Sounds good to me!