Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 79)

Well just did the Marquee HIM.  Got 5th in my age group (buncha-ol-ladies), but not too excited since Tempe IM course is not hilly.  Also, they had to cancel the swim and changed it to a run due to bad weather affecting the lake. BOO!  So didn't get to practice the swim part again but know I can pound out an extra 3.2 miles if I have to. 

Also, got to try out the INFIIT nutrition.  Worked great, though I needed more electrolytes on the bike and run to keep from cramping.  Will have to work on how to make bottles that last 7+ hours for IMCDA.

Negatives - ITB locked up on 1st down hill around mile 4.5.  Ran the rest of the race with a 10 min mile pace but with a gimpy leg on the downhill part.  Thank goodness for Advil and Endurolites in my fuel belt.  Saved my Butt.  Oh, and T1 and T2 were awesome for me - 1:22 (no wetsuit but still!) and 2:30 something (even with having to put on my back brace for the run).

Ice bath last night.  Still icing today.  ITB major inflamed!  Will see how swim and bike go tomorrow.  Track run wed. might be weak but not critical as long as I can get my 5 hr ride in on saturday!

Hope everyone is feeling great.  Remember to thank your body by giving it the "good stuff".

I have New Orleans this weekend and then my training schedule gets really heavy.  Overall, I'm totally healthy.  Not one pain anywhere.  Yea!!  However, I feel somewhat behind and I've just realized that I need to cut out the booze from here on out to keep pace on the weekends.       

1. Run:  I think I'm behind.  Long runs each weekend over last two months float between 12-14 (1:30/1:45).  I did one 16 miler a few weeks ago (2:00).    
2. Swim: About right.  I'm getting in about 10k+ meters per week.  Done several open water swims over the last momth.  Need to build up a bit more endurance for the 2.4 mile swim, but I'm not far away from where I need to be.       
3.  Bike:  Ahead.  My last 5 rides have been just over 4 hours and float around 75-85 miles.  The wind over the last month has averaged around 20mph+ so none of them have been easy.
4. Nutrition:   I'm getting close to solving my chemical equation.  Feel good here.           

I'm using the IronFit Competitive Plan with some modifications.  My goal is to break 12 hours, but just finishing is ok too.  Same weekend workout as IronFit plan, but slightly heavier mid-week workouts.  My last six weeks have been around 15 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours, 11 hours (Olympic race), 15 hours, and 19 hours. 

Where is everyone else with their swim/bike/run distances???????.....especially you heavy hour types.     

great work PGA_Mike!

3aims-

swim-I'm up to 4500 yards continuous (I need to do this OWS a few times)

bike-I did a 131 miler Friday (I'm ready now)

run-I ran an 18 miler last week. (I want a couple more at this distance and a couple 20 milers if possible)

nutrition-This is going well too. I changed to EFS powder from powerbar perform for my long rides because of the extra electrolytes.

My hours per week are the upper teens I think (check my logs), but I track distance not hours.

Downside-I get an "adaptation week" this week and, although my body needs a break, I crave volume to cope with anxiety. This week will be tougher mentally than any "build" week for me. Coach knows best but I'm a headcase at this point and it only gets worse.

Yellow!

I got home from a four hour ride yesterday then...

Me: I will be back in 45 minutes

Spouse: Where you going?

Me: I have to run 45 minutes.

Spouse: You didn't tell me about that!

Me: I did

Spouse: This is the last IM you will be doing.  If you do another one it will be with another wife!

She blew some fumes, but I don't blame her. We just got back from vacation and things were a little hectic.  She apologized later and said some days are better than others.  I am concerned because the Peak Phase doesn't start til the week after next!  Yikes!

So true!

Wow, I wouldn't say you're behind in running.  That seems like a pretty good place to be at, as of now.  For me:

1. Swim:  Swam 3500 continuous in the pool, but have built to 4200 in one session (broken into sets).  It'll likely be another month before I get in any lakes around here.

2. Bike:  Have one 77 miler under my belt, a handful of 40-60 milers, and yesterday did a 103 miler.  Felt great considering it was my first century ever.  I averaged 16.3 mph on a hilly course with significant headwind.  Hoping to bring that down over the next 8 weeks, but for now I'll take it.

3. Run: This is where I'm behind.  I am super paranoid about re-injuring my tibia, so I've been ultra conservative here.  Longest run was Saturday and was only 11.5 miles.  This weekend will be half marathon distance, and plan to do a 15 miler the week after that.  Tibia felt fine on Saturday, so I'm giving myself the green light to build a tad more aggressively.  Thankfully my run base FAR exceeds my swim/bike base, so I'm not too worried about my progress.

3. Nutrition:  Well, the only thing I've figured out here is that while on the bike, I have a stomach of steel and can eat/drink just about anything.  So that's nice to learn

Overall, I'm giving myself a B.  Onward to peak training!

I hear you loud and clear.  I've determined that I need to leave much earlier on my rides.  It does not feel like I'm gone as much when they are all sleeping for the first hour or two.  So much for Rita Friday. 

I'm with you on the run.  I do 5-6x 18-20 milers for every marathon I run and based on my math I would have to run those every weekend until my taper.  I don't see how the IronFit plan will have me in marathon shape by taper.  I plan on changing it up after NO.     

I suspect most plans don't have you in "marathon" shape. You really can't pound the body as much during an IM build and not expect things to break down without a very long build and solid base. i do believe you can get the volume to be ready for an IM mary without abusing yourself too much but you have to adjust pacing and frequency of your runs (i.e., Josh's BarryP approach). Recall the statistic that less than 10% of IM marys are run in under 4 hours or 9 mins pace estimated.

i know we have not heard from Rocketman in a while but he can chime in because he's written before that he is shooting for a IM mary within 10 % of his standalone mary. lets just say thats a 3:30 or 210 mins. He'd have to run a 3:51 or about 8:50 pace. I can train at that pace pretty comfortably on long runs. How about you?

This is SO true.  For my longest summer rides in IM prep I would leave with a light when the first grey was on the horizon... roads are empty and I knew them well.  I'd be home from a 6 hour ride before lunch time.

It made a HUGE difference when I could give the family saturday afternoon after a long bike ride.

For those concerned about their IM training not having them in "marathon shape" -- I direct you to one of the better discussions I've seen in the forums on BT in a while.

The takeaway, in my opinion, is that very few of us have reasonable marathon expectations from our training.  For all but the few who really put in the miles, you won't be in marathon shape on race day... you be in slog out 26.2 miles after a 112 mile bike ride shape.  And that's perfectly fine -- but we need to be realistic about pacing because of that (if you aren't it will backfire in a big way in the second half of the run).

It's a long thread, but really worth the read in my opinion.

Well, back from an extremely relaxing week on Maui with the family.   Got a great tan, rebooted, and even managed to run 25 miles over the course of 6 days.  Oh, and two fairly rough condition mile open water swims.  Didn't get any bike time in, but I plan on making up for it this week.

Is it really the middle of April already?

Started biking to work... now if only we could get more days without rain in Seattle.  My route:

http://tinyurl.com/6b5y8yz

It took me about 1:15 I think.  Two of those a day is an easy way to ramp up the bike mileage.  And it gets me a lot of time back in my day.  Consider it was a 45-50 minute commute each way by bus, and then I was still doing an hour+ workout after I got home from work.

Edit: not to mention, riding those hills with a load of gear is going to make it seem easy when I get back out for a race.

I rode to work for the first time this year today also.  I agree, it's a good way to build up some extra miles.   

I generally try to bike to and from work one day per week.  When it starts to warm up (34 degrees this morning) I'll add in a morning swim and a run at lunch.  Makes for a long mid-week workout.   

After my long ride on Monday, I gave my family:

1) Sleepy me.

2) Red Bull me.

I think that they prefered me sleepy.

Wow!  That looks like a great commute!  I've been biking to work 5 days a week for the past few years, but it's a pretty wimpy 6 miles each way.  Still, I end up counting it in my logs because like you said, biking on a cruddy bike with a heavy load up some of these hills is a pretty great workout.

I don't know if any other Seattle-area people have seen probcast.com, but it's a website run by the UW Atmospheric Sciences department.  Basically it forecasts the probability of rain and many other variables throughout the PNW.  I've been using their drop-down menu, selecting "Chance of more than 0.25" precip" map, and checking to see before I plan a long weekend ride whether I'll be miserable or not.  Sometimes the convergence zone effect means it might be worth driving a bit to find dry weather.

For example: the weather people were predicting a washout this past Sunday for the Daffodil Classic, but I looked at this site the day before and decided to go with it because the Orting area was not expected to get tons of rain.  Super glad I did, because it ended up being just about perfect.

Just a thought

For those who don't live in the area - if you're wondering why I don't cross on the 520 bridge -- it's because it has no bike lanes

Other than that, it's a fairly enjoyable ride; mostly on a paved trail out of traffic.

Thanks for this discussion link!  I think everyone here should take the time to read it.  If you are a first timer, this goes double.

There are discussions about the mental aspect of the IM marathon that I've never seen stated so well.  The best part of the thread is that there are people and opinions from every part of the runner and IM spectrum.  It made me feel not alone in my running experience.