Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 91)

April totals:

Biking: 412.5 miles 23h03m   2763 ft climbing

Running: 85 miles 12h40m  2789 ft climbing

Swimming: 22000 yds  6h08m  

Embrace it for now - you'll be faster at IM the lighter you are.  If it bothers you from a body image standpoint after the race, it might be time to back off on the SBR and hit the weights.

Finished off the month with an awesome sunshine filled 18 mile run down the coast this afternoon.   My farthest run ever by 3 miles (ran 15 two weeks ago) and nailed it at the same pace as that 15 miler:  8:13.

Month totals:

Swim:  18,900 yards

Bike:  400 miles

Run:  121.6 miles

I'm feeling pretty strong and confident.

Here's April:

Included some taper and recovery from a HIM.  May is going to be massive I think--excited about it!

I actually do feel a bit more efficient.  I did my 19 miler today and could have kept on going.  Wife said I look like I am sick.  I'm 6'2 and now weigh a stellar 163 pounds.  Ironically (or not), this was my first 20 hour week after doing 18 and 16 hours. 

My healthy walk around (and solo marathon) weight is around 175-178.  For dinner, I just had an entire large pizza, a coke, a beer, 3 glass of water, cheese stick, a few gogurts, banana, muffins, and some nuts.  Gotta be near 2,000+ for dinner.  I now weigh 165.  Ha!!!!         

Edit: On my long run I was thinking how this hybrid IM plan of mine has totally changed my racing shape.  I'm not as fast as I was for my last two marathons, but I feel like I can run an 8 min pace forever.  On the bike, again, don't feel as fast but had no problem holding 19mph the whole ride with only modest effort.  Feeling good about my chances to sneak in under 12 hours. 

Here are my April totals.  The first week of the month I was still recovering from my sinus infection.  I quit counting my laps in the pool.  So only the time is accurate. 

Looking forward to May.  Great job everyone- train safely. 

Weekly totals for me (much better than my monthly totals )

Swim- 6300 yds

Bike- 142.52 mi

Run- 29.12 mi

15.5 hrs

Hopefully May will be a huge month

Go Shermbelle go!

Great job! Negative splits are no easy feat! 

Here are my monthly totals:

 I feel really good about where I'm at right now.  A few aches and pains on Saturday's long run, so I'm going to give myself an "adaptation day" (thanks phatknot, for giving us this phrase!) and be back at it hard tomorrow.

Congrats, Waterdogg on your BQ!  That's pretty amazing, especially since you say you took the first half easy

Another congrats to TexasMPgal,  I can only imagine how it must feel to be a service member hearing that news last night.  You all deserve to celebrate!

5 more weeks until taper time, it is really starting to sink in now.  Yikes!

Nice training everyone!  

Thanks for the shoutout, phatknot!  I did the Wildflower long course on Saturday.  It was a rough, rough day.  Tweaked my back and then had to sit up for the rest of the ride (straight up with my hands on the arm pads.  Not fun on a windy, hilly ride) and then had to walk the run...major sciatica pain. Definitely not the confidence boost I was hoping for.  Went straight to medical after barely making the time cutoff and received an adjustment.  Say what you will about adjustments, but two big pops later and my back felt great.  It was really hard to finish the race smart and walk instead of pushing it and running the run but I knew that if I did that, I would probably seriously injure myself and screw my chances of doing CDA.  Instead of being demoralized by the race, I'm going to take this as motivation to stretch and train really hard for these last weeks.  Felt better afterward because everyone I talked to had a tough race and there were tons of DNFs so I knew I wasn't alone.  Felt really bad for one of my friends who is also training for CDA...she's done WF before but didn't make the bike cutoff this time around.

Whining over and ready to train!

Nerdjock is a big baller! Way to gut it out and be smart.

Check out what Slayer got for his bday from all3sports.com :

Slayer big and fast dream http://twitpic.com/4rj9ue

Now that is just plain sexy.

Hey all,

we've already discussed at length having the right gearing for hill climbing (chainring and cassette sizes)... but that's not the entire discussion.  Many of you will already know all that's said in this BT article I happened upon, but for the rest here's a reminder to not dicount the TECHNIQUE to help you tackle the hills efficiently at Cda (and in all your riding).  The article applies regardless of what your chainring/cassette of choice may be.

On group rides I regularly watch people start to climb a hill, and work their way in (easier) on the cassette.  They get to their easiest gear on the cassette, and then downshift (easier) on the front.  As the article points out, and as you will experience if you do this, there is a tremendous loss of momentum/power that takes place... because you're basically skipping several gears combinations.  More precisely, you're making a greater change in gear ratio than is necessary.

The article points out in simple terms but with good science why you're far better off with a simultaneous (or nearly if your derailleurs are prone to misbehaving) front down + rear up shift.  It will allow you to carry your momentum much better by essentially ensuring that your chain remains under tension throughout your move to easier gears.

As an aside, and this isn't mentioned in the article, the compact crank offers a shifting technique advantage for most riders... ie an advantage not only in the gears you have available, but also in how you shift through them.  Even with the technique described in the article, there is still greater inefficiency between front shifts than there is between rear shifts.  Any time you shift in the front, even if you make a simultaneous rear adjustment, you lose more power transfer to the wheels than you would have if you could have just done a rear adjustment (I'm curious how much less this happens when riding electronic shifting, but that's another tangent).  With the compact crank, many riders will be able to spend more of their time in the big ring up front and avoid front downshifts.