SBR Utopia Season II - OPEN (Page 94)

I promise to wait until after Kona.

Now that you mention it, that's a very good question to ask as it wasn't too long ago there was some discussion on a bike focus over the winter to improve that.

I don't really know as this concept of "bare minimum" literally does not compute when referring to the bike.

Yep - that's why I mentioned in the second sentence that I know I've been flip flopping all over the place on how I want to focus this winter. 

I guess I've got 2 main goals for 2014, one early season and one late season. 

Early season - train the winter with a run focus and try to maintain bike fitness and run a BQ time the first week in May.
Late season - switch back to more bike focus for the rest of the season and take another crack at the Muskoka 70.3 in September

Alright, given your success (and that Shane knows what he's doing as a coach), I'm going to hope I can be fairly successful, as my schedule looks almost exactly like yours:

Monday - AM swim (after leg-heavy weekend)

Tuesday - AM bike, PM run

Wednesday - AM swim, PM run

Thursday - AM bike

Friday - AM swim, PM run

Saturday - long run, possible ride (been doing this more often than not with my limited run volume)

Saturday - long ride, short run

All swims are with Master's group and are hard.  Pretty much all my riding is done on the trainer (and thus hard), except the long ride.  All runs are "easy" at the moment.

Neil, I'm leaning towards Fred's perspective on this.  I *think* it's going to be really hard for you to maintain bike fitness if you really want to BQ.  You're going to be pushing your run training load to new boundaries, and even if you do build slowly, I think it's going to take a toll.  And while it's possible to BQ on a max of 55 mpw, it will probably need to have quite a bit of intensity in there.

Now, if you were someone that already had experience running 50+ mpw for extended periods of time, or if you had already BQ'd previously, then it may be a different story as your goal isn't to necessarily push new boundaries, but to simply get back to the run fitness you had previously and simply add some biking on top of that.

Speaking for myself, when I was training for my first marathon, running 40+ mpw was quite foreign to me.  It was a challenge to maintain that type of volume while still getting in any significant swimming or biking.  I ran just under 4 hours that year.

Fast forward to now, and I'm pretty sure I could run the same mileage as I did in 2009, train for a sub 4 marathon, and still add 3-4x a week of riding with some intensity.  But if you told me that I had to run 50+ mpw, train for a sub 3:35 marathon goal, and still maintain my bike fitness...not likely.  I'd probably have to choose one or the other...or both goals would suffer.

The working hard on several days in a row can work if you have more fitness built up and in this case you're also switching up the areas worked. Swimming and biking are quite different so this can work. And it also depends on just how much you're pushing, both how hard and how long. Something like 2 x 20' @95% or so is a pretty good workout, but it's not going to have the same effect on the day after as say 3 x 20' @89-92% plus 45' @85-90% over a 3-3.5 hr ride.

It's also possible to time it so that the consecutive days are working at different points. Such as with a cycling block that comes up every now and then. Day 1: 2 x 20'@95%, Day 2: 5 x 5' @110-115% (or 1 x 20' @100-105%), Day 3: rest or very easy spinning 30-60'. This is quite challenging to do, but does make for some nice gains.

Running is the one to be most careful of due to the loading. The other two can go consecutive, but it tends to work better when there are bigger and smaller loads involved. It's not just yes/no. Many would also tend to fall into going not quite hard enough to be hard and not quite easy enough to really recover if they went day after day too.

Well crap....everything you've all said makes sense, and doing a little more reading on marathon recovery is pointing at about 3 weeks.  So now I'm torn as to what to do.  Given that Muskoka is in September, even if I targeted a November marathon, that puts a large bulk of the marathon training overlapping with HIM training - it also means that if I did BQ it wouldn't be till the 2016 edition.

But I also don't want to blow my Tri season trying to chase a marathon time, that I fully realize may not be at all possible given this is my first marathon, and will be a complete learning experience come race day. 

Ugh, things to think about.

Got in to Escape From Alcatraz...  For some reason, not 100% sure I'll sign up, but it's on everyone's bucket list and consistently one of the "races you have to do" type things.  I've swam Alcatraz 3X so that's not the attraction....   It's a pretty expensive weekend with race fees, air, getting the bike up there, hotel, etc.  Most likely I will

I'm still weighing a 2014 IM, but Alcatraz would be the first leg of my Awesome 2014 Tri Tour, Leg 2 would be Wildflower Long (no issues getting in) and Leg 3 would be SOS (tough to get in....). 

ETA someone else from our little group got in as well, but won't steal their thunder

Sweet, congrats!  That would be an awesome Tri Tour!  When do they announce SOS?

SOS opens Halloween night.  Doesn't sell out in seconds, more like minutes.  But I may have an inside track on that, we'll see

Ahh, I thought it was a lottery as well.  I'll be on a cruise ship, I guess I'm out.  

Congrats!  Why not just drive?  LA to SF isn't that far, and beats paying for air fare and figuring out logistics for getting the bike up there. 

Alcatraz is definitely on my list of races to do....after I move back to LA

I've been watching that app's progress on Facebook for a while, it looks pretty neat.  Only reason I haven't tried it is because my internet connection at home is so unstable it would be very frustrating.

It's about time they set something up like this.  We do have geese in Hawaii.  In fact, our state bird is a Nene Goose.  It doesn't seem to like to fly anywhere though.  If you guys are willing to set up a challenge at around midnight EST, then I'm game...LOL.

I thought we all agreed that Canadians weren't going to start complaining about their winters until after Kona. 

That's funny though.  And you wonder why they didn't fly back in the summer.  They rather worry about becoming extinct here in Hawaii than go back to Canada.  LOL.

Are you set on Muskoka vs. just any ol' 70.3?  Also, is BQ for 2015 (rather than 2016) something of high importance - for whatever reason (scheduling, family, etc.)?

The marathon after tri season is much easier to figure out from a training standpoint, IMO.  Early 70.3 would even allow you to possibly shoot for a last minute BQ attempt (there are a few races JUST before the qual opens), and your base would be solid coming into that training (especially if you pushed slightly more on the run during the tri build).

The other way around is just tough.  I have a number of very competitive Cross racing buds who will NEVER again run even an early season HM (competitively - not just to complete) and certainly not a marry as many of them have tried in years past and swear the high volume and intensity run block scuppered their fall Cx season months later.

If that particular race is a priority and BQ for 2015 is also one, then it is going to be tough (as said above) to do both.

Matt