BikeTraining

Ironman Training – Week 3-13 – May 13 – July 28 2019

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

The last 10 weeks of training has been a mixed bag, but overall I think there was more good than bad.

I got some nice long rides of 50 and 60 miles done and some long runs of 7 and 8 miles. The worse part has been my swimming as it has been very irregular, especially for the weeks where I travelled to FL. Being summer, the hotel pool has been rather busy and I had to cut some of my swim sessions short.

The worse part of my training has been the last two weeks while I was on vacation in Trinidad. I took my bike with me, but only managed to get one good bike ride in and even then, it was only for 19 miles. I got a few runs done and one really good swim session. It was rather depressing watching my fitness number on Training Peaks drop.

At this point, I have 17 weeks of training left. I decided to drop from the Be Iron Fit competitive plan to the intermediate plan and I really need to buckle down and get my workouts done. I have been doing the just finish swim workouts which only does two swim sessions a week, but I plan to do three

Ironman Training – Week 1-2 – April 29 – May 12 2019

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

The first two weeks of my 30-week training plan is in the bag.

The first week was a bit of a mess. When I look at the TrainingPeaks colored boxes, I only had 2 green boxes and I had one missed workout. The saving grace though was that I did get to do the Saturday PlayTri open water swim. I am still grateful that I found and joined the club as these swims continue to show my how unprepared I am for open water swimming.

The second week was much better as I manged to get all green boxes across the board and I ended the week at exactly 7 hours of training time.

I would have like to have gotten in a 3rd swim day, either in the pool or at the Saturday open water swim, but things are a bit hectic as the kids are near the end of the school year and there are various events I need to attend. Unfortunately this will be the same for the next two weeks, but once school ends at Memorial Day weekend, things should settle down.

The one thing I am proud of though is that I have been doing all my pool swims without my floaty pants. It’s been a bit tough, but I can tell I am getting fitter. I managed to swim the first 500m continuously last week Wednesday.

Ironman Training – The Beginning

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training

After taking 2 weeks off where I basically just did a few workouts to keep active, my Ironman Arizona training starts on Monday.

I plan to use the Be Iron Fit book. The book contains 3 different plans, each 30 weeks long. After reviewing the plans, even though my goal is to just finish the Ironman, I plan to follow the Competitive program for the running and cycling. In looking at the volumes, I am comfortable in how they start off and also with the peak weeks. I also figured that if life gets too hectic or the load too much, I can always drop down to the Intermediate or the Just Finish plans as they all follow the same phases. In the early weeks, I may also run or bike a bit more than the plan as the plans start off with rather low volumes. For example, the first workout is a Z2 run for 30 mins. I may run 45 mins (4 miles) instead.

The swimming is where I will deviate. For the swimming, I will be following the Just Finish swimming plan. In looking at the swimming in the Competitive plan, it is just too much too soon, especially with the drills. Now, I know the swimming alone in the Just Finish plan also will not help me in my Ironman, especially after the rude awakening I got in my 70.3. So, I plan to supplement the two-day-a-week swim sessions with a 3rd swim session where I just swim continuously and also with Saturday open-water swim sessions with PlayTri at least 2 days a month.

So for the plan’s swims with the drills, I will do those without using my buoyancy shorts. For the continuous swim, I will use buoyancy shorts and for the open water swims, I’ll use my full wetsuit. I would thus be swimming 3 or 4 days a week and in a mixture of with and without buoyancy help.

The one part of the Be Iron Fit plans is the focus on Z2 training. It is a type of training I love to do and it is what I think would best serve me in my quest to complete an Ironman. I will use HR for the Z2 running, but for the bike, I will use power for the Z2 cycling.

Ironman 70.3 Training – Week 19 – April 1 – April 7 2019

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

This was my second to last week before my race. As expected, the workload was greatly reduced. There were a couple notable highlights though.

I was in Florida for the week and our company took part in the Mercedes Benz 5K Corporate Run. I used this to replace a planned tempo run. It was also great practice for running is warmer and more humid conditions. I managed to run the first mile in 9:40 which is a new fastest mile for me. I ended up running the 5K in 32:44.

The second highlight was my bike ride on Saturday. At the start of the ride I felt great. Even though it was supposed to be a Z2 ride, I was able to comfortably generate more power and not feel as though I was working really hard. So I decided to keep that up for at least 20 mins to see if I could get a new FTP. I ended up going pretty and for 30 mins and then I backed off and did the reminder of the ride at Z2. After the ride, both Garmin and Training Peaks reports a new FTP of 187. This is up from my last FTP of 167.

I am sure I could have gone even harder for the 20 mins so my real FTP is probably higher. Perhaps I will consider doing a proper FTP test after my race.

My run on Sunday was a bit disappointing. I was expecting to feel much fresher and I also felt a bit lethargic. I have a feeling that I was paying the price for my FTP-level 30-min ride segment on Saturday.

I am not into the last week of my training. I barely have any workouts. I have to careful what I eat as I’m not burning as much calories as I would in a typical week