Training

Ironman Training – Week 22 – September 23 – September 29 2019

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

These days it seems rare that I end up completing a week with all workouts in the green in TrainingPeaks. This weeks was not one of those weeks, but it came close. I only missed a single 30-min swim!

The highlight of the week though was my half-Ironman training session. The training plan called for me to do a Half-IM race, but since I didn’t have a race planned, I did the distances as a single training session. I had come close about a month ago, but back then, I only did a 10K run for the run segment. On Sunday I did the full distance.

I started my day by getting up at 3:30am and actually starting the swim at 4am. I wanted to get an early start to minimize the amount of time I would have to be running in the hot Texas weather. The swim went well with me averaging 2:12/100 yd. This is a pretty good pace for me for a continuous swim. For my nutrition, I ate one gel 15-mins before the swim and one once I was out of the water. My T2 involved the drive back home, but even then, it ended up being just a few seconds longer than 15 mins.

My bike split was the best part of the day. I was riding on a new frame (more on that later), but I don’t know if it was a different aero position, or better wind conditions, but I ended up riding the 56 miles in 3:01. For my ride I decided to try a different hydration strategy. I decided to try SOS Hydration which Alana has been telling me about for a while. This is one of several products that follow the WHO Oral Rehydration Therapy standard. I don’t know if this helped or if I’m just getting fitter, but I didn’t have any cramps at all during my long day. I did continue to take my salt licks every 5 miles.

I plan to continue using the SOS hydration for my upcoming long bike rides to see if it really is helping with cramping.

Unlike Gatorade Endurance, the SOS Hydration has minimal calories so the expectation is that you get your nutrition from other sources. For my training session, I went with Oreos on the bike and gels on the run.

After a 5-min T2, I started my run. This was somewhat discouraging as I was reduced to a lot of walking by the second half. Or it would probably be more accurate to say I as reduced to walking with VERY FEW and SHORT running segments. I would be surprised if my total running time for each of the latter miles was more than 2 mins in total. By the end, I was taking 16 mins to cover a mile. I did manage to complete the 13.1 miles in 3:05.

My total time for the half-Ironman training session was 7:14 including the transitions. If I double that, it would still give me an extra 2.5 hours for a full IM to slow down and make the 17-hour cutoff. I know I will slow down a lot of the full IM run so the key for me would be not slow down too much on the bike and preserve as much buffer as possible for the run.

I mentioned above that I had a new bike frame. Everyone loves getting new gear and I’m no different. One of the attractions of the new frame is that it is a true TT/triathlon frame and so it has more flexibility in seat positioning and it would allow me to get the front even lower. I rode it on Sunday with the front lower than my other bike and I may still drop it even more over the coming days and weeks.

I have some longer training weeks coming up with a few 15-hours weeks on the schedule, but this past Sunday is the longest and hardest day I would have before my IM.

Ironman Training – Week 21 – September 16 – September 22 2019

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

I managed to come within an hour of the planned training time doing 11:41 instead of the planned 12:45. The main reason for this is that I had a couple of all-day scuba training sessions on Saturday and Sunday and so I was unable to do the long 4-hr bike ride. Instead, I moved workouts around and extended most of them so I could get as close to the planned training time as possible.

For the 3 sports, I am most pleased about the swimming. I managed to swim 8,900 yards for the week. The closest I had come to that in the past was a 8,400 yard week and then after that I’m down in the 6,000s.

I did my longest run so far at 10 miles. It took just over 2 hours.

Ironman Training – Week 20 – September 9 – September 15 2019

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

This week marked the end of the first two thirds of the training plan. Only 10 weeks left!

For this week I managed to do all the workouts, but many of them were cut short so in the end instead of about 12.5 hrs of training, I only did 8.5. The only good thing is that for the 4 hrs I came up short, 3 was from the long ride. I didn’t want to do a long ride just before my sprint triathlon on Sunday.

Yes, I did my first ever triathlon. I wouldn’t discuss it here as I’ll write a separate race report.

Unfortunately, upcoming week 21 may also be a shortened week as I have to attend scuba training on the weekend and so that will mean yet another week without a long ride. I should be able to get the long run done though.

Ironman Training – Week 19 – September 2 – September 8 2019

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

This was a decent week of training, but I did about 3 hrs less than originally scheduled.

The week didn’t start too well. I got up Monday morning to do a run and after about 0.25 miles, I realized my body wasn’t ready. I was still tired from my monster training session on Saturday. Even though I took Sunday off, I needed 2 days. So I ended up not doing my run nor my swim scheduled for that day.

The highlight of the week though was my swim session on Tuesday. I wanted to see if I could actually swim the Ironman distance swim, non-stop, so I tried that…and I was successful. I swam 4300 yards in 1:38:41. I am super pleased about that. That will give me a lot of buffer in my actual Ironman.

The main concerned is how I felt about 1-2 hours afterwards. My whole body and stomach felt weird. I don’t know if I was dehydrated or needed food. Eventually after eating and drinking, I started to feel better. I plan to do this IM swim distance a few more times before the actual event. The next time I will try eating a gel right before and right after and to also hydrate immediately.

After doing that long swim on Tuesday, I skipped my swim on Wednesday so I only ended up swimming that one day for the week.

For my long ride, I tried eating more salt every 5 miles, but I still ended up getting cramps, but they were delayed. Instead of getting them around the 2-2.5 hr mark, I got them at the 3 hr mark. At this point I’m not sure what to do. I may try even more salt next time.