Building Blocks
Been there, did that, got the tee shirt. And the towell, rucksack & all that branded toot that goes with it.
Why on earth am I putting myself through this again? Last time I just wanted to curl up in a ball and stop moving forwards. All I could think about in those last few hours was to just keep moving, I didn't care about speed. It wasn't racing in any sense. It was surviving.
The course had well and truly beaten me.
And that's the rub. I can't take the fact that I didn't really compete. I got round, that much was never in doubt. What really got me was how unprepared I was, it was laughable that I could consider myself an Ironman when I was stumbling about like a piss head looking for a kebab.
After a season racing Olympic distance and a season racing TT's and having fun, it's abundantly clear that my body and mind is suited to short & fast races. It was the same with running, sub 17 for 5k felt OK but expand the distance out to marathon and the uncomfortable truth that I'm not as competitive at the longer stuff grinds away at me.
It's the analytical geek in me that wants to fix things. I want to know why I couldn't compete like I could in an Olympic or middle. What went wrong, what didn't I do, what does everyone else do?
So, here we are 9 months out. Training is going OK. I have a decent base of bike & swim from this season and I'll always be confident I can get my run shape back.
The plan now is to make these distances seem unimpressive. Break each element down and make it achievable.
What didn't I do last time? What are the key issues?
Swimming
I didn't get enough swimming done. I need that 3.8km to feel like an Olympic distance race. Swim fast but comfortable and get out the water feeling like a warm up.
I've started upping my volume per session and included a long swim each week (around 4.5km). I'm never going to not be a one paced swimmer but I need to make that feel comfortable. I understand that the long swim is against sound advice but it does give me a lot of confidence and I do aim to keep my form during this swim. At the minute I'm swimming around 1.06 through Iron Distance, the plan is to get that under an hour. I'm feeling that if I can nail that and swim on to 5km without loosing too much pace on race day I will be comfortable.
Who know's how sound that is but I am swimming better than ever.
Biking
This is going to be key. My current FTP is around 210W at fitness and that's for 27mph over a 25. That works at top end. However that gives me around 160W for Iron Distance which is only going to be 22mph on a fast & flat TT. This one is simple, that FTP is far too low. Every extra Watt is going to give me much better base to run off. I will also be less aero & carrying more weight in nutrition than on a TT. My key focus this winter is to build strength through tough bike sessions (turbo & grind sessions) and weights. Focus is not on total volume, I have a good base and I can build that into the main 16 week plan.
Long brick is where I went wrong last time. I didn't do any! So short runs off bike through winter are key just to keep the legs focussed on whats going to happen. I must ride 4 hour long ride almost every week. The focus needs to be that it isn't a long time to be out there. If I can do that session without any hessitation or procrastination I think I can start looking to build from that when we get towards summer. The key is to make sure I don't feel like it's a really long way but start to focus on how many swimmer I will overtake the longer it goes. This wont be a session until the 16 week block starts, this is purely all about bike time and I will include a coffee & cake stop. What I will do though is incorporate hills to make it fairly honest.
Position. This is also key, I need to be riding TT position on my road bike for a good amount of time each week. I don't want to feel the aches and pains I felt last time because all my long rides were on my road bike. Being comfortable on the bars will make that run so much faster.
Run
My weapon. I can run 1.27 in a Middle but my Ironman was 4.25 #ouch. Combination of aches from extended time on the bike, nutrition and not enough bricks. The plan for run is simple, build to 7/mm. 3 x 1 hour to 90 min runs per week through winter and just build relaxed running. I can spend a few weeks focusing on running once we get to Spring and I think it'll be golden. I will run London Marathon as a long run (just sub 3 is the plan) and build a 20 - 22 once per month from January but for now I am happy to get low 7s as shuffle pace. The long brick should help me get an idea of pace.
Planning Big area to improve is planning. From getting the bike set up right, nutrition plan, making sure I can use pit stop, best way to carry nutrition & spares I want to make sure everything is set up so race day feels like a normal Sunday club run. Nice and relaxed with no surprises. I'm also planning to do a full course reccy a couple of months out so I know where everything is.
So, what will that get me? It'll get me what I deserve! I'm actually excited to see how it pans out. The plan is always PB but I'd hope to go sub 10 of this going reasonably well. I will have had 3 years between Ironman races and in that time my bike & swim is so much stronger already, I just hope that I can get to the run and use it!!
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