End of a good block
Feeling a little tired, probably that welcome tired feeling you get in the middle of a heavy race load. I'm due to ride long(ish) today but I'm going to sack the ride off. I'll run easy later with the lads as planned then tomorrow short turbo & a swim.
The plan this winter is to continue at around 12 hours per week and build a nice solid base. Working with those hours I need to make sure I don't start digging deep holes so when I feel like this it's time to back off and relax. I'm coming to the end of a nice 12 day block of training and I'm feeling like I've not gone backwards.
Do some work, rest & check the results are going in the right direction. Do some more ect. etc. this shit isn't rocket science!
Now the dust has settled from Kona I've had a great chance to look at what I need to do next year and see what top AGers have been doing.
First priority is sort my shit swimming out. Austria is wave starts and my AG has it's own wave plus a sub hour swim wave starting in front. If I can swim 59.xx I should be top 20 out the water from my wave. If I can swim 1.02 then top 40. 1.05 top 80 and on and on. The quicker I go the less fucking about boxing and wasting energy. I have to nail this, even though it's the shortest part of the day it's priority for setting me up for a decent bike/run.
Second priority is to sort my shit biking out. At around 180 watts on a good course/day I can cruise at 25 mph. The minute it goes uphill or gets windy my lack of top end power causes a drop off in pace and I struggle to hit 22mph. Big issue, I obviously need to work on endurance. It's a FUCKING long way to ride then run. I have a real psychological issue with the distance at the minute. I know I will get over this long term, however it would be nice to go for 60 miles and not even think I've done anything. The obvious win is to raise my FTP with strength work. I'm planning to ride Austria at 70% of FTP. I want that to be around 190 watts by the time the race comes around and that should put me close. This fucker is my biggest worry as it's going to cause fatigue through winter and I don't want to dig too deep before I need to.
Running - fuck running is easy and triathletes can't run. No worries here, if I get 1 & 2 above sorted I'll be fine. If I spend all morning on race day punching swimmers & slogging the bike it'll be a long walk. Simple. Just don't be shit.
So this block has been heavy swim focus. I think this will continue for a while for a number of reasons. 1./ I am enjoying it. 2./ It's working. 3./ Its cold out. 4./ It's most important!
I'm trying to swim 3 / 4 times per week. 1 set of 100's at roughly CSS. 1 long enducrance swim focussing on form. 1 set of 400s aiming to bring time down to close to 6 mins. Finally the extra swim is a speed set.
Swimming with Mr T is so much easier than dragging yourself around alone. It's a real struggle apart from Wednesday when I do my long swim. So, to compensate for this I decided to make my main set more challenging. Monday was 24 x 100 off 1.50 coming in on 1.32. Wednesday I managed 4km in 1.08 passing 3.8km in 1.04. Friday I'll see how I can knock out those 400's in sub 6.10 which would be nice. Once I get that down to 5.5x pace I'm cooking and ready to hour I reckon. Just keeping it consistent is the key.
Biking and running is sporadic in this period but some strong big gear work on the bike helped on Monday along with some good riding Sunday. Run wise 7.30 pace is comfortable. I'm going to be very careful and not push running hard. Tempo work will be at 6.15 pace and steady 7/mm. Most runs will be around 7.30.
Big thing I will do is focus on planning properly for this Ironman. Hydration & nutrition needs to be addressed. It was shocking last time. I'm going to plan the fueling bang right this time, no chances. Also planning to head out to do a full course reccy beforehand. This does seem like overkill but I'm hoping to make this day seem like any other long training day and just stay relaxed and confident. Part of that plan really needs a backup plan should it not go 100% but I think I probably need to worry about that in the new year.
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