My 78 week plan is progressing well, with only one minor change. Took 2 weeks off the bike over Christmas/New Years holiday vacation, so moved from 8 wk General Build to 6 wk SSB2. End point worked out to be the same, so no detriment to overall plan.
SSB2 first Ramp Test was +7 watts, so feeling great. Been moving thru ok, tough as heck workouts, but so far no bails or intensity turn-downs, so feeling encouraged by that
Officially registered for IM70.3 Santa Rosa (July 2019), then will turn the big focus to Santa Rosa full in 2020. Still on track!
Boy howdy. Been quite a training season so far. 4 races on the calendar (3x 70.3s) but my A-race is IMTX which is about 11 weeks away. Currently in week 4 of the Build session for FD Mid Volume but have considered dropping to the Low Volume simply because of Theo their demands. Got an 8 point FTP bump from the Base phase which was also over the holidays so with all the missed training I think it was pretty good.
Also got engaged so some time is spent planning that.
Also got into the USAT LEVEL I Coaching Certification seminar so I need to shift some training around to fit that it.
Other that that just moving forward and being motivated by all the bad-assery I keep seeing on peoples feeds.
I’ll be there! Look out for somebody wearing a slightly-too-small (aero is everything!) Brighton Triathlon Club suit I’m also doing the full Outlaw later that month!
I completed 1 round of Full Distance Tri Base Mid Volume in the run up to Christmas and was planning on maintaining until mid January but I got a horrible cold and basically spent a week on the sofa. I managed to restart on schedule (base mid volume again) but my FTP gains from before were very modest due I suspect to that illness and its hangover. Today is the first workout of the 3rd week of base and I’m getting deja vu
My focus now is to spend more time in the aero position. I’ve also got to work out whether or not I can fit in the prescribed third swim. This week will be tough as I have a coaching course at the weekend that I need to prepare for so will almost certainly come up short on TSS.
Swim: My weakest part and due to some unexpected time limitations I wasn’t able to train as much as I would like, but I did make some progress, and in February I will be hitting every single week-day.
Bike: FTP gone from 191 to 246 and my endurance is much better ! I’m doing Full Tri mid-volume, with some additionnal workout every sunday, instead of one run. I’m feeling very very strong and good - I need to go for an outside ride though, cause I have hard time believing I progressed so much
Run: I’ve had some knee pain so I run a bit less than recommended but I changed a bit my cadence and it feels much better now.
So overall, preparations are going great, although it’s a bit overhelming with the work, family etc.
Going well. I’ve added a core/weights workout each week, just to focus on stability and maintaining form when we get to the longer stuff. I’ve been extending the cool-down on the swims for extra credit and I had a KILLER brick (Pioneer + 20 min run) this past weekend. Run was about 1:30 per mile faster than normal! (perfect conditions, great fueling off the bike, already warmed up, etc). So far I’ve only missed a couple of workouts.
Long way to go, but confident that the work i’m doing is the right work to get me there…
Now, if we could just get a little warmer weather…
Hi All
I’m still messing round with prep training at the moment. 3or4 wattbike/trainneroad - 3or4 runs
I dont start swimming until May
But, I start Full distance base (bike only)on Monday … with the dreaded ramp test
Rough plan was to go through the Traditional Base and swim a lot over the past couple of months which I’ve done. I’m swimming pretty well for me anyway.
I’ve just started a 12 week run build to a half marathon I’m targeting. I’ve entered the same race for the last 4 years but haven’t made it to the start line for various reasons so hopefully that will be different this year. Riding is taking a slight back seat and I’m in week 2 of Sweet Spot Base Mid Volume 1.
After those 12 weeks is back to a bike focus - probably Sustained Power Build, the 4 rides from the High Vol Plan alongside Volunteer which I generally do each week as a warm up to my weekly interval run.
I haven’t entered it yet but I’m thinking of doing the Holkham Half along with @ollie252 and @rjessop which is 4 weeks after the Sustained Build finishes so I’ll probably put together a little 4 week specific block to fill in that gap.
After that there’s a 14 week gap between Holkham and Kona and I’ll probably end up traveling 10 days beforehand so with a recovery week after the HIM it’s a nice 12 week block to build for Hawaii and I’ll decide nearer the time how I’ll plan that
congrats on the kona qualification @julianM it’s on my long term plan. Kids are 11 months and 3 yo, so i can’t really commit that sort of time atm. but give it a couple of years and who knows.
Does anyone in here use the Finis Tempo Trainer for their swims? I have a Garmin 935 and I’ve been trying to find a way to use it in the same manner, but am coming up short. The closest I’ve found was the tempo trainer in the Connect IQ apps, but that timer doesn’t reset on each interval rather it continues to buzz through the rest. If anyone has any tips, please let me know!
Shit FTP test, didn’t push it hard enough and got a gain of 2 watts. I’m going to bump it up manually because I know I had at least another minute. Really disappointed in myself.
Thanks for the shout @JoeX So far, one month in to 2019, training is going pretty well. I’ll be wrapping up my almost never ending repeats of SSB2LV while just trying to get in some good consistency in the pool and in the run. Since this was the last block of base, I tried to get my weekend run up to 90 minutes. Mission accomplished. Right now I’m not training much faster than in previous years, but I am running at a lower HR and so far my efficiency stats from my garmin are showing that I’m in a good spot (cadence at target, then vertical oscillation has come down 1 cm )
I haven’t been ramp testing, so depending on how I finish out this week, I’ll make the decision on what to bump my FTP up to. I’ve had a few challenges, but been able to complete rides near FTP as planned but VO2 max efforts took a bit of a backseat this month as I was participating in a lab study doing 6 30s wingate sprints instead of my VO2 workouts. They are not interchangeable…
Going to start a modified short power build in 2 weeks, trying to meld that with the suggested running intervals from the OLY mid volume plan, while keeping up with a 90 minute long run. Have basic permission from wife for my race plans this season. Since she’s asking me to go to California with her in April, I am thinking about changing my planned sprint warm up race to an OLY warm up race which is the weekend before that.
Xterra season starts the first weekend in June for me, I’ll do three of them, 1 per month, then try my best to swap over and do the HIMLV specialty as best I can, I might be able to ride a bit more than that, but the LV has a decent amount of SS work, which will be key to my last race of the season, Savageman 70. If I can get a 3 hour bike, I’d be top 5-10 bike split… it’s a pretty tough course. This is a bucket list race, as I won’t be riding a TT bike, but with the elevation differences, this is one of those that might actually be aero neutral according to BBS.
I kind of expected solid gains, although not this big. I used to play basketball / football so was pretty fit, but never really did endurance. Bought the bike mid 2018 and started training a bit.
So, suddenly going from 0 to 4-5 hours of bike per week was the first big change. Then I bought a home trainer + Trainer Road and started training like crazy, compared to what I was doing before. Between 8 and 9 hours on the home trainer on average since end october - excluding Christmas though.
I hope to keep improving, although it’s pretty clear it won’t be linear - if I hit 260 before my Ironman, I will be very happy already !
Things are going OK I think. It’s 4.5 months since my neck of femur fracture. I’m still rehabbing the injury (had a titanium rod inserted into the middle of my femur).
I’m swimming with Roka buoyancy shorts to protect the hip but taking that into account I’m still happy to see endurance coming back in the pool. At squad on Sunday we did a “Goldilocks” set of 600m Wu, 4x100m, 1x200m, 4x100m, 1x300m, 4x100m, 1x400m all on CSS (critical swim speed, the equivalent of FTP for swimming) -5 seconds. I held the 1:47/100m target pace for most of the session and was leading my lane so didn’t have the benefit of drafting. That’s a breakthrough session for me as it’s not far off my pre-race pace last year. I know it’s not proper fast but it’s a big improvement from the 2:00/100m I started with at the beginning of my swim journey.
I’m not running yet, I don’t quite have the hip/glute stability to manage it pain-free. My physio involves strength work (single leg press, goblet squats, single leg bridges etc…) The stability is coming slowly, I’m not far off from being able to run.
In the meantime I’m on week 3 of SweetSpot Base Mid Volume, I’ve opted for the SweetSpot Base route since I have no running volume, once the legs are good to go I’ll switch over to Full Tirathlon Base (or build) and follow BareyP to build run volume. My FTP has been decimated, I was at 3.5w/kg pre Wales last year (252W @72kg), in my ramp test at the beginning of SSBMV I was down to 175W. As the song goes, the only way is up… SweetSpot work feels very easy, over/unders feel about right so I suspect once I get into VO2Max work I’ll see some solid gains in FTP. I’ve held off jumping straight onto VO2Max to avoid cooking my hip/glute.
The main challenge at the moment is managing training around the routine of looking after our 5 week and 3 year old kids. So far that’s going OK, but the sleep deprivation isn’t ideal. I’m hoping by the time things get properly tough our baby is into a decent sleep routine.
I was half expecting only a few responses, but wow you guys and gals are really trucking, and some of you through injury and/or ice and snow too!
A few of you mentioned family/kids my youngest is only 1 and still in our bed, so I’m feeling the strain there too . We can do it! And work is recovery time
There’s some good numbers being posted too which is always encouraging, I think I’m happy with my gradual improvements but I noticed yesterday I’ve taken my eye off the ball with running and slacked off distance when I need to be increasing in volume for the mid April Brighton marathon. New shoes are overdue - worth sorting out in January too.
I’m also doing the full Outlaw later that month!
. We can do it! And work is recovery time 