The Ironman Training 2020 Thread

Fascinating. Giving me something to think about during Bird. Realistically I’m not dialed enough for it to matter, but I love the discussion on it.

I completed first 3wk of Base FD tri mv aside from last 2 workouts as i had to fly away for a family emergency. While life-event stress was high, i had i would say normal if shortened restful sleep in later part of this trip.

This was supposed to be my rest week after Run mileage reached 47-50km-48km in this block with a marathon in 2months and an IM in Nov.
I haven’t biked in 12 days but managed to do 1h of strength training and to run three times 10km so 30km. Therefore my runnjng & cardio system was maintained.

Should i
A) continue TR plan where i left off & skip rest week (4th) and go straight to 5th. Its base after all and not too taxing.
B) do week 5 before sunday 23rd (seems too much)
C) continue where i left off and then do an actual rest week. (Seems low)

I lean towards A.

Of course, ill listen to my body.

Im not sure i agree with this. You can’t compare to your friends but who cares about that? Ftp is not speed and it definitely doesn’t tell one if they have the endurance in a race.

As for BBS, i don’t see why it’s not accurate? If you’re planning to go a certain % of ftp for a race, why wouldn’t it work? The time i got from BBS was never accurate for me anyways so I stopped using it. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t work?

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If theres really a noticeable amount of watts variability in the drive train losses, well then a pedal PM is preferable.
I think pacing during an IM is more important than predicting my bike leg time with Bbs.
Therefore, it favors measuring power the closest to my bike shoes hence pedal- based PM ftw.

Last summer, I switched from stages left only to
Favero duo pedal and love it.
I can move pedals across bikes quickly and travel with them to put on a rental or a friends bike.

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It won’t matter what your pedal pm reads vs your hubs read; the ground does not care. Unless you want to dick measure, the number you read is specific to you and your race information and is equally useful regardless of PM placement. The part I was explaining is that by having your hub based PM, you can calculate the CdA directly, whereas your pedal PM will be CdA+drivetrain losses. Drivetrain losses exist regardless of your experimental setup, but you will see the losses+CdA in your “pseudo CdA” value you calculate, whereas your hub based will be a true CdA, or at least a more exact CdA.

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Which is why I said it may or may not be significant - it’s isn’t to me, but there’s plenty of post on the 4W/kg and 5W/kg threads.

On BBS it’s calculations expecting no difference as to whether my FTP numbers come from my PowerTap pedals or my Zumo smart trainer. But out of the box, in my case anyway, there’s 30W difference.

Let’s say Joe 1 never bought the Zumo, Joe 2 never bought the PowerTap. TR would report a different FTP for each Joe. Putting those numbers in, and a 0.7 IF and all other things the same, BBS would therefore predict a slower bike split for Joe 1 than Joe 2. Same person, same fitness, different BBS results.

Whether this is significant to you or not, is as maybe.

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Update… New road running shoes, new trail running shoes, moisturise and use tennis ball/foot roller every night. Pain has gone away completely! Thanks for the advice re shoes

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sometimes, I look at my plan to see what I have of an evening and think … :fearful: :cold_sweat: :sob:

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Smart trainer I agree with you. Those aren’t accurate and you can’t take it with you to a race. But if you’re using a PM to train, that power meter is going to work.
Even a hub is within 3-5W difference of pedal or crank. People exaggerate the drivetrain losses. I have a PT G3 hub, PT P1, PT P1s, and Assioma duos. I’ve tested all of them against my hub with an unwashed chain (no road grime on it but not clean and lubed either). P1 and P1s are identical and read 2w higher. The Assiomas read 3W higher.

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And all are within manufacturers reported tolerances. Hence another reason obsessing over your power numbers +/- 3-4 W is kinda a waste of time; thats less than 1.5% for a 300FTP athlete.

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You figure out your injury? Cyclist here, doing first 70.3’s this year, been running three days a week and have low grade heel pain - been trying to gold ball roll, keep hips and hammy’s stretched, but seems to persist… If i stick to 3 runs a week seems OK but would love to solve for it…

My lad got rushed into hospital not last sunday sunday before, I expected us being sent home with a course of antibiotics instead we were in surgery the next day and then have nine nights in the hospital and we are stil on antibiotics now. Lots better now luckily and the NHS continue to be the shining light in the shit pile that is post brexit Britain.

Training actually continued pretty well, it was exactly what I needed to have some me time. Since he has been out I’ve had a solid week of training, did my first Tower 26 workout which was certainly a step up from what TR has you doing. With a week eating takeaways in the hospital nutrition needs to be a focus for the next few weeks but half term is always difficult with so many meals out ect.

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How much running volume have you historically had? If you have not been running for a long time, its not easy to quickly load up on volume. Is your intensity too high? It’s stupidly easy to get injured running and sometimes its for no reason at all. Have you considered what kind of shoes you are running in? Have you had a gait analysis? Do you have flat feet? Are you heel striking very hard? How high is your running cadence? Are you doing hills? Are you running on concrete or have you tried trails? Are your calves very tight? Maybe consider seeing a physio for some exercises.

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How much running volume have you historically had? Usually just offseason, but have consiously been building volume slowly.
If you have not been running for a long time, its not easy to quickly load up on volume. Is your intensity too high? Trying to follow the intensity as laid out by 70.3 Mid Vol plan. It’s stupidly easy to get injured running and sometimes its for no reason at all. Have you considered what kind of shoes you are running in? Have you had a gait analysis? Do you have flat feet? Are you heel striking very hard? Have considered this, think I have right shoes (Ghost 10’s) and tried to shorten up my stride to avoid hard heel strikes. How high is your running cadence? Don’t objectively know but try to keep it high Are you doing hills? No - trying to keep mostly flat specifically for injury prevention Are you running on concrete or have you tried trails? Concrete. Are your calves very tight? yes - but with shorter stride and consistent stretching I’ve lessened this. Maybe consider seeing a physio for some exercises. Will go this direction if I can’t fix this with y’alls help!

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Glad your lad is on the mend

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How many Km per week have you been running over the past year or 2? Is it just a few months? Are you following the 10% rule? Don’t increase milage more than 10% a week, might take a week or more to get used to the volume. Lots of running specific plans make use of this and also do a cycle of higher volume and lower volume, make sure you are getting adequate rest and recovery

Would consider the low volume plan or following the mid volume plan for riding and doing your own running plan. Perhaps you are doing too much volume for your experience/lifetime milage.

Have you gone to a running shop and spoken to some experienced runners? Theres a shit ton of options and also many people rotate shoes and try different ones; more cushion, less cushion, foam materials, drop, shape, shoe structure etc. all can be factors, not to mention race flats, neutral/motion control/support shoe types geared towards gait, foot strike type, foot structure etc. Also note that heel strike is not inherently bad, but try to run “soft” or fluid, not slamming your heels into the ground. Work on strides. I have tried like 5 brands of shoes and in those brands, many models. I have been using Nike Turbos for the past year with great success, but have tried brooks, sauconey, soloman, maziuno, hoka and asics and all have their own characteristics and models specifically; none better or worse, but the nikes have worked well for my long course and half/full marathons so far (better than the rest)

Again, not inherently bad to be lower or higher, everyone has a good range. Pros typically hit 180rpm ish, but they also run at very fast speeds. IMO anything over 165rpm is good, over 170 is pretty good. I try to nail 170-175.

Not sure on this one but doing different geometry runs helps strengthen your foot for stability and overall health. I believe technically running uphill is the “best” on your body as its lowest imapct, and running downhill is actually extremely hard on your body so be conscious about your form. You can toast your quads doing downhill runs and gas yourself, despite what you might think about “downhill being easier”; its not easy on your legs at all. Note running uphill might not be good for you as it elongates your calves; I am guessing you have very tight calves

Try trails. Typically much, much easier on your knees and legs in general

Strongly consider going to physio for specific strength and maintenance drills. Better to be proactive than reactive. As much knowledge as the entire site has, we are not all physios or doctors and our advice is basically armchair coach advice; better to go to a professional than ask the webMD of training for specific advice

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Would also hazard a guess that since you don’t have lifetime milage, do not bother with speedwork yet; you are best served with slow, low intensity volume. Speedwork is the last thing you should add to your running training to get your overall speed higher; if you try to increase your intensity without the overall lifetime or higher volume training, you will get injured much, much easier; like building a house with no foundation. Your speedwork is the icing on the cake and will help push you into those fast, fast times, but if you are not hitting fast times (say sub 1:35HM times or whatever it means to you) then you should increase volume. Once you plateau, add speedwork. Speedwork is like explosive training; high injury risk training that is required to go fast but will also destroy you if you are not careful. With a good aerobic base like you have from cycling, its even easier to injure yourself and ruin the entire season. If you are to do shorter races such as sprints and olys, then speed work might be more beneficial, but for half-full training, focus on slow, quality miles and build that lifetime volume up. You will know when you need speedwork.

Its a balance of doing enough intensity and volume to reap those fast times and get the stress you need, but intensity will destroy you very quick if you are not careful. Adding doses of volume and avoiding injury/over training is much easier than adding intensity, as a bit too much intensity will legit screw up weeks of training.

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Thanks - yeah this has been my thought process - generally when there have been 4 runs per week I’ve cut to three and cut the speed work out for most of the reasons you’ve detailed. Goal is to clock a sub 90 minute in my 70.3’s which I can do easily stand alone, and my larger brick workouts I so far can hold that pace. But agreed on seeing a physio and getting some exercises - I tend to think there’s a lot of stiffness up my achilels, calves, hams and glutes all which are likely contributing factors. While running may not take as much time as cycling in the exercise part itself, once you add all the needed physio it pretty much does!

Oh so you must be quite fast. If you are running sub 1:30 HM splits I would think you could handle the MV plan running quite easily. You might want to talk to a physio on this, it might be a problem that none of us can advise on here. Sub 1:30 is pretty fast in my books, thats a sub 1:25HM open time, which is quite, quite good.

I question the validity of running race pace in your bricks. On a tempo or speed day sure, but on bricks that is very, very aggressive IMO. Slow it down, running fast tired is a recipe for disaster

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Yeah, it was just a bruised heel from doing sprints on cobblestones in the dark. Healed up after a week or two of light-to-no running and I’ve slowly been increasing my run volume since then (now at around 40mpw). My running has improved dramatically over the last six months or so but my bike now feels like it is suffering…half the time my legs feel dead when I hop on the bike (even if the previous few days have been light) and I’ve bailed on a couple workouts for the first time this training cycle.

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