Hello,
I am following the low volume full distance triathlon plan preparing for Challenge Roth in July. I will be fasting the Ramadan from end April to end May which is right around the start of speciality phase. I live in Europe hence long days without food or drink. What is your recommendation approaching this phase?
Connected to the question, I did a antelope+1 sweetspot 5x10min repeats at 0530 am which I know it is a risky approach to do early morning rides while in a dehydrated stage. Towards the end of the workout I felt a little discomfort in the achilles tendon. It looks OK now.
Thanks for providing guidance and best way to approach early morning rides without risks and approaching the fasting month without losing fitness
Are you able to arise for a breakfast type meal/drink before sunrise (0300 am) so you could get those early morning workouts in fueled? Even if you were to get up eat and drink and then return to bed?
I would have a nut butter sandwich and bottle of drink on my bedside table, eat it, go back to bed.
Thanks for your reply. I do in general. However I will question spending the rest of the day thirsty and exhausted without replenishing stores till 9 pm?
Would you be able to move all your workouts into the evening/night? Such as when you break your fast get in a session right away (eat and drink during the workout generously), get a few hours of sleep, eat a meal and then possibly a second session and then return to sleep. The higher intensity of the Specialty phase will not make this easy, but this would eliminate the 5:30 AM morning workouts completely and allow you to not be as dehydrated throughout the day.
I did something similar last year but I have a small window from 9 pm to 3 am more or less. Not enough to squeeze in a lot so I will have to adapt training load. Plus I still need to run and swim. I do swim during normal hours though.
Last year I was doing 1h to 1h30 of Z1 rides just before breaking the fast and easy runs too. And was doing shorter versions of TR workouts right after eating.
In terms of race day performance I’d be more worried about the impact on Build Phase.
You need a lot of protein and carbohydrate, not just to fuel the sessions, but to benefit from them too.
How much training volume per day could you fit in last year?
I’m thinking two ideas, but let me know if my cultural naïveté is showing;
Feast before Ramadan - gain body fat in the weeks leading up, for the explicit purpose of fuelling the tremendous workload of Ironman training.
Train a mid volume plan up until fasting begins, then switch down to low volume, with reduced intensity. A day or two are fasting ends, stay on LV but gradually raise the intensity.
The thing is that TR is condensed training, but consequently has a high energy consumption. You might even want to finish with TR plans altogether, as fasting begins, and just do low intensity, high volume training up to race day.
Pop into the Ironman in 2020 thread and let us know how you’re doing so far, too👍
Great insight thanks. Last year I managed to squeeze in a lot of easy rides and run around 7pm so I could do most of the volume if I increase frequency and reduce length of session. No way I can do 3 4 or 5 hours rides of 2h run for instance.
I’m doing a tri camp in March and planning on raamping up volume till end of April indeed. Then 2 weeks after the feast Im doing Ironman 70.3 Kraichgau and 4 weeks later is Challenge Roth.
I’m carrying with me good fitness from last year and my ftp didn’t drop in winter so that could help.