Since it's my first IM, I thought, hey, why not do a "big day". Some recommend a metric IM, but I think that's too much running, too high risk, and too disruptive to the rest of the training goals for that block. The real purpose is to test your energy systems, test your nutrition plans and find out if you have GI issuse and what you can tolerate running off a long bike. I'm not a believer that you need to specifically train for running off the bike (bricks). Actually, I think it's counter productive. Just like you don't want to practice bad swim form with tired, you don't want to practice bad run form. After a long ride your hip flexors will be tired. Your stride will not be a crisp and you'll be open to injuries depending on your training load from the previous couple weeks.
The workout...
2000y swim (WU+descending ladder increasing pace+CD)
5hr bike in training set-up, high zone 2 targeting 260-270TSS.
6-7mi run
Training Files:
Bike:
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/HSWCCCS3KVAJOCO4RCLY2VNWBY
Run:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/548865108
Bike started off with me losing my rear bottle 2 miles out. That brings me to learning moment #1 (see below). I'd now have to stop at a gas station to refill a bottle and I'd have a little less calories than planned. I did bring 1 extra gel, but I'm still 1000 calories short. NBD. I did eat 1/2 a PB sandwich after my swim and thought I rehydrated pretty well. My legs felt pretty good, I had to ease off to keep watts down. I did ride a little higher for the first leg as it's slightly uphill and had a cross headwind. I expected to ride easier later on. Things were fine for abotu 90 minutes, then my legs started to feel that 20mi run. It was the elephant in the room and it made its' presence known. I kept it around 75% but it wasn't easy anymore. I stopped to pee and refill my bottle in a small town. My legs were tight getting back on the bike. They felt better 3 miles later and I picked it back up again through some rolling hills. It's wasn't a simple out & back route, so I took a guess at the wind advantage I'd have and how much farther my out leg was compared to my return route and rode to around the 2:40 mark then made my turn. The wind was mostly at my back now and that was good since my legs were feeling pretty spent. 70% was taking some real effort. Got to about 30 miles out and knew I had the hilliest section of the ride to get through. But it's also the most scenic along the Mississippi river. The last 10 miles, my legs were spent. not really fatigued by the energy and power wasn't there. I'm actually thinking it was more nutrition and hydration that did it. Having training hard the previous 3 days, my glycogen stores were probably partially depleted and it showed. I wasn't bonked, but didn't have any snap like my last couple long rides where I went in and out of rough patches, but finished strong. Not this day.
I took a long T2. Drank a 12oz, cold, flat bottle of Coke. Then ate a Greek yogurt with honey and drank probably another 30 oz of water. After 30 minutes or so, off I went. Very stiff, but while I felt slow I was running pretty fast ad I could feel it in my breathing and HR, but I just felt slow. I think my hip flexors are fatigued, so I get the sense that my strides are shorter than they are. I kept having to slow myself down. This continued until I reached a steeper unhill and elected to walk it. I really just wanted the miles and to see how I felt. My right knee (yah..my right side for once instead of my left leg) was stiff too. Last thing i need is some tendinitis. It didn't affect my stride a lot, but made it harder to properly drive my leg, so I'm sure my run economy was low. HR HR was running about 10bpm high. Part fatigue, part normal HR drift and, probably part hydration. I walked up a few more hills the last 3 miles, but at the end, my average pace was still 7:38, so I apparently was running pretty fast the rest of the time. That makes me think that I can risk going out close to 7:10 pace for lap 1, and hold on for a 7:20-7:30 for lap 2 and finish under 3:15. SO go out in maybe a 1:32-1:33, and come back in 1:38.
What I learned:
1) HYDRATION SET-UP: I'm done with rear hydration. Given it was a 24oz bottle back there and the cage might not have been belt in be tight enough...but overall... it's just too risky, your always worried its' going to launch and for me, it's hard to reach if it's horizontal enough to be aero and hopefully not launch. Solution? Go back to my 70.3 set-up. Torpedo BTA + aerobottle on seat tube as the reserve bottle. Give or take 1 mile the aide station at IMWI are as follows:
13,18,28,38,53,61,72,81,94,99
http://www.ironman.com/~/media/17f07ceb0978436880ac078bab8337a9/wisconsin%20bike2014%20tbt.pdf
So the longest stretches are 15mi through the 3 sisters (slowest part of course) and the last 13-14 miles. So not a lot of risk there. That's puts the longest stretches around 40 minutes. But it also means I don't want to miss an aide station. I think it's a fair risk. IF I don't miss any hand offs, then I can skip the last aide station and use that reserve bottle for the final 1 hour into town.
2) Hydration & nutrition - If it's warm at all, especially with the sun as it was yesterday (look at the temp plot on my ride file) I needed more water Probably almost 1 bottle more. I also needed at least 1 more gel to get over 300 cal/hr. I think 350 is a good target and getting almost 1/2 of those as semi-solid food works well. I think my GI issues are usually air in my stomach as much as anything, or just pushing the pace and stressing my system.
3) I run a pretty solid pace off the bike even if it feels slow. No leg cramping, so I have plenty of miles under me compared to how I did in the past.
Overall, with a solid taper, I'm feeling very confident that I'll have a good bike & run and I have a solid nutrition/hydration plan.
43 days left!!!
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