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Rev3 Cedar Point Training Plan Evaluation

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

This week marked a major turning point in my adventure towards my big ironman (FullRev) race in September. As Jill so clearly put it, we are both now in uncharted waters. I’m floating around in some strange place where the finish line of a half ironman is not the end, but just another stepping stone towards a much greater goal.

Over the last three years I’ve managed to learn enough about racing and training to know what it takes to get myself to the finish line of a half ironman and that is what I did last week at Rev3 Quassy. Moving past that and keeping my momentum going towards a full 140.6 mile race is an entirely new animal. That is why I had this week marked in my calendar as my “re-evaluation” week. A time to sit back, look at the training plan I’ve been using, how well I’ve followed it, how my individual swim/bike/run strength is progressing and retooling my plan as needed so that I can nail the next three months and get myself to that finish line at Cedar Point.

Here is where it all stands:

• The “out of the box” training plan has been effective at getting me to a new course PR at Quassy, but is very bike heavy. My bike is definitely stronger than my run right now, so that focus needs to change.
• I’ve been doing regular track workouts and hill repeats, but am hugely lacking in long run workouts that go past that 13.1 mile mark at any pace.
• I have 100% NO CLUE (other than blindly following the generic plan that I’ve been using) how to address my running issues other than gently increasing my run volume and frequency up until the few weeks before race day.

I’m AMAZINGLY fortunate enough to have more super speedy athlete/coach friends than I’m able to count To help give some direction, I went to two of the speediest ladies that I raced with last weekend to get some tips on adjusting my training plan: Sonja and Meg. They have both been within reach of Kona spots at one point or another and have some sick run splits so I trust their advice. Plus, I know they read my training updates here more often than not so I trust that they won’t just be regurgitating what works for them, but will help to figure out what works best for slow ‘ol me.

Based on the non-existent ironman training experience that I’ve got, my original plan was to weed out one run and one swim workout on alternating weeks and add in another LSD or long-ish tempo run, with a good portion of them on trails to build strength and help keep a quick turnover. I wanted to avoid empty mileage at all costs and give each workout a specific focus since I think that was a major fault of the training plan that I followed last year.

At least that was my plan until Sonja smacked me around and set me straight. Hearing how few tempo/hill workouts she did was a big shocker.

While tempo and hill workouts are really common in high school cross country (the last time I could actually call myself a fast runner), Ironman is a different beast and I should take more of a “time on the feet” approach. Ultimately my goal is to do as little walking as possible on the marathon. In order to get to that point, I need MILEAGE. Instead of 10 hill repeats at the end of a 5 mile run around my ‘hood, I’d be much better served by a 5-6 hour hike with major hills. Even walking uphill for hours is apparently great IM training.

While focusing on long slow runs too much will just make me into a long slow runner, that won’t be bad. I’ve never actually ran 26.2 before, so running that distance at any speed after 112 on the bike would be a MAJOR accomplishment.

So here is the NEW plan based on a mix of Sonja and Meg’s tips:

• Focus on long SLOW (9-10 min/mile pace) at proper HR to build overall Ironman fitness
• Focus on outlasting, not speed
• Plan for some EPIC run adventures and start working towards them
• Adjust the runs of my training plan to look more like I was training just for a marathon
• Bump up run frequency to at 4-5 times per week with some two-a-days
• Keep track workouts really minimal – use speed work at the end of longer run workouts just to help break things up and keep it interesting
• Active recovery after big runs or hikes – short swim/bike/run

Now it is time to go plan for some epic run adventures. I’ve already got some exciting stuff in the works.

Can. Not. WAIT!

Category : Life, Running, Training Log, Triathlon

Tags: ironman training, rev3 cedar point

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