My Plan of Attack
It's 7:35 a.m. Monday morning. I am sitting here at my desk anticipating a pretty stressful day ahead and wondering "what have I gotten myself into?". What made me decide to add a blog to my already time constrained life. Three days in and the honeymoon phase is officially over. Could just be a case of the Monday's.
Let's get into an introduction to my plan of attack for Ironman Austria, 2015. The way that I have set up my plan is essentially three phased. This three phase approach is going to be loosely based off that proposed in Matt Dixon's book, the well-built triathlete. If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it when you are first entering the sport of Triathlon. Matt Dixon is a very well recognized triathlon coach and runs the organization purplepatch. He has coached a significant group of professional triathletes including Meredith Kessler, who competed in the Ironman Kona world championship this past weekend.
Builiding endurance is tedious and painful but absolutely necessary
The three phases making up my training will be a "pre-season", "strength building" and "race-specific" phase. The overall focus in the "pre-season" phase will be to gear up my general background fitness and endurance. AKA torture.A race of this distance can take an incredible toll on the body and if you don't have a solid base of endurance, your risk of injury will skyrocket. This is especially true with the impact and intensity of running. It is important to start the endurance building early in the season because it will take the longest time to gradually grow over time. I expect this phase to last about 2-3 more months and it is what I have been working on for the past month. Unfortunately, with the timing of my races, this will mean plenty of long distance training indoors over the winter months. I don't know if you have ever tried to put in 2-3 hours on a treadmill but it is a form of slow agonizing death all in itself.
It is important to keep getting into the gym for functional strength training in this phase. Include squats, core work, skipping, everything necessary for all around strength and conditioning.
The "strength building" phase will also be a relatively short phase in regards to my overall training but nonetheless, I expect this to be even more painful than the "pre-season". This phase should last 7-8 weeks overall. It is high intensity so I will have to be sure to include lots of rest between sessions. Even though the name implies a lot of weight, I want to emphasize that I will still be building endurance over this period.This phase will just put a slightly larger emphasis on my interval and strength training to build up my speed and co-ordination. As I progress through this phase, I want to concentrate on maintaining my power and speed over longer and longer intervals in hopes to bring down my swim, bike and run splits. I have seen a huge impact on my running pace from low to moderate interval training, so I cannot highlight the importance of this in your training. I'm sure I will write a post on this specific topic in the near future.
The final phase of my training will be a "race-specific" phase. This section will take up the majority of my training time. In this section, I want to continue to build my endurance and pacing using interval and high intensity training. However, I will try and design a lot of my workouts to mimic what you would expect on race day. Anytime you sign up for a race, be sure to check out the course. Unfortunately, with a wedding in my near future, the feasibility of flying to Austria to essentially look at a road is just out of the question. However, you can find a surplus of information online. This can include typical conditions, elevation, incline, and even the location where significant hills occur in the race. Study this and plan your training accordingly. If you know that you have a 7% incline for 2km's at the end of your bike, you need to train to have that gas left in the tank. This phase also allows you to start racing other "B-list" races. As Matt Dixon says, just because it is a "B race" it doesn't mean you are giving it a B effort. These races are just used to gauge fitness and pacing prior to your "A race(s)". For me, I have two "A" races. Ironman 70.3 Haines City, Florida on April 12th and Ironman Austria on June 28th in Klagenfurt, Austria.I plan on running a few "B list" Sprint and Olympic distance tri's in early spring as well. This is going to be a very hypocritical statement (because I haven't yet) but it is important to get a lot of experience running triathlons, not just training. If you have ever tried to run off of a hard bike, you will realize that your legs are toast. Avoid the embarrassing face-plant by including "bricks" in this phase of training. A brick is essentially lumping two training sessions together. So go for an hour long bike, and then try running a mile or two immediately after. It is a whole new beast.
So what are your A races this year and what is your training plan? Leave a message in the comments and let us know!