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Next up: Resting for 2-3 weeks with no structured training
I may get out do a ride and run to qualify for the Dumpster Fire Triathlon going on through the club.
Then, the Richmond Marathon & Half are still a go in November. They are setting up a course along a paved trail that will be open to racers for three weeks and it’ll still be chip timed. I love that race for the cool weather & flat course – it’s a good one to PR on and test yearly fitness. I’m going to give the 13.1 a shot again before getting into some offseason training.
Anyone else in the group want to ride or run together for the dumpster fire triathlon segments over the next couple weeks?
Thanks Jason & Coach AJ. My practice race up in Michigan was a success with some good pre-race anxiety, start line adrenaline, some mental battles on the bike, and some hamstring cramps on the run. Lessons were learned and at the end of the day it was a 20 min PB at the 70.3 distance for me. Now that I’ve had a week to come down from the excitement, here’s my experience.
Start temp was high-50s with a 14mph wind out of the north, gusting at 25mph. Much colder than I’ve trained in during the summer.
Swim: I did an out and back swim (North to South) so my last half was into strong chop & winds. Since my swimming last limited this year, I took it easy and focused on long, smooth strokes. I felt good out of the water and my time was in the ballpark of what I did last year in my first 70.3.
Bike: Goal was high zone2 – mid zone3 heart rate. With the first hour into headwinds, I took it pretty conservatively and then built up my HR over the next 2 hours. I feel like I nailed this strategy and felt strong getting off the bike into the run. As far as nutrition goes, I took in 810 calories, 177 carbs, and 2300mg of sodium over the course of 2:51mins on the bike. (~270cal, 60 carbs, 770mg per hour). I drank UCAN superstarch & Maurten 160 in my bottles, ate peanut butter pretzel bites, and salt stick caps (1 per hour) on the bike.
Run: Goal HR was mid zone 3 and I ended up being a little high on this. After training with the run/walk strategy and a history of bonks/cramps in marathons, I decided to start with 10min run/1 min walk and then evaluate how i feel for the last 5 miles. I was right on target at mile 8 and then started to kick up the pace and skipped the next 2 walks, but in hindsight, I ramped it up too early. If i would’ve waited until mile 10 or 10.5, I probably wouldn’t ended better. Heres the bust: At mile 12, I saw i needed a sub-8 mile to break my stretch overall time goal, so I went full send and at mile 12.5 both hamstrings seized/cramped and I was in a stand still with the finish line in sight. I stretched/walked for a good min before getting it under control and jogging to the finish line. 37 seconds off my goal, but still a huge PB 🙂
Nutrition on the run was: 24oz water with 1500 mg sodium (Precision Hydration tabs mixed in) and 2 Maurten 100cal CAF gels every 40 mins.
Overall, it was a successful day and i feel like i had a strong bike and a strong run (even with the last mile cramps). I’ve built a really good base to continue with the sport. I think i still enjoy the training more than the race 🙂 Thanks to AJ for the race prep and putting together an awesome training program to follow. As I look back on the last 5 months, the training was about the only thing I could control in life (besides the swimming).
James – I recently flew with my TT bike and had to research this thoroughly before flying with Delta. I rented a Scicon TSA 3.0 case from Transition Triathlon bikeshop in Leesburg, VA. The cost was $100 for 1 week and $6/day after that. The case was perfect and only weighs about 15#. My bike flew for free as a checked bag on Delta and no damage. It is a soft case, so you do sign a release on damage. Highly recommend this method for flying with your bike.
Awesome idea. I thought their would be a “code”, but you just select HIP participate and it’s $free.99 for us 🙂 I look forward to putting the training to work with completing the distance in the month of Sept.
Congrats on completing your practice races Romain & Julia. Learning from what you guys have done will certainly help me when I do mine at the end of August. My race, the Traverse City 70.3 was just cancelled last week. I am still going to finish out the training program & complete the race that day with my family being the support crew in northern Michigan.
Since a lot of you have mentioned how the heat has effected the workouts lately, I can second those thoughts. I have done a “sweat test” on a couple of hour long, Z2 efforts on both the bike and run and feel like that has helped keep me feeling good. I think I’m a high sweater and dialed it in to taking about 24 oz/hour on the bike.
Coach – question for you with the HR zones that i should’ve asked during your webinar. I am realizing that my running Z2 pace has decreased from 10:00min/mile to ~9:20/mile (its working -yah!). However, when i am doing tempo or threshold efforts – I feel like i have a lot more in the tank. Is it worth re-testing my zones during mid training program to dial them in? I saw that you have a re-test 3 or 4 weeks before “race day” on the program, but I wonder if I should it more frequently since I may have not been the best tester the first time around.
Thanks and happy 4th to you all. Stay safe.
I’ve experienced similar results. Since pools closed I took those days and worked with stretch cords and on core activation drills. This past week I’ve been at my hometown in Michigan and have been Doing OWS each day. While the water is cold, I’ve been surprised that I haven’t lost much swimming endurance over the past three months of no swimming.
I think the dry land stuff helped for me in feeling how to engage my back muscles and keeping my elbows high (granted I have no swimming background so the bar was set low 🙂 ).
Hains point is “kind of” open. The Gates are closed on both ends so there is no car traffic allowed, but I’ve been biking there during the week and saw a DC police officer in there last week and he didn’t have any issues with me doing back and forth laps. With the gates closed, I was just turning around at each end instead of the normal loop.
@kevin, I have the 735xt and highly recommend it. I used an apple watch for my first 70.3 and numerous marathons and the battery always died. I switched to the Garmin last year.
First off, if you haven’t already, here is a full review from DC Rainmaker that is really good. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/06/garmin-forerunner-735xt-in-depth-review.html.
My experience:
- I sync it with a Wahoo chest strap HR monitor (ANT+)
- Sync to a Garmin cadence & speed sensor on my bike (would be the same for a Wahoo since they are ANT+)
- Swimming – I don’t think it auto-laps, but it auto tracks distance & stroke rate based on what lap distance you set it to (ie 25yd or 50m). It has lap button you hit between sets and it switches to rest, the you hit it again to start a working set. its pretty easy functionality & the data comes out nice in TrainingPeaks, Strava, Garmin Connect…
- Zones – you can set all your custom zones for bike & run on the Garmin website or app & it will sync to the watch. Each one of those activities will have a HR zone screen to tell you which zone you’re in
- Price – I got mine of amazon for $235 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DWIY39A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
- Battery – I charge mine once or twice per week, but the battery using GPS lasts 12+ hours. It charges up from 0% to 100% quickly too (under an hour)
- Custom Workouts – I like building out all my interval runs & bikes on it and then the watch guides me through the workout and tells me what zone to be in. This is a huge plus for me
- Brick & Tri Function – The watch was built for a triathlete in mind since it has a workout setting for brick & tri. This will let you start the workout once and then it will track your first segment, transition, second segment, etc…. I find it beneficial on race day to easily track the whole race without worrying about switching the workout mode your watch is in.
Hope that helps
That is helpful guidance Coach AJ. You interpreted my poorly worded question just fine :). I am on week 1 of the training program and was wondering where to start swimming once we are able to swim again, but as expected there is no right answer here. Starting where I would out of off-season sounds like the right idea to give me a benchmark to build off of. Thanks!
AJ, thanks for starting the conversation around swimming alternative workouts. I’ve been doing ~20 mins of stretch cords & core work in place of my swimming workouts. Really anything to just get the traps to fire and activate for a given period of time.
I am on a little different schedule that most in the group, since my race isn’t until the end of August (& still on the books). My training plan just kicked in this week and as it relates to the plan in Training Peaks & swim workouts, where do you recommend we pick up once pools or bodies of water open up again? Say I am in week 6 of training but haven’t swam in 3 months, should i sub that weeks swim with the swim workouts from week 1? I feel i had a good off-season & base built up prior to it shutting down, but any advice here would be appreciated so i don’t over do it. thanks.
