IM Run course

Well here is the run course.
Thanks to Trev from transitions for putting this together. You’re a champ mate.
The plan.
Swim
My goal here is to swim anything under 1 hr. My worst Im swim to date has been 58min and my best 54min. I think this year anything could happen. The first 500m is going to be critical. From what people have been saying there is not going to be enough room for everyone to spread out in the swim. For that reason, I’m guessing I’ll need to take the swim out a little harder then what I would like to try and avoid the congestion that could really slow things up. In training Scott and I have been practicing this for a couple of weeks now. During our ocean swims we have been doing some in outs of around 500m swimming as hard as we can. I send Scott off 30sec in front of me and then try and catch him before he reaches the beach.
Once that first 500m is over I guess I’ll be quite out of breath and working hard for a while in an attempt find a good pack to sit on. I’ll then just kick back and relax as much as possible while I let the others guide me around the course. No need to put any efforts in from this point onwards. The goal is to just have a comfortable trouble free swim.
Being a new course it will be difficult to know what is going to happen on the day. Like I said I’ll be happy to have anything under the 1hr this year. I’ve put the work in and with a dream swim I could possibly exit the water around the 55min mark. My worst case scenario would be a anything over 1hr. It won’t bother me if this happens, and if it does I’ll just roll with it.
Bike
This is a tough one. I can’t really say accurately what time I think I’ll do. So my range will be from 5:10-5:20. I’ve really focused a lot of my training towards developing my bike this year and I’ve had a pretty solid and consistent period of riding well. Scott and I did endless amounts of sustained power on the bike by doing TT’s from repeats of 20/40min evey week. We would TT through the hills on the flats and on courses that we felt that would match Port as much as possible. We also did plenty of 180-200k rides to really work on our nutrition, arousal control and mental strategies. Being closely matched on the bike with Scott has worked very well for both of us as we have pushed each other along and lifted our strength on the bike to new levels. If anything I would say Scott probably has an extra gear on me. Towards the end of the bike leg is where I suspect he will really dominate. Good luck big man you are riding very strong.
Being a 3 lap course my plan is to ride the first lap below IMpace, the second lap at Impace and the third lap to just break even with my second lap split. I think, even with the hills, drafting will be a problem. I’ll need to watch this carefully as I have a habit of looking down too much when I’m TTing. My front end is quite low this year for me (12cm drop) and I definitely don’t want to get caught in any packs this year. I’ve spent too much time working on my bike strength this year and I really want to test it.
Run
Another tough call. It will all come down to how my foot holds up in the 1st 21km. If I can make it to the 21km mark of the run I’m past the danger zone. My foot always gives in within the first 1-1.5hrs. If that happens I’m in big trouble again. If it doesn’t I’ll be running if my life depended on it. I’ll be carrying nurofen as a backup and I just hope I can have an opportunity to run without breaking due to injury this year. I’m still searching for that perfect race.
Scott and I haven’t been able to run much together this year due to my foot problems, but on paper I think I’ve done the best I can with what I have. Scott has been running exceptionally well in training and I’m looking for him to have a blinder run on the day. My goal on the day is to hold him off for as long as I can. We have talked about this at lengthen and he agrees that he has a big carrot (me) to push himself along and try and mow me down. It is going to be a fun day out there dueling with Scott, my training partner, for the last 12months.
If everything goes well I hope to get as close as I can to a 3:30 marathon. If your watching ironmalive and you see that I have reached the 21km in 1:45 then I think it will happen. It will mean that my foot is not giving me grief and I be drawing on every ounce of energy to evenly split that second half of the marathon.
The first 12km of the run is basically flat. I'll hope to run this first 12km in around 58min. The goal is to build a slight buffer before I hit the hills. Once I'm in the hills I just maintain an even tempo on the way up and look towards running on the grass on the way down. I want to avoid damaging/faiguing my legs on those descents as much as I can.
In training when I had the opportunity to run long I would run 2km splits as 9min on and 1min off. That way I would get used to running between aid stations and use that 1min recovery to keep the fuel coming in. Time will tell if this training strategy has worked or not.

So that’s the plan. A PB (10:06) is what I’m chasing this year. A sub 10 and I’ve nailed the race. Anything below that, will mean I’ve had my perfect day.
We have around 17 people heading up to Port this year from the Illawarra. It's been a pleasure to ride the high and lows with all those guys and girls that have been training for Port. Looking forward to catching up with everyone after the race.
Goodluck to everyone else doing the Ironman.

fluro
Thanks Mick and Fiat, I really appreciate your support.

2 weeks to Port

Photo
Bike course profile. It looks like those that are strong in the hills will do well on this course. The plan for me is to control the watts on the those ascents, crest the hill and pick up speed as quickly as possible on the descents. Then the idea is to soft pedal or not pedal as much as possible on any descent. If I can turn the 180k TT into a 170k or even a 160k it will work to my advantage. I think people are going the make the mistake of trying to make up too much time of those descents by pushing too hard. I'm going to do the opposite and thats is coast as much as I can on anything that heads downhill hill.

Well, it’s not far away now. The body has just pasted through the hyper recovery mode (6-7 days of feeling very sluggish). I’m starting to feel good again. I even had a 30min run off the bike with no pain. I think the nurofen has helped me out here.
So my planned brick session(1.5/30) on Tuesday went well. Rode a tempo finish for the last 20k and managed to av 35.3kph through the hills. I did a very comfortable 6km run in 27min, which is still too fast for what I’m aiming for. This tells me that I need to control the arousal levels even more on race day. My goal is to run a 3:30 IM. If I can keep my foot injury at bay I think I might have a reasonable shot at that target.
My final BT session for the week will be a 2/45 on Sunday. After that I will just kick back and relax.
The IM run
Looking at the run course the plan is to put time in the bank before I hit the hills. The first 12km is quite flat and the aim is to run that first 12k in around 58min. The next 9km is up and down and the goal then is to use that 2min buffer to complete the 1st 21km right on 5min k pace (ie 1:45). After that I’ll aim to repeat the same process for the next 21km. I think the danger point on the run will be from 31-36km. I looks quite hilly through that section and there won’t be much left in the tank by that stage. Hopefully I’ll have enough to be able to dig deep and hold onto those 5min k’s for the run home. Although my run preparation hasn’t been what I was hoping for. I think I’ve completed enough quality bike and swim sessions to build a solid endurance base. Where I know I will fall apart is the durability in the legs. The run down hills is really going to tear me apart this year as I haven’t been able to do any hill training this year. I’ll probably look at running on soft grass at every opportunity I get when I tackle those descents. The more I can control the pounding in my legs on the day the better I think I’ll go.
Anyway that about it for me. Thanks everyone who has offered me support and tips in the past, it’s been much appreciated. Goodluck to all those who are competing and I hope everybody has a great race.
Monday
Swim 3.3km 1hr. Squad. 600 w/u, 6-150 (k/d/s), 6-100 on 1:40 (1:30, 1:25, 1;20 x2). 250, 200, 150, 100, 200 w/d. A good swim, stroke feels strong in th water. Starting to feel a little fresher now.
Tuesday.
Brick session
Bike 44.3km 1:21. (av hr 147bpm)20km TT North Time: 34min, av sp 35.3.
Smoked this TT this afternoon with Harris. Heading north is hard as it is basically uphill most of the way. The tailwind helped us along though. overall hr was really high. Might be due to 3 cups of strong coffee I had today and one just before the ride. RPE was good, getting through the sluggish period now.
Run 6km 27:16 (av hr 147bpm). Wow. The nurofen works. I felt unreal running. No pain at all. Although the run was only 6km. I held 4:30's and felt like I was running very conservatively. Focused mainly on RPE, which maybe won't be a good thing coming out of T2. Don't need to run that fast. Would be happy to hold 4:50-5min k's out of T2 for the first 6km. Av hr is right where I want it to be for the IM.
Wednesday
Swim 3km 42min. Ocean swim. Super clear conditions this morning. Very dark getting in the water at 6:30am. Swam from Continental pools to north beach and back twice. Uppped the pace on the second lap and broke 10min coming back for the first time ever.
Thursday
rest
Friday
rest
Saturday
Swim 2.2km 35min. Conditions started out good but then became progressively worse. Swam up to North Beach. Did 2 laps around the buoys @HIMpace then swam back to the pool @IMpace.
Sunday
Final Brick session

fluro

3 weeks to Port

Peak week 1
The job is done! It is now time to focus on achieving a peak. I think this is one of the hardest parts of any Ironman program. The base phase and build phase are quite easy to manage, you just get out there and train as much as you can and as consistently as you can. The peak period is not that simple. You are always fighting demons, have I done enough, I’m losing too much fitness with all this recovery time, I’ll go out and do 1 more long hard session. The mind really starts playing tricks on you and it takes a lot of discipline to cut back on so much training you have been doing over the last 6-12mths. The common temptation during the peak period is to go out and really test your fitness with some higher intensity work. I think this is a mistake and contributes to a lot of people picking up colds in the lead up to an IM. We have spent so many months knocking out consistent weeks of steady state training and then all of a sudden, bang, people start hammering, and hammering a lot. The body can’t cope with this change and in some cases, people will find they a PBing everything they do in the first week of their peak week. By the time they reach the Ironman they have lost that quick peak because it goes as fast as it came as a result of a sudden burst of very high intensity work. The real objective I think is to maintain your normal intensity while inserting slightly higher periods of above race pace efforts while gradually reducing your volume. The idea is not to PB all your sessions, but to finish those sessions feeling as though you could of completed that whole session again with the same result. If you feel this way then your hitting peak. That is goal we are looking for in an Ironman, that is, to feel good all day. Well at least up to the 25-30k mark of the run.
The approach Scott and I are taking this year is to focus on just two key sessions for the week. This will be a brick session (2/45) on Tuesday and then another brick session on Saturday(3/1). The rest of the week will be filled with aerobic maintenance type workouts. For example, our long run will only be just over an hr (I’ll see if more foot will allow for this) to maintain our run durability. Our open water swim will focus now on improving our first 500m swim start, sighting skills, and drafting.


fluro

4 weeks to Port

With only 4 weeks to go now, I’ve decided to try and rest my foot as much as possible. I’ll probably take this week off running and keep my riding up a little more. Last year I competed with this same problem. This year I hope I can rid myself of any lingering issues with my foot before race day. It will probably mean that I’ll lose a little fitness and some durability in the legs but, with a little luck, I may just get an opportunity to run a marathon without breaking down due to an injury.
Scott H and I have been putting in some quality sessions over the last 4-5 months. I must say it has been the best 5 months of training I’ve ever had. I’ll thank Scott for that. He has never missed a workout and we have really been able to push each other to a new level of fitness. He has used the strengths from my swimming to really show some big improvements lately in the water and I have focused extra time with my running to at least try and stay within the same postcode as him. On the bike I would say we a very similar. The hills have always been a strongest discipline and over the last 12 weeks we have devoted a lot of time to improving our sustained power on the flats. I’ll never forget 180km ride we did which included 5x40min TT efforts all well above IMpace. Another memorable session was the triple brick we completed one hot Saturday morning. This consisted of riding North for 30min and back and then a quick transition run of 30min. We repeated this 3times through and each time we upped the intensity. Man there was not much left in the tank after that one.
I can’t remember how many times now we set the alarm clocks for 3:30 am then to be meeting up for rides by 4am knowing we were about to cover around 180-200km rides. Each and every time we kept the focus on and used every opportunity we could to push each other to a new level. At times I would crack towards the end of those long rides and Scott would keep powering on right to the end. With only 1 week to go before we taper, it kind of feels strange to be able to walk around and not have that lingering fatigue in my legs or that constant rumbling noise in my stomach. Where’s the food???
Monday
Bike: 69km 2:15 (av hr 137bpm). Had a really good ride this morning. Did my 20k TT from sea cliff bridge back to Puckeys bridge. A huge PB. Time 31:58 (av hr 154, HIMpace), av sp 36.2. Rode into a slight headwind all the way, so it felt good to PB this hilly course by 2.5minutes.
Tuesday
Run 6.5km 30min (av hr 131bpm). didn't wear orthotic today. Foot feel apart after 30min into the 1hr planned run. So I stopped and walked home. Have a appointment on Thursday with foot podiatrist.
Wednesday
Bike 15km 30min recovery spin
Thursday
Bike 15km 30min recovery spin
Friday
Swim 2.5km 45min. North beach. easy swim up to North beach. Then 2 laps around markers @ IMpace. Shoulders were a bit tight and tired this morning.
Bike 15km 30min recovery spin
Saturday
Bike 110km 4hrs (av hr 127bpm). Chaos today. Lots of stopping and starting, until we reached Jamberoo then things began to level out. The pace line home from Shellharbour was full on and I hit a max hr of 182bpm. I almost blew a head gasket at one stage, but managed to hang on for dear life. Overall a good solid bike ride
Sunday

fluro