I reflect on this years Ironman and think what I can do to shave nearly 2 hours off my previous time which I have set as a goal. I have done a great deal of thinking about this and am leaning more towards longer bricks and more long rides and runs. Before IMFL I would swim 4000 meters 3 times per week, I hit 6 century rides but my long runs were, and still will be, impaired by the Virginia summer heat so I was only able to muster a couple runs longer than 10 miles during the summer. Every Thursday morning I would do a sprint triathlon brick heavy on the swim, about a mile, followed by a 15 - 20 mile bike ride then a 5k run after this. This year I have already decided that my bricks need to be longer. Maybe a little less on the swim, say 1000 - 1500 meters, followed by 20 - 30 mile rides followed by an 8 or a 10k. Time management is going to be the issue as it was for IMFL. Since the pool does not open until 5 I have a serious time constraint on this. I will allocate about 3 hours for these morning olympic bricks plus another hour to shower and get to work late 1 day per week. Swimming, takes the least amount of time in an Ironman but it was one of the longest events I trained on per week. I have the endurance to easily go 2.4 miles and shaving the 5 or 10 minutes (2-5%) off of my time is absolutely minimal. I will opt to decrease the quantity of my swims per week in favor of more cycling and especially running. Shaving a the same percentage of time off my 6:15 bike and 6:45 run could easily take a larger chunk off my overall time plus I am betting with more cycling and running I would be looking at better than 10% time savings. I am planning more century rides during the summer to prepare better for the longer miles followed by a few miles run just for muscle memory going from extreme cycling to running. To combat the heat of the day I will forget about running at lunch at work in favor of running starting at 3 or 4 in the morning so I can get 15 - 20 miles in then shower and be at work by 7:30. In addition to longer rides and runs I want to do a lot more fartleks and hill repeats for both my cycling and running. I literally have a small perfect set of hills near my house that I can use for running hill repeats. For hill repeats on the bike I always have the Chicahomany bridge on Route 5 for wonderful repeats and the view is spectacular. My transitions are just transitions and really only a drop of a bucket in terms of a time savings. My transition times would be more improved by keeping what I have and concentrating on the big gains I can get by improving my cycling and running. Sorry for rambling just sharing a piece of my mind. Now I have to own this and live up to this too.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:08:18 +0000
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