Weekly Review

This was a decent week of training, but I did about 3 hrs less than originally scheduled.

The week didn’t start too well. I got up Monday morning to do a run and after about 0.25 miles, I realized my body wasn’t ready. I was still tired from my monster training session on Saturday. Even though I took Sunday off, I needed 2 days. So I ended up not doing my run nor my swim scheduled for that day.

The highlight of the week though was my swim session on Tuesday. I wanted to see if I could actually swim the Ironman distance swim, non-stop, so I tried that…and I was successful. I swam 4300 yards in 1:38:41. I am super pleased about that. That will give me a lot of buffer in my actual Ironman.

The main concerned is how I felt about 1-2 hours afterwards. My whole body and stomach felt weird. I don’t know if I was dehydrated or needed food. Eventually after eating and drinking, I started to feel better. I plan to do this IM swim distance a few more times before the actual event. The next time I will try eating a gel right before and right after and to also hydrate immediately.

After doing that long swim on Tuesday, I skipped my swim on Wednesday so I only ended up swimming that one day for the week.

For my long ride, I tried eating more salt every 5 miles, but I still ended up getting cramps, but they were delayed. Instead of getting them around the 2-2.5 hr mark, I got them at the 3 hr mark. At this point I’m not sure what to do. I may try even more salt next time.

I thought week 17 was as close to a perfect training week as I had gotten for the last couple of months, but this week was even better.

I got all my workouts in, but the highlight was my monster workout on Saturday. The Be Iron Fit plan had called for me to do an Olympic Distance triathlon and an optional 2-hour bike ride in the evening. I was not going to do an actual race, but I was going to train and do the distances.

I wasn’t keen on doing a 3-sport brick session in the morning and then having to ride 2 hours in the evening, especially as it would be pretty hot here in Texas. But, in looking at the bike distance for the Olympic distance which is 40km or 25 miles and the distance I can ride in the optional 2 hour ride, I realized the total distance would be just a bit more than the Half Ironman bike distance. In addition, for the swim, an Olympic swim distance is 1,500m, so by adding just another 400m to the swim, I would have a Half Ironman swim distance of 1,900m. So with that, I formulated a plan to do a Half Ironman swim and bike followed by a 10K run.

I didn’t want to end up running when it was too hot, so I started the swim at 4am in the morning. The continuous swim went well and I was done in 48 mins. This was just about the time I had expected.

I then had to drive home and start the bike. Even with the drive, my transition was only about 15 minutes. For the bike, I decided to use my aero helmet. I also rode in my triathlon shorts. I did the entire brick session in my triathlon shorts.

I wanted to use this to practice my nutrition and also to see if I could avoid the dreaded leg cramps that have been popping up on my bike right at the 2-2.5 hour mark. I decided to drink my normal Gatorade Endurance, but just 4 bottles over the 3 hours I was expecting to ride. That worked out to about 1 bottle very 45 mins. The 1 bottle every 30 mins on my last long ride was too much liquid. I also took my Oreo cookies with a plan to eat one every 15 mins. And, I took my tic-tac container of salt. The plan was to have 3 licks every 5 miles.

I actually stuck to my nutrition plan really well expect for the last 30 mins. I was tired of the Oreos. I plan to take the regular Oreos again, but I’ll throw in some Golden Oreos next time for some variety. Most importantly though, I did not experience any cramps on the ride which took me 3 hours and 5 mins. I did have on hiccup with about 45 mins to go. I was refilling my aero bottle and I dropped my bottle. So, I then stopped, but I stopped too quickly and was not able to unclip. So my bike came to a stop and I was still clipped in and I did a slow topple to the right. I ended up scraping my my knee and forearm. The knee was just a bit irritating, but my forearm was worse. The part where my skin rubbed off was right where I would rest my arms on the aero bars. I spent the remainder of the ride fidgeting and trying to find a comfortable way to stay in the aero position. Without that fall, I may have had a good chance of finishing my bike split right around the 3-hour mark!

Once the bike was done, I had a 5-min transition to the run. It was longer than my normal weekly brick sessions as I changed shirts and also used the bathroom. I was OK with that as for my actual race, I plan to do the same and taking 5 or even 10 mins to transition during the full Ironman is not an issue.

My biggest problems were on the run. While I didn’t cramp on the bike, I started to cramp on the run almost immediately. I had to stop often to stretch my quads. I still had my salt so I decided to lick a lot and ended up taking 3 licks every mile. I don’t know if that is what did the trick, but by around miles 4-5, the cramping stopped.

In the end, I got through my planned workout in a total time of 5 hours 30 minutes which included about 25 minutes of transition time. If I added another 7 miles to do a full Half Ironman, I would have gotten a time of around 7 hours. I would take that any day!

In the end I don’t think I have solved my cramping issues, but I think I’m getting there. I plan to up my salt intake moving forward. So on the bike, instead of 3 licks every 5 miles, I’ll try 4. Then on the run, I will continue to take salt licks every mile.

My next big 3-sport brick session will be in about a month’s time, when the plan calls for me to do a Half Iron distance race. I wouldn’t be doing an actual race, but I will do the full distance in training.

This week is probably as close to a perfect training week for the last couple months as I have come. I didn’t miss any workouts and I actually ended up doing almost 13 hours of training time, an hour more than planned for the week. The extra hour wasn’t because of any extra workouts, but just from adding a few minutes to each of the planned workouts.

The week started off great with my swim. I didn’t plan this, but I ended up swimming just shy of 3,000 yards continuously and I know I could have swam for more if needed. The full Ironman is about 4,300 yards so just 1,300 further. For the entire week, I got in 3 swim workouts which is more than I have done for any given week for the last 2 months.

For my running, I have been doing a lot of experimenting and I have come to the conclusion that I can run/walk for 1 min each and still average a 13min/mile. Seeing that I currently run 12 min/mile in the heat, I am happy with the run/walk strategy and I am much less tired while running. My Ironman should be much less humid and hopefully cooler so I may be able to do a 2:1 run:walk.

For my long bike ride, I decided to try a few different things. Based on my sweat rate, I drank a bottle of Gatorade Endurance every 30 mins and took Oreo cookies and gummi worms with me. The hope was to stay hydrated to avoid cramping. Unfortunately that didn’t work and like clockwork, at around 2:30, I started to cramp.

Firstly, the amount of fluid I drank was too much. It just felt like it was sitting in my stomach. I think the most I can probably manage is going to be about 1.25-1.5 bottles every hour. The Oreo cookies weren’t bad. They were convenient and I popped one in my mouth every 5 miles. The only issue is that I need to figure out a good way to carry them., I had them in an open ziplock in my jersey pocket, but I spent a lot of time trying to fish one out each time. The gummi worms were a disaster. It was taking too long to chew and I ended up spitting out the first one I tried and I didn’t try any more after that. So for my next long ride, I’ll stick to 1.25-1.5 bottles of Gatorade Endurance per hour and one Oreo cook every 5 miles.

For my cramping, it is back to the drawing board. For my next ride, I plan to take in more salt to see if that helps.

This week would have been a perfect training week except for 2 workouts.

I only did two swims and missed one. Also, for my long bike ride, instead of doing a 3 hr ride, I only rode for 1 hr 20 mins. I don’t really have any good excuses for those two workouts and I will try and do better this coming week.

The big change for me this past week was the pool that I swim at. I have been swimming at the Kirby Creek Natatorium for over a year now but the main issue is that their lap swim times are only for 1 hour. It is also late at night at 8pm, but I could have lived with that. The problem is that I need to swim for more than an hour. So, I ended up joining a 24Hr Fitness gym. They have a 25 yd indoor lap swim pool and its open all day. I used a 3-day trial pass to swim this past week and it worked out well. The water is a bit cold, but I was able to get a lane when I wanted. I’ve signed up for the month-to-month plan so I can cancel when I want. I will end up cancelling it around mid-November.

Apart from being able to swim for more than one hour at a time, I love being able to go swimming right after work. So I’m done before dinner time and I can get to bed by 9pm. When swimming at Kirby Creek, I would have to eat dinner early and then by the time I got home and into bed, it would be almost 10pm. The gym is also much closer and so I save time commuting. to swim.

Over the weekend I decided to raise my bike seat by about 10-15cm. I will see how that feels over the next few rides. I did this to see if I can get into a more aggressive aero position.