Planning for a major endeavor is, for some people, something to be dreaded. Something terrifying and unpleasant, a chore. Others relish it, diving into the minutiae and the organizational frenzy with a gusto. I fall somewhere in the middle. Planning is a lot of work. Plans never work out the way you envision them. But I believe that having any kind of plan is better than not planning at all. This week I want to talk about my strategies for planning an Ironman schedule, how I go about it, and how I came to this particular method.
When I did my first Ironman, I didn't really know anything about how to train. I'd been a dancer for a long time, and I understood the need for a disciplined approach to training. What I did not appreciate was the fundamental similarities between rehearsing for a performance and training for an endurance race. The foundational training for triathlon - swim, bike, run - is much like the regular studio work that any dancer has as the foundation of their technique. You have class every day, or near enough, and you probably have several different kinds of classes, depending on what your personal passions are. In those classes, you work hard, but you don't push yourself to exhaustion. You focus on technique, you try to drive an kind of memory of sequence and musicality into your fascia, so that when the time comes for you to perform, you can engage skill at a subconscious level . Great performances look easy, no matter how much hard work is going on. In rehearsing for a particular event, however, you have to push harder to get things done in a limited time frame. The choreographer might be pushing the limits of your skill, and you have to focus intensely on getting things exactly right as soon as possible. The goal, in a lot of ways, is to get ready for performance before you step on stage, or go into the audition, or enter the competition. Your intensity is very sharp in the four-to-eight weeks before the event.
When I started, I was lucky - I had a good friend who coached me personally, and he has been doing triathlons since he was in high school. If you want to take up endurance sports, there are a lot of good resources out there, and the internet makes it very easy to find them. Joe Friel's blog is a great place to start - http://joefriel.typepad.com- he is a venerated source of wisdom in the triathlon community. There are links there for a bunch of other coaches and tons of useful information. You could do a lot worse than to pay for a pre-fabricated training plan to get you to your first race. For me, I know enough to work backwards, and get a sense of what I need to be doing. I'll still consult with my coach, and get feedback, but here is a short overview of HOW I build a plan.
October 3, 2015 - Race Day! On this day, I need to be able to race 140.6 miles – swim 2.4, bike 112, and Run 26.2 miles. Everything builds to this!
September: Last big workouts and "Taper"
Running: Long Run, 20 miles, easy; 3x Run, total 30 miles
Biking: Long Ride, 100 miles, easy; 2x Bike, total 150 miles
Swimming: Long Swim, 4500 meters, easy; 3x Swim, total 10,000 meters
The month before the race: Four weeks out I'll do a 20 mile run. On another day, a 100 mile bike ride. On yet another day, I'll do a long swim of 4500 meters. As well as all of that, I have 8 other workouts to get in during the week, with the total mileage you see. That's a rough plan, and it reflects the first part of the "Taper." Tapering is the process by which you let your body heal, a little, before the race.
Each month building up to September has a purpose, to get me to those workouts. I'll develop my "Run" fitness early, by doing a spring marathon – that will provide a foundation both for getting faster, and for the bike training. Through the entire year, I will swim, trying for 4x per week. Lots and lots of time in the water! And of course, the entire time I will be working on strengthening my core, with the workouts that CORE fitness has developed for me. Next week, I'll talk about the plan for January!
Any questions or thoughts about this plan? I don't think its entirely half-baked, but hey, I'm open to the possibility that I could improve it! Please comment below!
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