This, and the following reports will be only the interesting parts of my training towards the Ultraman Worlds 2009 in Hawaii.
For Ironman training I ride a lot of miles on my bike each summer, this year it was about 4,500 miles from the beginning of June to the end of August. So with that base my main focus is to now prepare for the running portion of Ultraman.
To prepare for the run I consistently complete several key workouts. On weekly basis I complete 2 track workouts a week – one of them is usually contains shorter, fast intervals (time doesn't matter as much, but I rather focus on the leg turn-over), and second workout involves longer intervals ranging from 1,000 meters up to 1 mile intervals (time is more of a factor and I recover with shorter jog between efforts).
This past weekend was the first big step toward the Ultraman with this run focus. My weekend looked something like this:
Saturday – I rode 120 miles with some longer uphill intervals followed by a longer (than normal ironman training) recovery. It was really nasty weather, the first cold day since April. The temperature was in the low 60's with some drizzle for the first 6 hours of the ride, and really heavy rain (it probably could have fallen under the MONSOON category) for the last hour. Needless to say I froze on my bike and the temperature reflected my nutrition plan too. I started out with 2 bottles of EFS mixed with ½ a scoop of Pre-race in each, and some liquid shots. That was all the fuel I took in, so by the end of my ride I had only consumed about 500 calories from the drinks and 400 calories from the liquid shots. After I toweled off I went for a short 5 mile brick run, I think it took about 3 miles before I was able to feel my feet.
Sunday – The training plan was to go for a long run. Over the summer I've been running a long run between 20-24 miles every week, so this weekend the plan was to go at least 24 miles to get the Ultraman miles in. I didn't know what to expect after Saturday and how my body would respond to the run after the calorie depletion during the previous days ride so I just tried to relax, and did not set a maximum mileage goal for the workout. As usual the start was pretty slow, and I didn’t even look at my watch for the first 5 miles. I started feeling pretty good, and not as sore I had expected, so I tried to pick the pace up after realizing that the first 5 miles were REALLY slow. Then somewhere about ½ way through the run, the mileage decision was made… “I'll try to run 30 miles this weekend, without slowing down too much.” On all of my long runs the nutrition plan is about the same I try to drink every 5 miles, stay away from too many carbs. Since this was the longest run so far this year, I wanted to include some energy source, and prevent bonking. For the first 15 miles I only drank water. At mile 20 I had 1 bottle of Fruit Punch EFS – it tasted REALLY good, and then the final nutrition stop included a mixture of 1/3 grapefruit juice, and 2/3 of water. There was something about the bitterness of the juice – it was good, and my stomach was OK with that too. So the first long run towards Ultraman successfully accomplished. I took splits every 5 miles (this offsets the mile to mile variation due to the rolling hills, but makes the 5 mile sections should be very similar and valid comparisons) and the recap yielded that my pace was good, it got progressively faster, and I managed to run harder on the last mile. ALWAYS FINISH STRONG.
The 5 mile sections splits: 39'23; 36'22; 36'11; 35'50; 35'59; 35'01 with the last mile 6'34.
I followed this workout with a short recovery spin on my bike.
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