Andrew C wrote:
"...I've been asked by a Ph.D. student at work to assist him in his bike training for - tada! - the Wisconsin Ironman. My prescription is many months of decent volume, lots of lactate threshold and tempo workouts, and, at the right time (last month or so), some high intensity intervals to prepare him for the repeated short, steepish little hills (according to him). No weight training, though. ;-) "
This is interesting, of course. I followed a course of action last year of months of decent volume, with one tempo and one threshold workout per week on the trainer. All done to a nice progression over many months. I had the best bike ride of my life on a very hilly 30K course at SD Int'l. A month later, I had the worst bike ride of my life at Lake Placid. It seemed that the training protocol prepared me for rides of under an hour, but just didn't carry out to the IM distance.
Since then, I've gotten a lot of advice from very successful IM veterans to pretty much stick to long steady rides and maybe one hill/strength workout per week.
The question that I'm still struggling with is the role of threshold work (what Michael McCormack would call "enhanced aerobic") in prepping for an IM. We never go there in the race, so why should we train there? After all, an IM USA bike ride is not "just" a six-hour ride. It is a part of a 10-12 hour day.
There seems to be two very disctinct schools of thought on this, and I'm trying to decide which protocol to follow.
"...I've been asked by a Ph.D. student at work to assist him in his bike training for - tada! - the Wisconsin Ironman. My prescription is many months of decent volume, lots of lactate threshold and tempo workouts, and, at the right time (last month or so), some high intensity intervals to prepare him for the repeated short, steepish little hills (according to him). No weight training, though. ;-) "
This is interesting, of course. I followed a course of action last year of months of decent volume, with one tempo and one threshold workout per week on the trainer. All done to a nice progression over many months. I had the best bike ride of my life on a very hilly 30K course at SD Int'l. A month later, I had the worst bike ride of my life at Lake Placid. It seemed that the training protocol prepared me for rides of under an hour, but just didn't carry out to the IM distance.
Since then, I've gotten a lot of advice from very successful IM veterans to pretty much stick to long steady rides and maybe one hill/strength workout per week.
The question that I'm still struggling with is the role of threshold work (what Michael McCormack would call "enhanced aerobic") in prepping for an IM. We never go there in the race, so why should we train there? After all, an IM USA bike ride is not "just" a six-hour ride. It is a part of a 10-12 hour day.
There seems to be two very disctinct schools of thought on this, and I'm trying to decide which protocol to follow.