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Advice for Ironman training..
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Hey everyone,

Last week I signed up for the Silverman Iron Distance triathlon in Las Vegas, and it is ~70 days away and want a little advice with my training.



I’m sure that I can do the race, I am in much better shape now than when I did IMLP last year, but I was hoping to get some advice on how much to do, how hard to go, mainly what HR zone’s should I be training in. when should I start doing intervals and intensity instead of base.



My max HR is 204, my VO2 max is ~68 at 420 watts, but even with all of this information I’m still confused on what I should cap my HR at this far out from the race when I’m out training.



My goal time is sub-11. I ran a 4:54 at half-vineman with not running more than 3 times in 9 months so my run was super slow. I raced on my Universities cycling team all spring as a sprinter.



Thanks for your help,



Keith
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Re: Advice for Ironman training.. [KeithP2k] [ In reply to ]
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Read Going Long.

Check out the tips on Gordo's website.

Here is one of the best:

http://www.byrn.org/gtips/aet_xt.htm

Good luck,

Matt
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Re: Advice for Ironman training.. [Harkin Banks] [ In reply to ]
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The answer to all of your questions is "it depends". Every athlete is different, facing different limiters on race day and different lifeatyle hurdles, but here is some general information.

I believe that most athletes do most of their ironman training too hard. I often say "If your best ironman marathon is 4:30, why are you doing most of your training at 3:30 pace? Are you really going to PR by an hour on the run?" Glycogen depletion (running out of carbohydrate) is the primary limiter for every ironman athlete. Training your muscles to burn more fat and less sugar is a primary goal of ironman training and this occurs at low intensity. Burning fat requires more oxygen than burning sugar, so you burn more fat at very low intensity. I use metabolic testing to determine this and athletes almost always overestimate optimal intensity.

Long slow distance is the staple of every ironman athlete's training, but I think that high intensity workouts do play a role for some athletes. Gordo doesn't agree with me on this, believeing that the recovery cost is too great. I think the key is WHEN we include high intensity. Athletes tend to think of periodization as low-intensity early and higher intensity later. In fact, what we're trying to accomplish with periodization is general to specific ... so for ironman training this amounts to higher intensity (general) early to lower intensity (specific) later. I have had my best ironman results with athletes who qualify at a half ironman and then go to Hawaii. Higher intensity fits the half distance more naturally. With 2 ironman races a year, an athlete is always in ironman-specific mode.

I have a number of articles about ironman training that I'd be happy to send to anyone who writes me at CoachKen@erols.com and my book The Triathlete's Guide to Run Training covers ironman distance.

Good luck,

Ken

Ken Mierke
Head Coach, Fitness Concepts
http://www.Fitness-Concepts.com
Author, The Triathlete's Guide to Run Training
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