I’m doing my 1st Ironman 3 weeks today. However, my training’s not been great.
Will probably hit 16 hrs this week after my 6hr bike tomorrow.
With 9hrs the previous week and 13hrs the week before that.
The 12 weeks before that i’ve only averaged 8hrs a week.
I’ve managed to do x2 2hr runs over the last 3 weeks and a 2hr30min run this morning.
Have also done 4-5 60milers, a 75 miler and will probably do around90 tomorrow.
Should I make this my last build week and go for a 3 week taper. Or should I use next week to build up the endurance with more Long stuff and do a 2 week taper?
…and a voice from the midpack spoke; and it said: if you’re starting to feel tired, back off, otherwise I bet a two -week taper is just fine. Otherwise your body just isn’t going to recover from your long stuff - I think (opinion only here) that at this stage most of your muscle and sinew adaptations have happened, and you need to heal - what you can still work on is keeping things limber and flexible, keeping your neuromuscular co-ordination tip-top. Especially go for shorter runs, I think. j
My $0.02 (Canadian dollars) is that you really shouldn’t “cram” for Ironman. It’s called taper for a reason and doubling your average weekly totals in the second week out is just about as far from tapering as you could possibly get.
I’d dial the 6hr ride back a bit (especially coming off a 2:30 run today) and make sure whatever you do from here on in has some quality and intensity thrown in.
Don’t try to make up for lost time, just race within yourself on the big day and enjoy!
Cheers, Ian
Gordo has a good taper plan, however, I think it may assume a much higher avg. volume and base than you have. Best quote I’ve heard is that it’s better to be 10% under trained than 1% over trained.
Single Ironman in my experience. I trained no more than 10 hours a week. If, I mean, WHEN I do another one, I will train a similar number of hours, BUT, I will not train as easily. I actually lost fitness the last couple of months by training more like the “experts” said to train, which is much easier than I like, but, I did it to ensure I would finish. Finish, I did, running the last three miles in 23 minutes. I kept waiting for “the wall”, but, it never came, so I ran hard at the end. 12:47, give or take a few minutes on a hilly, cold, very windy bike course and a VERY hilly run course. Included 10 minutes in the medical tent after the swim to repair severely cut toes. I rode the first half of the bike too hard, because I thought my injuries were going to prevent my finish, and I wanted to get a decent workout in case I didn’t finish. After I noticed I wasn’t hurting worse, and the bleeding had stopped, I eased back to a more reasonable pace for me. Longest run was maybe 15 miles, which I did once. Most other runs were either 5-7 miles, or followed a bike, for a total workout time of no more than 2 hours if it included a run. Longest bike was 99 miles. I did swim 2.4 one time, just to make sure I could do it.
If you’ve trained more than I trained, just keep your effort in check, don’t try any nutrition plan you haven’t practiced, and you’ll do fine. Oh, and please rest now…you’re 10 times better off going in over-rested than even slightly tired. It’s really fun if you don’t try to beat some time goal. If I would have started the day thinking I could do 12:30, I probably would have, but, the risk is that 12:30 would have been unrealistic…and that can sink your ship. Just go at a comfortable pace, and if you REALLY feel good after 16-20 miles of running…let 'er rip!