The Florida Challenge 1/2 is on Oct 20, two weeks before IM FL.
I’m only considering it because as part of my taper I have a 4 hour ride and one hour swim scheduled that day anyway, so why not throw in a couple hours of running and call it a weekend…
As some background, IM Florida will be my first full IM race and I’ve done one half IM and a couple of marathons previously.
Any thoughts?
To close. Consider an Olympic 3 weeks out.
could you do it as an aquabike?
How do you recover? Quickly? If so, for sure go for it! No one here on ST can tell you what you already know about your own body!
I would say that it is too close especially prior to your first IM. People will try justifying that they are using the half as training and not going to go @ race pace. If this is the case from your perspective I’d say stay on your program and save $$ in race entry and save the legs for IMFL. This has always been my perspective when considering Tupper Lake Tinman prior to IMLP. just my .02. Good luck and I if you decide to do the 1/2 challange in FL see ya there.
I was thinking of doing the same thing.
I say do it. But limit training through the week and do not go all out. Just humm along and you will do no damage, I think.
It is a bad idea if you can’t hold yourself back.
I’ve considered it the last couple of years, and I’m thinking about it again this year. I usually decide I won’t be able to race the 1/2 at anything less than 100% and decide not to.
You can recover sufficiently if you don’t go too hard. That’s always my problem.
Stick to your plan, you’ll need all that motivation in PC.
See you there!
Don’t do it. Save your mojo for IMF.
Before your taper, on the days that you had a long swim and a long bike ride scheduled, why didn’t you just throw in a marathon afterwards and call it a weekend? 
It could be tough to perform good at both races - but it can be done.
On June 10, Macca won the Baja 70.3 in 3:53:53
On June 24, Macca won Roth (IM) in 7:54:23 - but he must have been tired from the earlier race as he wasn’t able to maintain his run pace to break the iron distance world record. He said the last 10K at Roth was the hardest 10K of his life.
Now you’re not Macca, but if you recover well and only use the HIM as a training session without racing it, you can probably do both.
Last three years I did the Peterborough Half Ironman 2 weeks before Ironman Lake Placid and I hit an Ironman PB each year. However, I would not recommend this approach to most people. 3 weeks out is about the closest. My training volume borders on pro zone from time to time (not intensity, but volume weeks), so I’ve built up to the point that I can recover quickly. I would also say, my recovery strategies (rest, icing, stretching, ability to get to really really deep sleep quickly pretty well anywhere, nutrition and no alcohol…) are superior to most age groupers out there :-). It also helps that I am 140 lbs, so the run does not pound my legs as badly as a 180 pounder.
If you decide to go down this path, you need to really make sure that you pay attention to nutrition and pacing, and finish with a full tank so that you feel you could run another 10K easily. Finally, you have to do mega icing for recovery. I have a 7-eleven ice pack on my quads and calves for the entire 3 hour drive home. By the end the car is soaked, but who cares…its just water and it dries out quickly.
If you can do this race as an Aquabike and tack on a 30 min easy run, that would be my recommnedation. 13 miles of running is just plain hard on the legs and if you don’t have the prep, you’ll be adding 60 min to your Ironman time by truly racing the half.
Dev
I was thinking of doing the same thing.
Does this mean you are recovering well from your injury? If so, that is good news.
To the OP, I have done a local race which is a ~1/3 ironman distance including a 13 km run 2 weeks before IMC each of the last two years and again this year. I feel this distance fits in well with my training plan and taper. This race lasts under 3.5 hours for me. And I have raced it several times before. But I would be worried that the extra 30 k on the bike and extra 8 k on the run that you are planning to do would be tough to recover from in two weeks.
Putting a 21 k run on to the end of a swim and 3 hour workout on the bike and then ramping them all up to race pace is a very significant increase over a swim and 4 hour ride at your usual training intensity in terms of overall stress on your body.
A half ironman can be pretty hard on you. If it goes well, how much have you gained? If it goes poorly, how much do you stand to lose? I would guess that on a risk/return analysis, the risk would be higher than any expected return. A lot higher. Particularly for someone who is relatively new to IM and 1/2 IM distance racing.
How much of yourself are you investing in doing IMFL this year? I’m guessing a lot. I would protect that investment.
For someone like Dev paul who has been racing at these distances forever, gambling on a 1/2 IM 2 weeks from an IM makes sense on a lot of levels. First, he knows how his body responds and recovers from these races and secondly if his IM race doesnt go well, no big deal, he’s had lots of good ones. This is your first IM. I would urge you to focus on it.
Best of luck in your training.
No I have not yet recovered enough to run, but I can still swim, bike and dream. Thanks for asking. Actually, I ran a couple of times this week, but had pain afterward. So I intend to postpone running for another week. Today is 11 weeks form race day.
there really are two things to consider in this case. The first is your ability to recover fully from the half IM effort. How many 80+ mile rides do you ahve in so far, how many 16+ mile runs in so far in your prep? How quickly are you recovered from a 100 mile ride? Ready to go again with no effects in 3 days? How about with a 16 mile run, ready to go again in 3 days with no effects and not miss any training? If so I’d say your ability to recovery is good and you would be fine.
The bigger issue to me though is the unknown. To give you an example, a couple of years ago I did the Oceanside 70.3 a couple of weeks before Arizona. I didn’t think the recovery would be an issue since my overall mileage was good. What I didn’t count on was getting the flu from the cold water at Oceanside (54 that year)combined with some other factors and never got over it in time for Arizona. It ruined my race at Arizona and turned it into a death march. That’s a gamble I won’t take again when the “A” race is so close and so much on the line (entry fee, travel, time etc) for an Ironman. You have to ask yourself, how important is Ironman Florida to you? Is it worth the risk, is there anything really to be gained by doing the Half IM two weeks before?
Thanks all for the replies…I appreciate it.
I think I answered my own question today.
I just got back from a 55 mile loop in Clermont, a lot of which was on the course used for the race. The rollers and hills are steep enough that even with my plan of taking it easy and using the race as a training day and not racing it, I probably couldn’t keep my heart rate low enough to recover quickly.
Although it’d be a fun and challenging race to do, it would not be good for me to do during my IM taper…decision made…
Thanks again for all of your input