i am currently training for my first ironman ( Florida - Nov '07) and was wondering if running an official marathon prior to race-day is a good/bad decision? the marathon would be approx 6 weeks prior to the ironman. i am leaning towards running - thoughts?
I am also training for IMFL in Nov, it will be my 4th IM. I would not recommend doing a marathon 6 weeks out. Just my .02. You should be getting in peak IM training at that time - not tapering for and recovering from a marathon.
Not unless your run miles are like 100+ a week or you do something like run 18 of it and walk the remaining 8. I wouldn’t touch a Marathon 6 weeks prior.
thx, i appreciate the advice. what about riding back-to-back century rides (saturday and sunday) 7 weeks before ironman florida? again, is that too much?
As long as you can train the next day or limit it to a recovery day then sure. The idea is to keep the volume high, but also keep the frequency. Bite off more then you can chew and you lose the frequency.
I did a couple 200 mile weekends, but that was after I built up a 400+ mile week.
“Should I run a marathon 6 weeks before my race?”
I’ll give my usualy answer:
NO!!!
.
I did roughly that 5 weeks out from IMLou except it was 85 and 114 so while not exactly 2 centuries it averaged out to be the same distance. I feel like it helped me a lot and had the best bike split of my triathlon career on the course 5 weeks later. At the time those were my 4th longest (85mi) and longest (114mi) rides ever. It wore my legs out pretty bad for the next week but in a long run feel helped me more with lower risk of stress related injury than some of the alternative workouts I could have done.
What are the courses like for the century rides? If they are both fairly flat, then I say go for it. That will be good training for the flat course in Florida. If one is really hilly, that might really knock you out for a while, depending on how hard you tackle it. No way on the marathon, not six weeks before your first IM (unless there are weird circumstances such as you being a former high-caliber runner).
Just my thoughts, possibly not worth anything. See you in Florida.
-Colin
Well, are you following a training program or any kind of progression of training? What kind of milage are you doing now? How do you feel the day after your 100 mile rides now? Do you feel like doing another one?
If you have been doing a 100 mile per week with other shorter rides during the week totalling around 200 miles/week you’d probably be fine.
If your longest ride to date has been 60 miles and you’re trying to cram for the test, you might just injure yourself and ruin your IMFL experience.
If you are following a program, I would just stick to it and try NOT to do anything crazy at this point.
If you are not following a program, why don’t you do a search for some on inside tri or something so that you can see how milage/time on the bike/progresses.
I’m not a coach but have seen other people decide to throw some enormous milage into their schedules when they didn’t ramp up to it and get injured. That’s no fun.
thx, i appreciate the advice. what about riding back-to-back century rides (saturday and sunday) 7 weeks before ironman florida? again, is that too much?
Like others have said. No on the marathon. And the back to back centuries, that depends on what your mileage is at. I’ve been doing close to or double cenutries for the last 3 weeks and will do them for the next few weeks as well. I am also in for IMFL as well. But, I’ve spent most of the summer and spring building big bike miles. Just finished my biggest week yet, 540. So, it all depends on how hard a century will knock you down. If you feel fine, then go for it.
Are you doing any running or swimming?
That’s awesome that you put that many miles in, but dear god, where did you find the time for that. I’m fighting and scratching to find the time for 200 miles in a week and that’s with getting up at 4:45am and going to sleep at 10.
Damn… that’s incredible. I’m in for IMFL '07 and am feeling a little behind on the long stuff… The biking at least. I’ve got a good bit of overall volume in week to week- averaging 16- 20+ hours, but my longest ride since June 1 has been a 3hr 45 min ride (80 miles on Labor day) and a century (4hr 15 min of drafting in a massive pack) at the beginning of August. The next two weeks are 5.5hr solo rides on each Sunday. We’ll see how that hit’s me. Running is fine- 2hr runs once a week for the pace month or so.
I moved to san diego for that very reason. I have an amazing job, only work 4 days a week. Usually get time to swim at lunch on the 4 days I work. And can usually get 2 1+ hour runs in a week after work. I have no family here and just a few friends. The big thing that helps, my girlfriend runs xc at UCSD. So, she understands how much time it all takes up.
Jealous. That’s all I can say.
That’s a lot of riding. Even with your flexible schedule I can’t see how you do all of and swim and run. Looks like you are setting yourself up for a solid race at Florida.