Planning It Out

Since I resurrected this blog in order to record my journey towards a sub 5-hr half and 10:45 full ironman, I figured the best way to start is to outline my current plan. At the highest level I want my goal full IM race to be either in 2016 or 2017. And then my half IM would be fall 2015 or early 2016. This is somewhat contingent on the schedule at work though; I stepped into a different role at work which is and will be higher profile, more stressful, and more time-consuming than my previous role. This will definitely hamper my ability to train and recover at the level I want/need to, but I'll adjust as needed.

In terms of planning the next year or so in terms of training blocks, my current plan is to ramp up the next month and race Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 at the end of June. This is not a fast course so I'm just looking to enjoy it and support my boyfriend as he races his first half-ironman in quite awhile. After recovering from BSLT 70.3 I will start a big bike block. Jocelyn has sent me some ideas and I have been searching the Internet for different articles and workouts to do to raise my FTP. I will need to take a good 20 minutes off my current bike time to realistically be able to hit 10:45. 

Austin is a pretty awesome place to live. In the fall/winter they have the Austin Distance Challenge which is a series of local road races starting in October and then averaging about 1 race per month until culminating in the Austin Marathon in late February. I am going to use this to rebuild a big run base (and actually put in decent mileage for once). I think not having a lot of run volume for IMTX hurt my running durability, but more on this later. 

Once the Distance Challenge is over I will get back to the bike and spring triathlon training. Depending on work schedule, it would be good to target 3 half-ironmans in 2015. Preferably ones within driving distance. 

And for now my plan ends at the end of 2015. Somewhere around here I will need to find a coach, probably. 

I also have some questions I've been tossing around in my head. Mainly, where does Atomic play into all of this? I got into Crossfit and serious strength training in 2010 when I was getting burned out from all the long, slow distance (LSD) training. Granted, I had always gone to the gym and used the machines and what not since college, but it was always as a supplement to my marathon or triathlon training. I took the summer of 2012 off when I trained for IM Louisville but then for IM Texas I was doing an experiment to see how Atomic would play with ironman. Could I survive and how well would I do? 

And was I successful in my experiment? I say yes. I was able to go to Atomic 3x a week for almost the entire 4 months I was training for IMTX (minus a couple weeks when I was out of town or doing GCI or tapering) and I still PRed  at Texas. But, I only think this worked because I rode my bike a lot and have a huge aerobic base and years of experience starting with marathon training back in 2005. So in 2006-2007 I was regularly running 50-60 miles/week and sometimes up to 70 miles on those odd weeks. 2007 was also when I started my crazy weekend rides where I would go out and ride 70-90 miles on Saturdays at like 12mph with a couple Clif bars and 3 bottles of water (boy how far we have come now!). 

Looking back at my training log for 2009 when I did my first ironman (IM Lake Placid) I was running 40-50 miles during the big builds and then biking something like 150 miles. This year I was running maybe 20-25 miles except for a few weeks in April when I got to 30-40 miles, and then biking a shit ton. The biking was what kept me from completely falling apart during the run I think. And to put it in perspective, my IMTX run was only 8 minutes faster than my first ironman marathon at IMLP (3:58 vs 4:06, and the 4:06 involved about 5 minutes in the bathroom). So to say, did I succeed in racing to my actual potential in ironman? The answer to that is probably no. I am pretty sure my run leg breakdown that started around mile 5 and became a real problem about halfway through was due to just not having a lot of run volume in my legs. Having the entire course on concrete certainly did not help either. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the squats quite prepare my legs to what a marathon will do. It was an odd feeling during the run; my brain wanted to run faster but my legs were like, if we go any faster we are going to break. 

The logical part of my brain says I will need to cut back on Atomic, at the very least. Which leads to my next question of, how seriously am I trying to take this? I know back in 2010 or 2011 I was so focused on triathlon and trying to be elite that it just was not fun anymore. Which of course led to my meltdown and retirement from being serious about tri on the Wildflower course in 2011. This question basically comes down to what are my priorities. Do I want to keep trying to not be so serious or do I want to go fast? As a non-natural athlete I don't think those are synonymous. If I want to go fast, I need to prioritize. I think I know the answer to this, but I'm not quite sure I'm willing to go there yet.