Ironman Copenhagen Training - How are we doing? - April 2022
It’s been a little over 6 months since my last blog post. I tested positive for Covid a few days ago, so this enforced mini-period of rest seems like a good opportunity for a brief recap on how the journey is progressing.
Training plan
One of the first tasks after booking my place was to research and find a training plan that would help get me from my current levels of fitness and ability to the point where I successfully finish an Ironman. After some searching, I came across TriDot (https://tridot.com). It appeared to meet all of my needs in terms of scheduling sessions across each of the disciplines, appealed to my inner data-nerd as the platform takes in the data from each activity and then tailors future sessions to your current ability. Initially, I had some reservations, but the community feedback I saw at the time spoke of people using the platform experiencing significant performance improvements and “race” day successes. I’m now 6 months into using TriDot and can safely say my experience has been amazing. Through periodic “assessments”, you can monitor performance progress over time. During these 6 months, I have seen my 5k run time improve from over 22minutes to 20:36, my swim CSS times go from 2:05m/100 to 1:55m/100 - I know 10seconds per 100metres may not sound a lot, but for me, this is solid progress in the weakest of the disciplines.
What does a typical training week look like? At the moment, I have been in a Development phase, which focuses on building strength and speed before the focus shift to the Stamina phase which will zone in on the endurance aspect. A typical week, therefore, has been around 8 hours of training to date, comprising of 2 pool swims, 3 bikes, and 3 runs - each session designed to have a unique and progression-based structure to it. In addition, I have been trying to add in strength & conditioning sessions, and some yoga to keep on top of flexibility and mobility. I know these can easily slip out of the schedule when life gets busy, and my goal for the next couple of months is to get these “baked” into a weekly routine.
To date, I have continued my regular Saturday group rides with my cycling club, K20 (https://k20cyclingclub.org) as I enjoy the social aspect of the rides but I know I will need to adjust my focus over the coming months as we get closer to August.
Bike Fit
One particular highlight during the last few months was having a bike fit with Ben at Ben-Efit (https://www.ben-efit.com). Ben’s booking calendar is typically booked up months in advance so when my day came at the end of February I was naturally excited for the day. Ben came highly recommended by a few friends and I now know why! Thorough & comprehensive are understated adjectives. The day included full postural assessment, pedalling technique analysis, breathing strategies (amazing!) and a mega-detailed fit process (oh, and a good supply of coffee throughout the day to keep the hydration up!). Before the fit, I would have described myself as being comfortable on the bike, not in pain etc but I would say with Ben’s expert knowledge and wisdom we’ve taken these levels up quite a significant amount. I did, however, come away with the diagnosis that my previous Tri bike was not the right size to suit my body proportions/current levels of flexibility etc but that has been sorted now with swapping to a different Tri bike - I’ll save the details of that for a future post all about the gear & tech I use, and how I use them all.
Covid
As I mentioned in the introduction, I tested positive for Covid on Monday t
Events coming up
I have two events coming up in the next couple of months - Tonbridge Triathlon on 2nd May, and then Cotswold113 (70.3) on 5th June.
I think that probably covers it for now - as always, please drop a comment below if you have a question, any feedback, or if there are aspects of my training that you’d like me to go through in future posts.
I log all my activities to Strava, so feel free to head over there to see what I’ve been getting up to! - https://www.strava.com/athletes/7513295