First Half Ironman comming up in May 2014
silversurfah
Posts: 71 Member
I am about to embark on a very exciting journey…I have just signed up for my first half ironman. Well actually I started this over a year ago.
A little background about me:
I was an athlete (nothing special but pretty serious) as a child through college. For the past 35 years I worked in information systems and business management which led to many ups and downs in my fitness due to travel and stress. Last year I retired from my career and I have been having the time of my life getting back into shape. I competed in a couple of sprint tri’s a few years back when I was weighing in at about 60 pounds more than I am now. It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens when I go at it now.
The half ironman competition will be on the big island in Hawaii, this is one of my favorite places in the world. I actually have a pretty good idea of the course, as I have stayed at the resort it goes through many times (I have probably logged a year there in the past 10 years).
I have been training pretty hard since last year but now I really want to turn it on over the next 8 months prior to the race. The greatest thing is that I have the luxury of time… I can essentially focus every day almost all day toward this race.
Big question is what strategy should I take? I am fit enough right now to complete the distance, I am not worried about that. What I want to do, is to place well in my age group. I am prepared to do the things necessary to get there. I don’t expect to set the world on fire.. hey I have a lot of years abusing this old body but I do believe I can get it into race shape…
So here I am … Over the past year I have really spent a lot of time assuring I can do some distances… For example I can knock out a 2 mile swim with ease. Last winter I was doing 50 mile bike rides after a 1 mile swim and then running 6 miles in the afternoon. I have been focusing on running and maintaining my fitness over the summer running 8 mile runs a couple times a week and at least a 13 mile run per month. I kind of backed off the bike because I really wanted to make sure I had my running down and confidence to complete the distance with relative ease. What I would like to hear from others about is where to focus ? I am sure I can keep up with the others on the swim so I am not worried about that. My concern is should I be really ramping up my distances on the bike so the ride goes fast? I have looked at some beginner training programs and they look way too easy compared to what I have been doing (once again I do have the advantage of having all day to train if I want to).
So far I have broken down my training such that for the last 3 months I have been focusing on general fitness adding calisthenics (situps, pushups, squats etc.) and weight lifting into my program. My current plan has me doing 1 more month of this and then moving to a focus on endurance program for 4 months where I just do long distances daily. My next two months will be focused on Speed and interval training with a taper at the end.
Questions I have are… Should I focus on bike more than anything? It’s the longest segment so it seems to reason that I can make or lose the most time here.
Does the long distance training make sense or should I be breaking my rides / runs / swims into intervals and focus on speed? (I was a sprinter in swimming so I never really trained for a long distance).
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated… Also if you are not already feel free to add me as a friend.
A little background about me:
I was an athlete (nothing special but pretty serious) as a child through college. For the past 35 years I worked in information systems and business management which led to many ups and downs in my fitness due to travel and stress. Last year I retired from my career and I have been having the time of my life getting back into shape. I competed in a couple of sprint tri’s a few years back when I was weighing in at about 60 pounds more than I am now. It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens when I go at it now.
The half ironman competition will be on the big island in Hawaii, this is one of my favorite places in the world. I actually have a pretty good idea of the course, as I have stayed at the resort it goes through many times (I have probably logged a year there in the past 10 years).
I have been training pretty hard since last year but now I really want to turn it on over the next 8 months prior to the race. The greatest thing is that I have the luxury of time… I can essentially focus every day almost all day toward this race.
Big question is what strategy should I take? I am fit enough right now to complete the distance, I am not worried about that. What I want to do, is to place well in my age group. I am prepared to do the things necessary to get there. I don’t expect to set the world on fire.. hey I have a lot of years abusing this old body but I do believe I can get it into race shape…
So here I am … Over the past year I have really spent a lot of time assuring I can do some distances… For example I can knock out a 2 mile swim with ease. Last winter I was doing 50 mile bike rides after a 1 mile swim and then running 6 miles in the afternoon. I have been focusing on running and maintaining my fitness over the summer running 8 mile runs a couple times a week and at least a 13 mile run per month. I kind of backed off the bike because I really wanted to make sure I had my running down and confidence to complete the distance with relative ease. What I would like to hear from others about is where to focus ? I am sure I can keep up with the others on the swim so I am not worried about that. My concern is should I be really ramping up my distances on the bike so the ride goes fast? I have looked at some beginner training programs and they look way too easy compared to what I have been doing (once again I do have the advantage of having all day to train if I want to).
So far I have broken down my training such that for the last 3 months I have been focusing on general fitness adding calisthenics (situps, pushups, squats etc.) and weight lifting into my program. My current plan has me doing 1 more month of this and then moving to a focus on endurance program for 4 months where I just do long distances daily. My next two months will be focused on Speed and interval training with a taper at the end.
Questions I have are… Should I focus on bike more than anything? It’s the longest segment so it seems to reason that I can make or lose the most time here.
Does the long distance training make sense or should I be breaking my rides / runs / swims into intervals and focus on speed? (I was a sprinter in swimming so I never really trained for a long distance).
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated… Also if you are not already feel free to add me as a friend.
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Replies
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Hard to outline a training program here. That said what you're looking for is periodized training. Generally you're looking at a block of base (or multiple blocks of base), then strength, then speed, taper, race. I generally schedule 3 weeks building on one another and then a rest week/repeat.0
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http://www.trinewbies.com/tno_trainingprograms/tno_HIM.asp
This is what I used for my first half last summer. I finished in 6 hours and in retrospect could have easily taken 30 minutes off my time but the goal was just to enjoy the event and finish comfortably.0 -
Thanks Jim. This is helpful, I have plenty of time before the race and fortunately lots of time to train but as you say, my goal is to finish comfortably. I am strong in the swim just wondering what others feel makes more sense to focus on bike or running? I am equally bad in both.0
