Iron-Voodoo
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@scribe said in Iron-Voodoo:
In all seriousness, 9 hours of effort (incl transitions) kind of reinforces my point.
Training for this can be quite tricky and complex and arguably you don’t really know what works for you until you execute.
As I mentioned, I did the same race 4 years apart. 2nd time around I loaded up on cycling. Whist I did a couple of v short sharp runs during the week, my long runs were no more than 2 hrs, all in zone 2. I did finish these runs feeling v fresh with the feeling I could run all day (and wondering if I was getting any benefit). In the 2nd race I set my virtual partner to match my training pace and followed that even when adrenaline kicked in and told me to run faster. I finished in a reasonable time, knackered, but still able to function.
9 hours??? If I can sneak under 16 hours I’ll be stoked!!!
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@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
@scribe said in Iron-Voodoo:
@voodoo 1:40 swim? Try using your arms as well😀
I’m incredibly slow in the water. It’s my kick that doesn’t exist. The aim of course is to exit the water without feeling taxed, if it’s 80mins or 110mins, I just want to feel fresh on the bike.
The pain will start after that
You shouldn't need to kick much (assume it’s a wetsuit swim). Less kicking equals more pedal power!
Practice drafting in the pool. Finding someone in the race to swim either directly behind (almost touching their feet) or on their hip, makes a big difference and saves lots of energy. P*sses people off but loads of people do it.
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@scribe said in Iron-Voodoo:
@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
@scribe said in Iron-Voodoo:
@voodoo 1:40 swim? Try using your arms as well😀
I’m incredibly slow in the water. It’s my kick that doesn’t exist. The aim of course is to exit the water without feeling taxed, if it’s 80mins or 110mins, I just want to feel fresh on the bike.
The pain will start after that
You shouldn't need to kick much (assume it’s a wetsuit swim). Less kicking equals more pedal power!
Practice drafting in the pool. Finding someone in the race to swim either directly behind (almost touching their feet) or on their hip, makes a big difference and saves lots of energy. P*sses people off but loads of people do it.
90% chance it’s a wetsuit. If not, I’ll be devastated
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So I redid my max HR based on this formula: =211-0.64*Age and I am now 182.2 - that's means the top bound of Z2 goes up to 137
Just went out for an hour jog to see how far I could go without breaching this - I averaged 136, spiked a couple of times over 140, but generally stayed under 135 at the start and 140 towards the end (despite slowing right down)
Turns out it was just on 10kms, so ave 6min/km. An interesting exercise, might try it again on a longer run - for the shorter ones it feels like I should push harder
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@voodoo I focus on zone 2 and do incline walks, speed is gradually improving, and I keep it firmly just below a level I have observed which looks to be where my body is switching from more slow twitch to fast twitch -I can see it on the HB app where the HB is more reactive and variable, and also after a hill workout, the HB will stop just above that level for a while. For me that's about 121-so I target 115-120. MAX HB is about 172-174 I had a few months off due to a cut on my heel, but will resume running in that range soon, trying for 6-8 hours a week. Plus harder stuff. I definitely feel health improvements with the currect 4-5 hours a week.
(I use a chest strap, so can see the real time HB, and quickly drop my arms or breathe more to slow the HB)
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Another week gone,
- Monday - rest day
- Tuesday - 1hr 30mins on the trainer - sore ass
- Wednesday - nothing, wife away so kids and work
- Thursday - the 10km I mentioned above in Z2
- Friday - short city run, 5kms @ 4:55/km
- Saturday - 100kms on the bike, out to West Head and McCarrs - Ave HR 126, Max 157.
- 5km run off the bike, 5.7kms @ 5:15/km pace, Ave HR 170, Max 182
- Sunday - 1hr 40min run up to North Head, got through 17.4kms @ 5:44/km - was hot and hilly (fuck off @jk), Ave HR 153, Max 173
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@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
Another week gone,
- Monday - rest day
- Tuesday - 1hr 30mins on the trainer - sore ass
- Wednesday - nothing, wife away so kids and work
- Thursday - the 10km I mentioned above in Z2
- Friday - short city run, 5kms @ 4:55/km
- Saturday - 100kms on the bike, out to West Head and McCarrs - Ave HR 126, Max 157.
- 5km run off the bike, 5.7kms @ 5:15/km pace, Ave HR 170, Max 182 - Sunday - 1hr 40min run up to North Head, got through 17.4kms @ 5:44/km - was hot and hilly (fuck off @jk), Ave HR 153, Max 173
I shall never cast a shadow on any run mate. Those lycra clad gently sloped bike rides on sealed roads though......
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@JK said in Iron-Voodoo:
@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
Another week gone,
- Monday - rest day
- Tuesday - 1hr 30mins on the trainer - sore ass
- Wednesday - nothing, wife away so kids and work
- Thursday - the 10km I mentioned above in Z2
- Friday - short city run, 5kms @ 4:55/km
- Saturday - 100kms on the bike, out to West Head and McCarrs - Ave HR 126, Max 157.
- 5km run off the bike, 5.7kms @ 5:15/km pace, Ave HR 170, Max 182 - Sunday - 1hr 40min run up to North Head, got through 17.4kms @ 5:44/km - was hot and hilly (fuck off @jk), Ave HR 153, Max 173
I shall never cast a shadow on any run mate. Those lycra clad gently sloped bike rides on sealed roads though......
I do notice the photo's you post on your mountain bike escapades are always only from the neck up...
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@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
@JK said in Iron-Voodoo:
@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
Another week gone,
- Monday - rest day
- Tuesday - 1hr 30mins on the trainer - sore ass
- Wednesday - nothing, wife away so kids and work
- Thursday - the 10km I mentioned above in Z2
- Friday - short city run, 5kms @ 4:55/km
- Saturday - 100kms on the bike, out to West Head and McCarrs - Ave HR 126, Max 157.
- 5km run off the bike, 5.7kms @ 5:15/km pace, Ave HR 170, Max 182 - Sunday - 1hr 40min run up to North Head, got through 17.4kms @ 5:44/km - was hot and hilly (fuck off @jk), Ave HR 153, Max 173
I shall never cast a shadow on any run mate. Those lycra clad gently sloped bike rides on sealed roads though......
I do notice the photo's you post on your mountain bike escapades are always only from the neck up...
I keep getting banned when I post full body shots. They dont call me bigred for nothing
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Been 3 weeks since an update. Been getting a bit done, never enough of course, but as much as I can manage given work, kids, and general lack of the psychopathic nature to really train properly for one of these things.
I won’t list all the sessions, but I’ve managed:
- Various short runs plus 1 x 10km, 2 x 12km runs, 1 x 15km run @ c. 5min/km pace
- 1 x swim squad session and an ocean swim in the wettie (had to get a stranger to help zip me up…)
- 2 x 1hr 30min sessions on the bike trainer, and 1 brick session consisting of a (real outdoors) 120km ride with a 30min run off the bike
Got a big ride planned for Good Friday and will do a little run off the bike also – testing kit, nutrition etc, should be a 6-7 hour session I think – eek.
33 days to go, so need to push a bit in the next 20 days before dialling back for the last 2 weeks
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22 days since last post, 11 days until the race. Fuck.
Had a great weekend over Easter, did a half marathon on the Sunday (5:21/km and had a fair bit left in the tank at the end) then a 160km ride Monday (2,800m+ of elevation) with a 5km run off the bike. Tough, but got through it.
Then went into a family holiday to Brissy to watch my daughter compete in the Junior Athletics Nationals - wicked fun, but I ate and drank everything in sight and barely trained.
Since then it's been mostly 10km runs and 1hr max on the trainer to maintain, as I'm now just scared of getting injured and surely I can't get any fitter from here. Did a 3km ocean swim the other day which I really enjoyed - slow as shit, but heaps of fish to look at and felt OK getting out of the water. I now feel like I can get through the swim OK, praise be to whoever invented wetsuits.
So the next 11 days will be tapering, a few easy runs, another trainer session, another ocean swim plus maybe a pool session I think - and that'll be it.
Bike getting a tune-up tomorrow, I put fresh tyres on it this week and probably made a hash of it.
Drive to Port Mac next Friday, probably take the bike for a spin on part of the new course for an hour Friday or Saturday before I rack it in transition.
All becoming a bit too real now.
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@JK Cheers for the reminder - OK, here is the Race Report:
The Goal
My ideal "everything-goes-perfectly-on-the-day" goal was to break 12 hours - that would mean something like a 90min swim, a 6:10 hour ride, a 4 hour marathon, and 20mins in transition / toilet stops. Spoiler alert, I didn't quite pull it off!Here is how it unfolded:
The Swim
Was a cracking morning in Port Mac - 14 degrees, sunny skies, smooth water - perfect for the swim. I started near the back as I'm a poor swimmer, and I got into a nice rhythm early. It's a unique swim as you walk out and over a weir after about a km, then again on the way back in - gives you the chance to check your pace and wave to any supporters. I was flying at the start which was unintentional, turns out there was a decent current taking us out...obviously that wasn't so useful on the way back in, though I was more focused on not working too hard than my speed, so I just kept plugging away, trying to be smooth and conserve energy.Got out of the water with 81 minutes on the clock which I was stoked with, having expected to take between 90-100. I'd need those 10 minutes later...
The Ride
Brutal. Just brutal.My plan was to ride somewhere between 28-30km/hr, depending on conditions (road, elevation, wind etc). The wind wasn't a factor until the last 60kms, but the road was chippy as hell and really undulating - and I battled to hold my pace. I've never seen so many people get flats, I must have seen 20 people on the side of the road - one bloke I spoke to afterwards said his mate got 3 x flats before he abandoned the race!
Had plenty of dark moments where I thought I was never going to get off the bike, I remember the section from 75kms to 90kms just seemed to take forever, and thinking fck me, I'm still not even halfway through this ride, let alone what comes afterwards.
Managed to keep dialling back in, breaking it down into chunks of 5km, and focussed on nutrition - I got through 4 Cliff energy bars, about 4 packs of Cliff energy Bloks, and I made sure I got water and gatorade at every aid station.
The last 40kms I decided to let up a little to conserve some energy, and I finished in 6:30 with an average pace of 27.8kms/hr. I probably went a little hard, and my ego refused to let me get off the bike and walk up Matthew Flinders (for those unfamiliar with the course, MF is a short but stupidly steep street, 18 degrees I think - they lay out a carpet down the side of the street for athletes to walk their bikes up, and many do so).
Overall, given the road conditions, pretty happy with the ride, and thanks to my faster swim, I was only 10mins behind schedule.
The Run
Probably not that accurate to call this a "run". It was really more of a grovel, a shuffle, a battle of mind over body.The ride really took it out of me, and I was cramping after just 2kms. My 12hr plan needed me to run 5:45/km pace, which I had planned to structure as running about 5:35/km in between aid stations, and then walking the short up/down hill section of each lap (4 x laps total), and to walk fast through each aid station to get the nutrition in.
After the first cramp, I knew I needed to reassess. The next bar in my mind was breaking 12:30, which would have required averaging 6min/km - I had a go at this until about 10kms, when it was clear that my hammies just had to be stretched out more often and there was going to be relatively frequent sections where I would need to walk it out for 100m or so.
So I decided to be realistic, and reset the bar again at breaking 13 hours. The mental arithmetic was actually pretty useful I think to keep me occupied. I knew averaging 6:45/km for the run would get me a 4hr 45min marathon, which should work out to just under 13 hours total time on course - by this point I had already banked 10kms at a quicker pace so had some room to slow up. The plan now was just to hold on, stay consistent, shuffle when I felt Ok then stretch and walk fast whenever I started cramping.
I took water and gatorade at every aid station in the first 21kms, I had my own Bloks, but also grabbed a gel at one point. Fark I hate those things. Was pretty well under the required 6:45/km pace at this stage.
The 2nd half of the run I switched to water and Coke, and I was actually starving - I tried to eat some banana and pretzels, but couldn't swallow them so decided to go without. It was about 6pm by this stage, and the weather had turned massively - wind was up and it was freezing cold. Spectators were huddled in hoodies and blankets, and barricades were blowing over. They handed out glowsticks so we could see other competitors in the less well-lit sections. The ambulances on-course handed out a lot of those tin-foil jackets to competitors wo were struggling in the cold, and a few got helped off course, their day disappointingly over after so much effort.
I'm lucky that I don't feel the cold as much as others (one of the benefits of being 94kgs...) so I was OK with the weather - the wind was tough, but the cold probably helped keep my heart rate down - quite bizarrely for me, my heart rate shows a steady decline from start to end of the run, with an average of 142 which is super low for me - shows how it was the legs that were letting me down rather than the ticker I guess.
Anyway, kms 21-30 were rough, and seemed to take forever. But I had in my mind that if I could just get to the 30km mark, then I was on the home stretch - and even if I had to walk the last 12kms, I knew I could finish from there. Big mental boost when I got to that point.
The last 10kms I tried to shuffle the whole way - there were some small periods of walking and stretching, and boy was it slow, but mostly I kept going. I knew I was going to hit my 6:45/km average target with about 5km to go - by this time I couldn't stomach any more nutrition, so it was water only for the last 40 minutes.
Turning into the finishing chute (as opposed to running past it for another 10km lap) was a pretty epic feeling - running down the red carpet, getting high 5's from the amazing crowd, ringing the 1st timers bell, and hearing the announcer call out my name and tell me I was an Ironman, was a pretty cool feeling I won't forget in a hurry.
Final finishing time was 12:55.12 - not the dream time, but I think respectable enough for a first timer. While the legs didn't have enough in them to run the marathon I wanted, I was pretty happy with my mental game to hang in there when it hurt like hell.
Hats off to those folk who took closer to the max 17 hours to finish near midnight - the mental fortitude those guys showed to battle the course for that long is something I will never comprehend.
The Aftermath
Once I had the medal, it was a quick massage in the tent, then out to see my wife who was amazing support on course. Grabbed a kebab and chips to take back to the hotel room where I also had beers and wine waiting for a celebratory party.I managed about 1/3 of the kebab and half a glass of wine before climbing into bed, freezing and feeling terrible. My feet ached, I was freezing cold by now, and I slept terribly from all the sugary crap I had injested through the day.
Yesterday I felt heaps better, and I smashed a huge brekkie, a pie, a huge dinner, beers and wine - and I plan on doing more of the same all week. I certainly won't be dusting off the running shoes or that evil bike trainer in the next few days.
Immediately after the race I said to my wife "I can't understand why anyone would do more than 1 of these things - after the swim, I didn't enjoy any of that". 2 days later, and I'm already wavering and contemplating going again - I know I can train harder, and I know I can go faster...let's see how I feel in a few weeks...
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@voodoo said in Iron-Voodoo:
not the dream time, but I think respectable enough for a first timer
Mate, just completing one of those makes you a legend, awesome work!
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just for those that know nothing about this "sport"
that's a fucking great time and he should be stoked.
And for those that love the comparison to how a pro would do it, voodoo finished in a smidge under 13 hours
The winner finished in a little over 8
2.8km swim in 46 minutes
180km bike in 4 and a half hours
And then a 2 hour 45 marathon to finishThose guys aren't human
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@mariner4life said in Iron-Voodoo:
just for those that know nothing about this "sport"
that's a fucking great time and he should be stoked.
And for those that love the comparison to how a pro would do it, voodoo finished in a smidge under 13 hours
The winner finished in a little over 8
2.8km swim in 46 minutes
180km bike in 4 and a half hours
And then a 2 hour 45 marathon to finishThose guys aren't human
Little typo, that’s a 3.8km swim…
Yeah, they’re machines aren’t they? The ride had a 2 lap section so I had the privilege of seeing the top 4 guys fly past me exactly 12m apart, so impressive.
I didn’t see them on the run course because they’d finished 30 minutes before I started 😂
