Pre ironman Austria 2014

Betsy Williams - Ironbaby!

I am currently around 2 weeks out from Ironman Austria and I believe I have come into good form at just the right time. My last post was back in January and since then I have been busy executing a 24 week training plan, which I am still finishing, in preparation for Austria. It has been an interesting challenge preparing for Austria, I have done 14 Ironman's to date, Austria will be my 15th but my first as a Dad! My little girl, Besty is now close to 6 months of age.

I thought in this post I would share some of my key 'life management' strategies, some of my key training sessions and tweaks/kit changes I have made, along with my race plan for Austria - making myself accountable!



So how does Ironman now fit into my life now I am a Dad?

Roles and goals model

I thought I would address this because it is common for people to ask, how do you fit training for Ironman in? In jest quite a few friends teased that I could kiss good bye to doing Ironman when Betsy came along but I am pleased to say I have not had to give up my passion but I have certainly had to make some adjustments though. But first let me briefly talk you through how I manage my time.

Well I must confess I like reading, in particular self development literature. One book I have taken a lot from is Stephen Covey's 7 habits of highly effective people, in this book Covey discusses identifying your key roles in life and setting some goals around them. Covey then suggests analysing how you spend your time, the 168 hours available to each of us each week in relation to these roles and goals. To do this he simply suggests keeping an accurate log of what you do over a typical week. The next step is to analyse the things you spend your time doing by putting them into 4 quadrants as below.

1) Urgent and important - crisis/unplanned things that demand your attention.
2) Important but not urgent - proactivity, planned activities that align with your roles and goals
3) Not important but urgent - other agenda's not aligned to your roles and goals, this can be because they have been forced on you or you lack the ability to say no. It also includes all things such as an obsessive need to pick up ringing phones and responding to emails which tangent you from your roles and goals!
4) Not urgent and not important - waste of time activities. Doing these activities does not help you achieve yours or even anyone else's roles and goals, I put T.V and computer games amongst other things in this bracket.

In short I manage my time very carefully operating as much as possible in quadrant 2, this is the key quadrant for effectiveness and is where training should sit along with family and work time. I get my time for quadrant 2 by ensuring I set myself only a few goals in each role so my attention is focused. I also ensure I spend as little time as possible in quadrants 3 & 4, this simply means I am quite disciplined around when I check emails, answer phone calls and letting meaningless activities enter my life. Pretty much all my time is devoted to work, Laura and Betsy a small circle of close family and friends and training which includes relaxation and rest time! This is exactly how I like it! In any given day it would be incredibly rare for you to find me doing anything that does not align to improving my life in these areas. I do tend to have more quadrant 1 stuff than I used to have because my little girl may need attention at an unexpected time for one reason or another or I feel it is important to support my Wife. To ensure I can be there for Betsy and Laura I have had to factor in more flexibility in my training week than before. To allow for this I now commit to 2 key sessions from each discipline per week rather than 3, which is what I used to shoot for, so rather than 9 key sessions I have 6. Don't get me wrong, in good weeks I may get all my sessions in but in others I have to be okay with dropping some sessions or converting some into short recovery or skill based sessions. Generally I have had to let go of quite a bit of volume, largely because I have slightly less training time than before but mostly because I get less sleep time, therefore my recovery seems to be somewhat slower. Where as I used to shoot for around 16-20hrs per week of training I am now more in the region of 12-16hrs. Interestingly I think I maybe doing better with less volume and as some coaches/friends have pointed out, namely Ollie Williams (@quiche123) and Rich Baker (@richteabaker), I have quite a few years of endurance volume under my belt now so I can probably get away with less. As such this year I have focused a lot more on intensity and focused on ensuring long sessions are 'easy intensity' (unless a test ride) and intense sessions are exactly that 'intense'. I have really tried to avoid 'middle ground training' aka junk miles. Heart rate and power have helped with this and getting some lab testing done at Surrey Human Performance Institute along with some self FTP tests have kept me honest. The numbers don't lie!

Training progress

Garmin & Quarq power meter

Okay so at the start of the year one of the things I wanted to introduce was cycling with power because I have read it can be very useful to manage the ride intensity in an Ironman so you are set up for a better run. If you have read my previous posts you will be well aware even after 14 Ironman's I have never really dialled in my run, I personally believe in every Ironman I have run well below my potential for one reason or another. In the past I have had challenges with nutrition/stomach cramps, blister issues, over heating and excuses around poor run preparation but I have always been in denial that I may be riding to hard or riding inefficiently by 'power spiking/surging' too much. Failing many times to get my run where I want it to be has forced me to consider this maybe a possibility. Although I had some ideas power could benefit me I had a limited understanding of it and was concerned about the cost of it! Power cranks, pedals or hubs don't come cheap. So back in January I started reading around power and playing around with it on Wattbikes which I found really insightful. I became confident enough with power that I invested in a Garmin 500 and Quarq power meter. Once I got these fitted on my bike I went out and rode a regular 150km route of mine, I rode the route as I normally would, I set the Garmin up so I could not see the power data when riding. Upon reviewing the data I immediately gained some valuable insights. There is a metric called Variability index (VI). VI compares normalised power with average power, this gives an insight into exactly how much you are changing the power being put into the pedals. Ironman top performers tend have a VI of less than 5%, my initial VI was 12%!! A closer look showed I attack hills and head winds very aggressively and that I am to passive on downhills so my power output was all over the place. There are lots of other metrics that have provided equally insightful information as to how I ride but the one other I will mention is average watts. This is the number I am essentially trying to get a good grip of for Ironman racing. What is the average wattage I can hold down with a VI index of less than 5% and run well from?? Truth is it may take a few Ironman's to figure this out and Austria will give me a great insight for Hawaii but at present I believe that number is around 190-200watts. Given I am weighing around 68kg that works out to be 2.8-2.9 watts per kilo. With an FTP of approx 270 watts this works out to be around a 75% intensity factor for me. Below is some data from a 180km ride I posted around 6 weeks back where I held 185 watts with a VI of 4% and an average heart rate of 147bpm (below my cycling threshold of 155bpm). I have since posted some slightly shorter rides at the 160km mark with heart rate averages around 142bpm to 144bpm. In a recent half iron distance race I held 212 watts with a heart rate average of 158bpm, I felt comfortable on the bike and initially felt great in the first 15km of the run but did fatigue a bit around 16km, this was in part due to zero taper.

Garmin connect data: Heart rate and Power for 180km ride

It will be interesting to see how I manage my power in Ironman Austria and in particular if having a 3.8km swim prior changes things!

Running is my big opportunity to improve. This year I have been much more consistent with my long runs. Sunday is my long run day. I get these done in the morning then the rest of the day is family day! I have been trying out a run walk strategy on my long runs which seem to be very powerful for me physically and mentally. The strategy is 5-6km running with 1min of walking. The walking has allowed me to stretch our my hips and chest, lower my heart rate, get a quick gel in and then get back to running a touch fresher with slightly improved form. The 1min walks every 6km have naturally focused my attention on just the next 6km which seems to stop me doing a mental comparison such as, I am at 10km, my legs hurt, I have 32 km to go, thats forever……This way I don't think further than the next 6km, much easier on the mind. I will certainly be using this strategy. 

The walk run strategy for a 32km run

Of course in 22 weeks I have done a lot of sessions. One of the key focus's has been interval run sessions to improve my run efficiency, an area that was identified as weak in the testing at Surrey Human Performance Institute. The below was a tough session after a 150km bike.  I did 8x 2km intervals at a pace of about 4.30mins per km which is 30s per km faster than my target Ironman pace of 5.00mins per km. This was a hot day so it was a tough session after the cycle! The idea with this session is to experience discomfort at a pace above what you tend to race at so on race day the 'easier' pace seems more achievable! I focused on form and felt strong.

Brick run: 8x 2km intervals

The session here was ascending intervals of 3km. I started each set at Ironman pace and increased the pace every 0.5km by 0.5km per hour so I was finishing at 15km per hour. The idea with this session is to encourage leg turn over and to improve lactate tolerance, as always form was a major focus. I have done some serious 'core' during this training block to support my form and I am confident it is helping.

Ascending 3 km intervals

This season I have changed my run trainers again. I was running in a muzino wave which was a good shoe but I don't think it suited me over the marathon distance, particularly the Ironman marathon where form does tend to be of a lesser quality than a fresh marathon. I was experiencing some quite extreme leg fatigue in them last season after my long runs but I thought it might be due to my fitness levels. After reading some reviews and trying out some other trainers I decided to go with Pearl Izumi N1's which I have really enjoyed running in. They seem to suit me very well, plus the colour matches my bike and tri kit!



Race plan. 

So for Ironman Austria I have the following plan. This is a brief version of what I have written out on a A3 piece of paper, being very visual it helps me to review it this way. Essentially I draw out a time line  from get up until the finish line marking on it what time I will do certain things along with my goal times. Here are some of the highlights

• 04.30 get up and breakfast
• 2 green tea, 3x poached eggs, 60g granola with 150g yoghurt.
• 07.00 swim start  
• Target pace 1.32/100m should get me out the water in 58-59mins. 
• Will aim to find someone at a similar pace and tuck in for the draft. 
• At the start of the season I self diagnosed myself a 'kicktastic' from swim smooths swim type system as such I have worked on my body position, arm cadence, endurance and body roll so I rely less on my legs. The goal will be to swim this way in the race. 
• 08.00ish bike start
  
• Target power 190-200watts allow up to 270 watts for hills, cadence target 90rpm. Last time I did Austria I did a 5.02 bike split but I will not be focusing on speed or time that much, I certainly won't chase hard for it. If my target power gets me off my bike in 5.10 so be it, the hope will be I run better! 
• Nutrition plan is to consume a hydro gel every 20km. To compliment this I will have 2x 800ml bottles of energy drink on the bike. One behind the saddle and one on the frame. Each bottle will have 100g powder in delivering about 90g carb. One bottle is non caffeinated and I will consume this first, the second is caffeinated energy drink*, I will get stuck into this around 100km to counter mental and physical fatigue which I have experienced in training. I will also have a Torhans aero bottle in the front with water to sip on. I find the straw reminds me to drink and makes it easier for me to do so at any time as I do not have to move out of the aero position to drink. 
• 13.00ish run start - assuming bike time is in the 5hour mark I should be running around 13.00
• Target pace is 5.00min per km. 
• Run 6km, walk for 40-60seconds.
• Nutrition plan is to consume water at aid stations and have a caffeinated hydro gel every 30mins. Coke will be a goer in the last 20km if I am struggling.
• Target run time is between 3hrs 30-40mins. Combined time is hoped for the 9hrs 40mins region. 

*Adjusting my caffeine intake is a key change for me, I used to have a very strong coffee pre race, I believe the crash from this may have been contributing to mental fatigue in the marathon. My new strategy is a small amount of caffeine in the morning via green tea then a large dose of caffeine between 100-120km on the bike to give me a boost until the finish. This has worked very well so far in training. 

Bike set up for Austria

My trusty P2, this baby has now done 11 Ironman's with its debut being 2009 in Florida! I have thought about upgrading to a P5 but that won't be this year as we are moving home so it will have to wait until 2015. Besides which I feel the P2 has earnt the right to go to Hawaii, it did Chrissie Wellington okay!

The only changes I have made to the bike for this year are the addition of the power meter and a saddle change. The addition of the sram red quarq has meant I have switched from a polar to garmin head unit due to compatibility issues. The saddle switch is from a specialised romin to a sitero. Both have perineal cut outs which I find preferable on the undercarriage, the sitero seems to support my pelvis better which has made some subtle differences to the comfort of my back along with my hips feeling 'looser' when I transition to running.

Bike set up for Austria

So I fly out to Austria on the 25th June, race on the 29th. I will be trackable on Ironman live. Hopefully the weather will be nice and the I will perform well. I will write up a race report on the flight home. 

Thanks for reading, hopefully it has been insightful, as always live healthy, keep fit and perform to your best. 

You can  connect with me on twitter: @ironman_jw