First HIM question (Page 2)

Thanks for sharing your experience. It's nice to see a different viewpoint!

OK, I am doing my first HIM in May and you guys are getting me nervous.  I actually altered the plan to be 38 weeks instead of 20, I really wanted to be prepared, but it sounds like I should seriously increase my distances.  I thought that the "thought" was that you didn't need to go the actual distance in training because come race day you will be able to do the extra if you have the base..is this just true if you are doing one event rather than a tri?  Just want to know where I have to alter my plan....thanks.

So WHERE are you at in this training plan of yours? Are you 4 months out? 3 months out????

Are your logs correct?

August's totals:
Bike: 2h 22m 24s - 41.4 Mi
Run: 6h 50m 39s - 41.3 Mi
Swim: 1h 08m 43s - 3200 Yd
Yard Work: 2h 15m

July's totals:
Bike: 1h 22m 32s - 24.85 Mi
Run: 54m 14s - 5.51 Mi
Swim: 13m 21s - 546.81 Yd
Softball: 1h 00m

If you are 6 months out, your numbers are OK. If you are 4 months out... you need to get on the bike man! Even then... 41 miles in a month on the bike and you are gearing up for a HIM? Really low there.

It's my belief that for the swim and bike portions, you can go more than the distance in training. Swim more than 1.2 miles in a training session (which honestly isn't all that far!)... Bike more than 56 miles a few times... at least! As for the run, this is where people risk the most injury, so if you don't do 13.1 miles in training, so be it. At least feel comfortable with 10 mile runs.

What kind of goals do you have for your HIM? To finish in under the cut off times? To race it fast?

x2 on all the suggestions of doing more long bikes but with one caveat.  I did more long rides than was required under that plan and felt ready.  I wasn't.  You are racing 56 miles.  Be prepared for that.  Getting 75 done 10 times won't be nearly as beneficial as getting your body prepared to kill a 56 mile ride.  So, I would suggest you get in more long rides than the plan suggests but focus on race intensity at (or a little beyond) race distance.  I feel as though I missed out on this piece of training and will correct for next year!  Best of luck!

I don't mean to sound vague, but a lot depends on how you race.
If you are looking to push yourself, get in the long rides and do the short ones at higher intensity.
If you are looking to finish and how you feel-and for me this is how I do my first race at any distance (10 K run, first sprint, first half marathon, first marathon, first oly, etc) then you will probably be OK.
Again, by finish and I am talking about you are doing at the classic "conversational" speed of classic LSD training.

OK, I am 8 months out and I have just started "hitting it hard...."  I found a different training plan on line that has more distance bike rides and more runs.  As far as my time goal for the race...I would like to be under 6 hours but I think that could change once I find more speed on the bike....I am not going to set time goals until about 2 months out, but I figure 2 minute 100s on swim ~ 42.5 minutes, 18.5 mph on bike (would like to see this go way up) ~ 3 hours 2 minutes, and 9 minute miles ~ 1 hour 58 minutes...add in 8 minutes in transition times(im slow in transitions) and you get 350 minutes so with a fudge factor of 10 minutes I should break 6 hours...I know I have a ways to go to reach these times but I think they are pretty attainable for me as a beginner. 

So I have another question about this plan, and really hope to hear from folks who have done it.

Week 4, Sunday:

Great transition practice today! Can be done with a bike trainer or
on the street. Do a complete transition each time.
Setup your bike trainer and complete race transition setup in a
garage. 8 reps gives lots of time to work out your transition kinks.
8 x (R 4:00, B: 10:00, R 4:00 )
Be careful of run intensities…at only 4 minutes each it seems easy to
do them fast, but 8 reps is a lot. Keep all efforts at RPE 3-4. Up the
effort the last 2 if you've got anything left...

If I do 4R,10B,4R, then do another 4R,10B, 4R isn't that really a 4R, 10B, 8R, 10B, 8R, 10B, etc.? There are no specified rest intervals. If each repeat starts and ends with 4 min run, that's 8 minutes of running.

Things like this in this plan bug me.

8 months out a VERY LONG TIME to train for a HIM.... my IM training program is 20 weeks.  you have a good chance of burnout - mental and physical.  you may want to find another race to train for BEFORE your HIM (some Olys?) and then start a HIM training program.

anybody?

This was my workout last Monday and I had the same WTF? thoughts. So what I did was a 4-5 minute run (.5 miles each time) then I did a 3-4 mile bike (started at 4 and ended at 3 as I got slower) then I repeated this for 2.5 hours including transitions time (gave me a little over 2 hours of run/bike time).

I've got 9 weeks left on this plan and this is exactly what I'm worried about. I thought bronze membership had more HIM training plan options? Anyway, I'm gonna beef the plan up on my own the next 7 weeks 'cause I'm not certain that 360-500 minute weeks are gonna cut it.

Edited by Spleen 2009-09-01 3:35 PM

Do you mean 360-500 minutes?