First Half Ironman - Workouts Per Week (Page 2)

I've heard some very experienced triathletes say that HIM can be more difficult psychologically than IM.  Everyone knows that IM is LONG & accepts that the pace needs to be controlled.  OTOH- Too many (like me ) get suckered in to violating the sensible race plan & foolishly speeding up towards their Oly pace.  After all, the swim's just a bit longer than an Oly & I ride >56mi all the time & I felt great at 13mi during my last marathon.....  No wonder that last 5k of HIM can become a death march for too many 1st timers. 

Hawaii 70.3 was probably my....11th or 12th triathlon and I'd done a number of olys as well as sprints. But I'm just not a great swimmer and I was VERY nervous going into the mass start 1500 person open ocean swim.  I made it thru, but I was nervous.  The second time I did it the experience of having done it the year before helped but so did the fact that I'd swum more than 42 miles since my last Ironman 70.3  Just helped me develop a lot more confidence in the water.  I expect it'll be even easier for me at Longhorn 70.3 in October.

Sometimes it's good to just get the miles in the water for confidence and comfort.

I do agree though that if you need to sacrifice a workout in one of the three sports the swim is the one you can probably get away with cutting back on if you really need to.

Because just like bike fitness can limit your run swimming fitness can limit the rest of your day.

(And, on a personal level, I'd be aiming for sub-30 on a HIM swim.  That would require some decent fitness.)

this is exactly what happened to me...swam well, pushed the bike eventhough it was very windy....last 5 miles i had to walk....

its a hard race, quite honestly, the distances don't seem so GINORMOUS like IM but if you go too fast for your fitness level you will be screwed quite quickly....

Just did the Vineman 70.3 as my first half IM, with only a handful of sprints and one Oly in my background over the last season and a half.  Here are my observations. YMMV.

I did the Fitzgerald Half IM #3 plan.  I figured this was a good compromise for finishing and balancing my family time (wife and 4 kids) and extensive work/travel schedule.  I never swam competitively but have always been comfortable in the water.  For the most part I kept with the 3/3/3 only missing a swim here and there, but I was doing a local Masters swim for most of my workouts.  My goal was under 6 hours or better depending on how things were going (came in at 6:02 - more on that later).

I would stick to the 3/3/3 as much as possible for the simple reason that with race day jitters you don't want to have the thought of "did I train enough?" in the back of your mind.  I went into the race without a doubt that my training was sufficient and it helped because you never know what unseen problems will crop up, as they did in my case.

My swim went great (35 min.), bike was off to an awesome start - until about 3 minutes in!  Picking up speed on the flat road out of transition I guess I was a little too excited and went to switch into the big chainring when snap - my chain flew off!  Had to stop and fix it, losing a few minutes.  At about mile 33-34 I felt my seat start moving, it had come loose.  Again, had to stop for a couple, get the allen wrench out and re-tighten.  But conditioning being what it was, still felt great through the bike.

Run started out great for about 4 miles then started to have a lower GI problems resulting in two stops for the Porta at 5 miles and 7 miles, losing time of course on each (also learned my lesson about the correct amount of water/electrolyte/gel mixture to use for this amount of time!).

At no time did I ever have the thought, "did I train enough?"  I'm happy for that because enough things I hadn't experienced before cropped up and I could concentrate on the matter at hand.  Never had the "will I finish?" thought, I was too prepared, it was just dealing with adversity.  Had I cut serious corners or workouts along the way, things may have been different.   

In the end it was quite a learning experience, and if time and wife allows I will do another next year, knowing what to expect and how it feels.   In the meantime I am really ready for a couple more Oly's this year and I lost 35 lbs. in the process!

Good luck to you, stick with the plan, you'll do great.