Feb 19, 2017 5:46 am

Good morning,

It is snowing outside right now. Temp is still mild so it will be a slushy mess today. Having my morning coffee and then off to the pool. My main set today in 3 x (10 x 100) = 3000 m. Sundays are my long swim days. With warm up and cool down I should be somewhere between 3400 and 3800 depending on how motivated I am.

Had a nice ride outside yesterday. On the fat tire bike you don’t go very fast but I got out for a 70 min ride and followed it up with a 20 min run on the treadmill. It is nice having such great weather in February. Hopefully we get an early spring.

THE BIKE

The second event is the bike. In an IRONMAN you bike 180 km. 

The course at CDA is rolling. I remember that there isn’t much flat, you are either going up or going down. The course is a figure 8 course. You go out in one direction, come back through town, head out the other way, come back again through town and then repeat once more. On the first out and back I remember a long climb but it didn’t seem as steep as a Richter Pass ( or as long ). You do it twice though so the second time through it is a grind.

It is a great course for spectators because the athletes come through town twice so you are always watching someone ride by. It is a pretty course as well. Nice country side. It is a nice area. Very beautiful.

What is the key to ride 180 km? Getting in the mileage. Getting use to sitting in the saddle for 7 or 8 hours. Our time to ride outside feels so limited. If we are lucky we will be outside early April. 5 months max to ride outside prior to race day. When you are able to ride outside, you better be ready so the indoor rides are very important. I was once told that you should be able to get outside and ride 90 – 100 km right off the hop. In 2004, my first outside ride was 127 km. My sit bones were sore for a week:-) Another key is losing weight. Lighter is always better. I don’t want to sacrifice too much strength but I do want to be around 185 or lighter on race day. In 2008 I was 203 lbs and my bike time was just under 8 hours. I think if I can work on my speed, get the mileage in and lose weight I can get under 7 hours.

Another over looked area on the bike is NUTRITION. You have to have a plan for taking in the proper amount of calories during the bike. If you don’t you will suffer on the bike but where you pay the ultimate price is on the run. If you don’t fuel up properly on the bike it is too late to do it on the run.

The formula I have used in my last two IRONMANs is you take your weight and divided it in half and that number is the amount of carbs you need to take in on an hourly basis. In 2008 I was 203 lbs so I rounded and said that I needed to take in 100 carbs per hour. What does that look like? That is where the plan comes in. I had every hour broken down on what I needed to take in via drink and food. DO NOT EXPERIMENT WITH FOOD AT THE RACE! Do not try anything new on race day. Try it out on training days. In 2008, I thought I would try fig newtons on one of my training rides. I wasn’t 20 km and I was in the bush. Those fig newtons went right through me fast! Never used them again.

I used bananas, Gatorade, power gels, jelly beans. I will dig up my old nutrition plans and revisit it before I start getting out for 2 hour rides. If I remember correctly, I would take in one water bottle that had a scoop of Gatorade in it, plus 2 power gels for example. Whatever I needed to get to 100 carbs. Repeat that for 7 -8 hours. That is a lot of food and drink!

When you are deciding what to use as part of your nutrition program use foods and drink you love. The reason you pick items you love is that when the training and the race are over you will only like those items. Never pick items you just “like” or even “dislike”. You will grow tired of eating or drinking them and you will crash. You won’t take them in while on the bike.

Nutrition is often considered the 4th Event. I am alway surprised on how many people wing it on nutrition. I am lucky, I love to eat. I can eat at any time and eat pretty much anything so I have no trouble loading up during the bike. I have had 2 strong runs in my previous IRONMANs I attribute most of that success to taking in the proper carbs on the bike.

I think the bike is where I can make the most improvement so that is where I have spent my time. Bike and Diet.

Got to go get ready to swim. Hope the pool isn’t busy this a.m. EVERYONE SLEEP IN.

Scott