Fink for outlaw 2013

There's arguments both ways MW22 but I'd strongly suggest you train in the zones you will be racing in. That will not be Zones 4 and 5 that's for sure! Be disciplined and stick to zone 2. You will get quicker at that hr believe me. It's hard for everyone at the beginning (my Z2 run hr is currently @ 10m/mi!) The point is that your ratio of glycogen vs fat usage is much greater at higher intensity. You cannot consume enough calories to keep this going for an IM. You can alter this ratio by keeping the intensity down so that more of your energy comes from the fat reserves. The more you train at this intensity the more efficient you become at utilising your fat stores.

Ok thanks Badger.. thats kinda the information I was after.

Having never done any longer rides (in the great outdoors) with HR monitored I hadn't really considered what zone I'd be in for the full distance.

So I can take on board the energy from fat comments... something I need to train the body to do - so will incorporate that.

You touch on the other point "I will get quicker at that HR". How much?? I appreciate that is entirely subjective... but what kinda of returns have you seen?

I commute by bike all week so I can easily tone down the rides there... just need to get my head around going slower to go faster!

Thanks

MW22 - if your doing a half in under 5 hours id say fook the HR zones and keep training how you are

Just a quick point - do the Garmin zones actually correspond with the Fink ones? I'd guess not if they have five for a start - so read the chapter where Fink explains why training in the correct zone is important and then input the correct zones into your Garmin might not change much but could well explain the discrepancy 

 Thanks DK - made me laugh.

Hmmm..... very valid point Little Miss..... was just making assumptions with all this HR stuff. I will go investigate.

Cheers

Yep Garmins also use %HRR which is different to %HR. Thankfully you can set them via just BPM for the zones so at least you can work out the fink HR zones and what the BPM are for the top and bottom for each zone and set it that way.

I set my garmin zones 1-4 to match fink using BPM and then Z5 I set at 95%-100% HRR as Garmin wanted a 5th zone to be happy and that was all that wasn't already used up, I don't intend to use it!

Did take me a couple of hours to work it all out though.

When I did my marathon training my Z2 run times improved by a massive 2 mins per mile. But then for me that is only going for 12 min miles to 10 min miles.

I guess quicker people would see less of a jump?

Ali I've been doing my HR since Nov but then I had 3-4 weeks off for a cold start to see and improvement then came the snow then the stress of dad so I'm still doing Z2 about the same speed to be honest. Only keeping it up as it's currently keeping me sane and allowing me to get out lots but when I think my HR goes up! Sounds silly but even if you think you are changing nothing but letting the mind wander it does make a difference!!

51mins (2k) swim done. Very lack lustre but hey 2nd session of the say and I did a brick yesterday and I didn't sleep.

I figure that training when tired is good practice for the marathon on THE day as that will be done when tired!

I'm hoping I will sleep tonight now. Should really be planning for my lessons tomorrow but I am tired and need to either do 90mins on the turbo or a 60 min run tomorrow before work. Door handle planning again - plan as you walk into the room!!

Fink is all about building 7 months of base training, then throwing in some speed work to keep the body guessing. You will get faster over the 7 months.

That said, DK also has a valid point. At the pointy end I'm led to believe they reverse-periodise. They get the speed work done first to the race pace, then they add the endurance on afterwards to stretch race pace to however long it takes to do the each leg.

Before starting IM training in Dec2011 I did my first mara in Oct (started training in July). So a fair few months base training, which has stood me in good stead for the speed work I started back in Oct 2012.

Also it is likely that your turbo HR is higher at a given speed than on the road due to cooling. Of course, on the road there may be a stonking wind like Outlaw last year...

this morning was not happening too sleepy and stayed in bed not wanting the day to start

feel guilty now at not training!

Ep.no time for guilt in the week..just move on.sometimes we need to be sensible and rest..I did that on monday and then Tuesdays training went really well........i might fit in the missed sessions on my rest day on saturday or I might not......doesn't matter as they were not my loing sessions.good luck for you .xxx

Hoping for a break in the rain so i can get out on the bike

+1 on that.... don't chase lost sessions. The plan is solid enough to allow you to miss a few bits through illness/life/work/family etc.

IronCat5 in the Hat wrote (see)

That said, DK also has a valid point. At the pointy end I'm led to believe they reverse-periodise. They get the speed work done first to the race pace, then they add the endurance on afterwards to stretch race pace to however long it takes to do the each leg.

its not just that Cat, last year i didnt do a lot of speed work thanks to Fink and lost a load of speed so this year i put the speed work in from the start and it is working. One consideration is that speedwork is normally associated with injury and i dont want to train for 5 months then get injured just before my race, by putting in the speed sessions early any injury that is likely would come to a head months before your big day. Obviously im not saying for newbies to go out and trash themselves but MW22 dont fall into that category

spoken to mum and temporarily AWOL

take care folks

30mins on turbo & 15min run yesterday, utterly pants swim & 30 min run today.  I'm thinking "Just Finish" is an accurate description!

I know this goes against the fink programme but i've been continuing to put in the speed sessions, hill e.t.c once a week with the running club, the rest of the sessions i'm doing as per fink. I'm doing it thinking that it will support doing some quicker stuff later in the plan.

Good debate on speed work. I did none last year as an IM newbie, even when Fink started dropping it in, I didn't really do much.

This year I have a base plan with much more in. Time will tell what it does for performance but it is working in terms of weight loss and general motivation.

I think the high intensity stuff gets the happy exercise chemicals going.

Like Tired Badger, Ive been doing 1 session a week of speedwork with the tri club, It's a session I always enjoy and thats more important than following the plan to the letter.

rest of my training is all done at lower intensity though, I like low intensity, if I didnt train with others occassionally I probably would pretty much only do low intensity stuff. guess that's why i'm training for ironman distance and not sprint.

Fingers crossed EP.

I guess TB and MW will likely finish and think that 30 weeks was too long. They'll probably find out that it isn't about the bike, but about the run. I think if you're already doing half-mara distances or longer, with speedwork then the Fink running may not need to be followed.

Of course, the added stress of swimming 3 x a week and loads of cycling may cause the running to be scaled back. I had a few weeks where I'd have to run off a hard bike, only to have to spin out the hard run and so on.

Luckily sprints for me this year!

MW22
For a solid sub 12 IM, speed work is pointless until you can knock out the ironman basic week without it killing you.

Once you have built your endurance to do that at z2 effort, then you can start to through some faster efforts in

Basic IM week in build period

• 75 m swim
• 6 hr bike
• 2.5 hr run

These are in seperate sessions accross the week.
If these wipe you out then just keep building base endurance

If these feel ok, start adding 30 min steady blocks into the runs, or 3*30 min upper z2 on the bike.

In the mean time, do at least 1 interval / turbo session a week,  This complements the long ride, adding power to the muscular endurance from the long ride.

Lastly, how have you set your zones?  Ones based straight on a % of max hr are as likely to e wrong as right.
Friel uses a 30 min functional test (max sustainable hr for 30 mins) to give a baseline then you plug that figure into a table and it gives you z1- z5 etc etc
You need to seperate tests for running and biking
And you need to repeat these on a monthly basis as things change.

This is quite a good read I found today about the benefits of base training and why it works
base training