Its hard to believe how fast time flies. We are less than a week out from the IronMan and I am wrapping up final prep and tapering really nicely. My training numbers were low by design this week, allowing my body to recover after a long 6 month training campaign.
I also went for a 90 minute sports massage earlier today. Chis O’Hara at Superior Sports Massage (Hermosa Beach) was excellent and targeted the session specifically to my training volume and goals leading up to next week’s event. Through targeted pressure work, that 90 minute session significantly enhanced my blood circulation reducing muscle tension and soreness. A sports massage also promotes the removal of waste products and toxins while delivering fresh oxygen and nutrients to the muscle tissue.
One of the common questions I get asked is what my target time is to finish the IronMan. I am competitive by nature and enjoy taking on difficult tasks, so I am going to Santa Rosa to not just finish the event, but to race…for better or worse! That being said, ill share my goals here to hold myself accountable to my performance next week.
My target goals (swim, bike, run, and total) for next weekend are below, described in 4 letter grades. I am assuming a standard T1 of 8 minutes and a T2 of 5 minutes, which may give me some margin. This will be my first IronMan branded event and by far the biggest event in terms of number of participants and also transition zone sizes. The T-1 and T-2 zones will be quiet a bit bigger than the previous events I have done. Im also using a simple assumption of average pace (seconds/100 yards for the swim, miles/hour for the bike, and minutes/mile for the run). Nevertheless, doing a rough calculation of target times will be helpful during the event to gauge how I am doing.
The A goal is in my opinion (at this point in my triathlon ‘career’) only attainable if I do not have any mechanical (bike) or other problems that force me to stop for certain amounts of time. If I want a chance at getting to the A+ goal, ill have to visit some dark places to summon that type of speed at this point in my triathlon experience.
Looking at the performance management data (see T-11 week write-up) chart above, things are coming together nicely. As of 06 May, my Training Stress Score (TSS) is 109, mostly owing to the shorter but harder paced (at or above my FTP) workouts from yesterday. After an 8 mile run this morning at an average slightly below race-pace, my Intensity Factor (IF) is floating around 0.80. The Acute Training Load (ATL), a rolling average of TSS over the last 7 days is a bit high, due to again the shorter and more intense workouts I had across the last week. This ATL will drop as I take the foot off the accelerator for a bit coasting into race week. Combined Training Load (CTL), an overall measure of my fitness, is right where it should and peaking at the right time looking at a time trace over the past few weeks. Training Stress Balance (TSB), or the degree of freshness, is trending in the right direction. Ideally I would need to be between a -5 and a +10 on race day (much lower than that and you are burned out, much higher than that and you lost fitness). I have another 6 days to bring that up from where it is currently sitting at -16.
Numbers for the week are below, a nice easy week before race week starts. I’m excited to race next weekend and want to thank everyone again from the bottom of my heart for supporting this fundraiser and for all the kind words of encouragement.