I enjoy a rest day and quite like a weekend day off.
But, for someone with the time available, that’s a lovely skeleton of a training plan.
RE: THAT TRIATHLON SHOW
Interview with Alan Cozens (sp?) this week.
He believes anyone can Kona qualify (as do I)
But states most of his athletes who do are doing 850 hours per year
That’s an average of 16hrs per week…
10-12hrs in the off season, then rising to 22+hrs in the peak phase.
Now, I know it’s not sub10, more like sub9, but interesting to hear how it’s done.
Alan Couzens is super smart - his blog is a mine of good info. He is very scientific, one of the few coaches I think would genuinely add value to you
But yeah he does not mess around when it comes to commitment and he will drop you before you quit him if you are wasting his time ! Which I respect…
No double days, (unless you call my 15-20min ride to work “training”). I would say if you need a day off for any reason then pick a swim day. But I found them like a recovery day for the legs as I don’t believe in a strong kick, (but then I’m only a 65min swimmer at best). If you work Mon-Fri and you want to crack 10hrs then I don’t think having a day off every weekend is feasible.
And yes always run off the bike, that way it begins to feel normal. My previous plans set by a coach didn’t do enough of that and for me the difference was night and day come race day. In my previous 3 attempts my best run was 3:45 so I took over 30mins off the run alone. Lost 5mins in the swim so good trade off. My transitions were quick, better to coast on the bike and keep moving than have dead time in transition.
Yes, you only have to look at Alan Couzens’ training load recommendation for anyone doing an Ironman, to see that he expects total commitment. His drop-out or divorce rate must be high. This is his general Ironman recommendation below; so you can imagine if you start at 15h/week, what he has Kona aspirants on.
Yes, I like a rest day too, if nothing else it’s important to have family time at the weekend; not something everyone has to factor in.
I did note that the Kevin Coady 10h/week average plan for Ironman also doesn’t have a rest day. He claims you can go sub-10 on an average annual 10h/week. Check the thread on Slowtwitch.
If you’ve got several years of endurance sport behind you…
Don’t go telling that lot on IMJ that you can do it on 10 hours per week as a one and done, they’ll be following you like disciples before you’ve had a chance to say ‘He’s not the messiah’.
I really like Alan Couzens he and Gordo Byrn talk a lot sense. If I was going to get a coach he would be my first pick. Having a physiology and Sports Science degree (no, I wasn’t doing P.E. for 3 years at Uni.) I love the exercise physiology technicalities he gets into as well. He puts a lot of good content out there as well (like Gordo used to), which is rare. A lot of coaches give interviews or write blogs but don’t say much other general, largely obvious snippets.
Same structure I follow. Brett Sutton’s ideas?
I got a sub 11 at Wales out of that, which given my paltry genetic gifts I was very pleased with.
I’m almost 100% sure that with good execution I could go sub 10 if I did a ‘full’ training programme i.e. 15hrs a week avg for a few monthswith some big 18-20hour weeks in the build, but I simply can’t justify that level of commitment to the rest of my life
I should add I tried this for my first one and did 10.09 and made a whole load of rookie mistakes but I simply haven’t reached that level of overall fitness since.
No, I have no kids and an understanding partner! Having said that I haven’t done an IM since then, as I achieved my goal and didn’t have the motivation to put in that volume of training again to quite possibly go slower, as I was 40 at the time.
It was a training structure I made up based on what fitted in with my work etc and what I thought would help my, up until then, poor run off the bike.
I like to keep things simple as I think some plans can seem over complicated and therefore harder to stick to.
I think with such long events as IM, volume and consistency is key, as it’s not going really fast that matters, just not slowing down…
I tend to agree, particularly from recent IM run experiences! How you feel in the opening 5km of an Ironman marathon is normally very different to 20km in!
Without creating a new thread; what do you think difference is between an Open marathon and your IM run?
ie if your IM was cancelled on Saturday and on Sunday you ran London fresh, but after a typical IM build (which is different than saying if you quit Tri for a year and trained solely for a marathon)
