Picture above: me swimming from one of Richard Branson’s private islands to his other one, with a person greeting from Sir Richard himself.   I highly recommend that “vacation workout”  next time you are in the British Virgin Islands 🙂

One of the biggest challenges as a triathlon coach is dealing with unrealistic expectations, such as athletes thinking they can achieve a personal best in a race even if they took a long vacation with a big gap in their training in the middle of their race build.    read more

It actually worked!   Back in November, I came up with the idea that I wanted to try to qualify for Kona on a 10 hours per week training plan.  Fast forward to May… and I won my age group at Ironman Santa Rosa with a time of 9:26 and qualified for Kona.

The goal was never to show that lower volume training is the best way to train. It’s not.   And it is DEFINITELY not a “how to qualify for Kona” post– if you have never qualified for Kona, your best bet will be with a higher volume plan.   (TriForcer Tom Glynn just took 3rd in his AG and qualified for Kona at Ironman Texas, and he did 16-20 hours for most of his training weeks, a more “typical” KQ plan)   The goal is to show you how you can be almost as fast as if you did a “full” training plan if you are on a smart lower volume plan.

Here’s the full saga:

Part 1: The 10 Hours Per Week Plan.  This is where I lay out some of the basic concepts, tools and workouts that can be useful for busy athletes in creating a lower volume training plan for Ironman.

Part 2: Notes on the first half of my IMSR training.   This is the first half of the build or so where I was strictly under 10 hours every week.    If you are a busy triathlete looking to train for Ironman I hope you’ll get some useful ideas from the article.

Part 3: The Second Half of my IMSR training.   My training had a physical and emotional dip due to injury then I got into “phase 2” of my Ironman training – the final push where I had 5 bigger weeks of over 10 hours, followed by the taper.

Part 4: It Worked!  Ironman Santa Rosa Race Report- 1st AG, Kona Qualification 9:26 finish time on 9 hours 50 minutes / week average over the course of the build!   Mission accomplished- I think I was almost as fast as if I had done a “full” plan, which was the goal.

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Holy cow– it worked!   I followed a 10 hours per week training plan to get ready for IMSR.  I did it as an experiment and a learning experience to make me a better coach.  The goal wasn’t to PR, but I was hoping to be almost as fast as if I had done a “full” training plan.   Mission accomplished!

For more about my build, read about about the first half of my training and the second half of my training + taper.

Goal

My goal was simple– qualify for Kona on 10 hours per week so I don’t look like an idiot for writing a bunch of articles about how I’m trying to do that with the conclusion being that I failed!  I figured it would take a top 4 finish, so that was my goal.  I felt a 9:30 should be safe and might even be good for a win, but I thought that even being a good bit slower than that would give me a good chance for 4th (I was wrong about that- our AG was much deeper with talent than I thought with 8 guys sub 9:35).

Pre Race

Race week was restful since I was still carrying a decent amount of fatigue from the final build.   I snapped out of healing mode a couple days out and was feeling good.   The major problem was that my psoas was a mess (I aggravated it at the end of my build) and I couldn’t run more than a few miles without it flaring up.   I was just hoping that race week rest + race day adrenaline would get me through the race.

The night before I had my usual Micky D’s pre race dinner: quarter pounder with cheese, small cheeseburger, McChicken and large fries.   Go ahead, laugh. 🙂 But for whatever reason it works for me– I have done this before 3 Ironman races and have 2 AG wins + a 3rd place.  So now I’m basically stuck doing it for the rest of my life.

I have a similarly relatively heavy breakfast (breakfast potatoes, eggs, bacon).  I’ll be doing all liquids (or blocs) for the rest of the race and I think my body will be happier with some real food to start the day.

Swim 1:00:07 (PR, 6th place in AG, PR)

My swim fitness wasn’t as strong as previous builds so I knew I had be humble and to swim smart.  I wasn’t nearly  fit enough to “brute force” myself to a good swim time so I had to be wiley.  I seeded myself in the middle of the sub 1 hour group, which due to rampant time inflation by everyone is the right spot even though I figured I’d be closer to a 1:02.

I relaxed and got “pulled out” in the rolling start.   The goal was to draft 100% of the time, which I more or less did.   About half way through the first loop I found a great set of feet– exactly the right speed, sighting reasonably well, with a relaxed 2 beat kick that was easy to follow.  He even had a yellow decal on the bottom of his wetsuit leg so I could find him when we hit bad traffic.  I followed him for the rest of loop 1 and we got out of the first loop in 29:37.

In the 2nd loop I kept following the same guy– WHAT A STUD HE WAS!   He was weaving between the slow swimmers on loop 1 like a champ and if anything it felt like he was picking up the pace.   My attitude was to stay on his feet at all costs and I managed it even through some nasty traffic.   If you were that guy, I owe you a beer!

I got out of the swim in just over an hour feeling good.

T1: 5:20 – I moved up to 4th.

A reasonably fast / smooth T1.

Bike 5:02- staying in 4th place.

Similar to the swim, I knew I had to adjust my riding somewhat based on the fact that I wasn’t overly fit.

The one key for me was to coast and back off at higher speeds (27+ mph).  I racked up 50 minutes of time during the race at under 50% of FTP– so basically 50 minutes of recovery mixed into the ride.   Based on the gap to the people around me while I was coasting, I lost little to no time, so it was well worth it.

Bike Part 1: First 25% of the race (until Chalk Hill).  Plan was to “warm up” 209 NP. read more

I’m halfway through  my 10 hours per week Ironman Training experiment!     The goal is to qualify for Kona on a minimalist training  plan.   I’ll stick to 10 hours per week of training until 6 weeks out from the taper.  Once I hit that point I’ll see where I’m at how much “extra” I want to add in order to be ready to go the distance.      So far, I’m loving the plan and it’s  working (surprisingly) well, especially the bike training.   The only area of concern is my run durability / endurance (and injuries).   If you are a busy athlete I hope you’ll get some useful information in this update to try in your own training plan.

(UPDATE: Spoiler alert: IT WORKED!!!!!  I won my age group with a time of 9:26 and qualified for Kona!)

First off, I’m LOVING this training.

Before I get into the numbers and get all goal oriented (as we triathletes tend to do), let me say how much I’m enjoying the training.

• The thing I love most about this plan is only training once per day (especially since it is February!).   It makes life so much simpler.
• The once per day training and the reduced hours has made me much more productive.  I have much more energy for work, family and friends.
• I also really enjoy the workouts.  While some people love to go out and ride 100 miles at an endurance effort I’ve always preferred just to crank it for 2-3 hours at more of a race-like effort.  And I love running fast off the bike, so the threshold brick run and the IM effort brick runs are a fun challenge.   It might not be for everyone (we have a few TriForcers who love to go out and ride long every weekend), but it suits me.

That’s not to say that I don’t love “big training” sometimes.   One of my favorite memories as a triathlete is when I did two 27 hour weeks in a row (of HARD) training with Brett Sutton and his pros back in 2016.  I just like to keep training like that as an occasional “treat.”  🙂

The Hours

I’ve been averaging 8 hours / week over the last 90 days with most weeks between 8-10 hours and a biggest week of 10.5 hours.

There are 6 key areas I’m focusing on to be ready to qualify for Kona.

OK, here are the numbers we love so much.    I’m guessing I need to go sub 9:30 which means swim around 1 hour, bike around 5 hours, run around 3:20.    If my “IM effort” swim is around 1:25 / 100 yards, “IM effort” bike is around 210 watts, and “IM effort run” is around 7:30 then I should be there.   By “IM effort” I mean power / pace at the perceived exertion and heart rate where I usually race Ironman.    I still have to be fit enough / have the endurance / overall strength to do it, which is the hard part.    In addition to my swim, bike and run I’m focusing on my weight, fixing my chronic injury issues, and also making sure my bike is set up well and reliable (last year I dropped my chain about 10x because of a wonky 1x setup).

I qualified for Kona last year on “regular” training– can I do it again on a minimal plan?

If I check these 6 boxes (and feel reasonably good on race day) I have an excellent chance of qualifying:

Here are my top updates / lessons half way through the plan (10 weeks left):

1.   The Week Setup Works Surprisingly Well for Me.      

My body is responding very well to the extra recovery in the program vs. a “regular” plan.   Because of the 2 bricks in the plan, I have 3 “no legs” (swim only) days in the plan.  The challenging brick days are pretty “race like” and fatiguing– having the swim days immediately afterwards is letting my body absorb the training.   As a result I’m improving pretty steadily as opposed to when I try to “add extra” — which results in more frequent fatigue.   My speed and power have been better with this setup vs. the last couple of years on a more traditional plan with higher volume.   The only question is whether this setup will result in the overall strength, endurance and durability to “go the distance.”    At this point I’d say the swim obviously will (it’s more or less regular swim training), the bike is already pretty darn close to ready to go the distance strong,  BUT the run has a way to go (see #3)

An example week from a few weeks ago.  The swim-only days (Tues, Thurs, Sat) have been allowing me to recover well from the hard bricks.    

2. The Focused Indoor “Long” Rides Work read more

I first published my original "sub 10 Ironman in 10 hours per week" article back in 2010.   The article described the type of training I did to go 9:21 at IM Switzerland when I was working during the day and going to school at night.  This is an updated and improved version of the plan for 2019. 

With many TriForcers having kids and with their lives becoming increasingly busy we now focus so much more in providing time efficient Ironman triathlon training for busy triathletes who want to perform at a high level. read more

The human body is amazing. If you keep gradually adding more and more stress, the body will adapt and get stronger and stronger. BUT ONLY IF YOUR BODY IS IN AN ADAPTIVE STATE. If you are not in an adaptive state, you might be able to train, but you won't ABSORB the training well and you won’t get faster.

You are likely NOT in an adaptive state if you are: * burning the candle at both ends * sleep deprived * on an irregular sleep schedule * dehydrated * stressed out * having a negative attitude * under fueled (not enough calories) * undernourished (not enough nutrients) read more

In honor of Father’s Day, I’m writing up my training strategy and race report for Escape From Alcatraz, which took place 10 weeks after the birth of my first child! At the outset, it was unclear how much time and energy I would have for training during this period, so my coach Kevin Coady and I appropriately termed this The New Dad Experiment.

But first, a disclaimer:

this post is not meant to be a brag about how little training I did in the lead up to Escape From Alcatraz.  read more