Ironman Preparation Part I

This is the first instalment of 3, on how to prepare for Ironman.The advice will work for all levels and abilities. It is a tried and tested formula, which works.

Part I is all about the basic preparation and being ready for the key phase of training.

Part II will guide you through the key phase of training. Weeks 9-5.

Part III is the taper and race day. Weeks 4 to race day.

Most Ironmen in training see, to love longer the long hours, doing big weekends and generally nuking themselves into what they hope will be a great race. This is not what I would recommend for most athletes.

All the training that is done before the last 9 weeks is to prepare you for the last 9 weeks of training. So those BIG weekends should be saved for weeks 9-5 weeks out form the race. The odd one or two will do no harm as they will boost your confidence in covering long distances, but you have to recover well after them.

What you should be doing is putting together a basic week that you can keep repeating week in and week out. If you can do this you will gradually get stronger and faster. This is true for all distances of triathlon; the difference is what are the KEY components for that distance. For Ironman the KEY components are aerobic endurance and muscular endurance and efficiency.

Aerobic Endurance will benefit from a long swim, bike and run a week at an easy pace. The duration of these can slowly increase every 2-3 weeks. There is no need to be swimming more than 90mins, biking 4.5hrs or running more than 2hrs. In fact these are great targets to have achieved say 10-12 weeks out.

Muscular Endurance is improved by training with extra resistance. This can take the form of paddles in the pool, over gearing on the bike and running a hilly route. Whilst doing a muscular endurance session don’t let the heart rate get too high. Keep you heart rate between 30-40 beats below your maximum for that sport, or a steady pace. This has the added benefit that it will help improve your lactate threshold. Going harder won’t help you get faster it will just make you tired. Instead increase the time spent doing muscular endurance.

Efficiency in all three sports is paramount. If you are not efficient you will be wasting energy and with a marathon to run after 6-9hrs of exercising you need to spare every calorie you can. Good technique will lead itself to being efficient. This is where an experienced coach is needed. A little time spent being shown how to improve your technique in all 3 disciplines is worth it. It will probably make more difference to your race day performance than that extra light carbon widget or $$ on gels, bars and drinks.

So what might an average week look like: -

Monday (Recovery Day from the weekend)

Technique based swim & easy bike ride with high cadence.

Tuesday

Steady hilly run 45mins –1hr15 (30-40beats below max on the hills).

Wednesday

Long swim –2-5km

Turbo – 6-8 x 3mins in a big gear (30-40beats below max), with 1min recovery

Thursday

Long run 1-2hrs at an easy pace

Friday – rest or easy swim / bike

Saturday

Swim – 10-15 x 100 pull bouy and paddles with 15s rest at a steady pace

Bike 3-4.5hrs easy pace, steady on any hills.

Sunday

Easy bike – 1-2 hrs

Easy run 30-60mins (inc technique drills + strides)

Start with a week that you can complete and repeat. Make small increases in the length on the longer sessions and the amount of the muscular endurance work you can do. Take an easy week every 4-5 weeks where you just cut you normal training in half. It’s that simple. Keep this rolling until you are 11-10 week away from the big day and back off the training; spend time with the family and friends before embarking on the final phase, (6 weeks of specific preparation and 3 week of tapering).

10 – recovery (so you start the specific preparation fresh and motivated).

9 – specific preparation 1

8 - specific preparation 2

7 – recovery

6 – specific preparation 3

5 - specific preparation 4

4 – recovery

3 – taper 1

2 – taper 2