Day One --
I arrived pretty late at 10:30pm. We had breakfast the next day at 6:30 followed by a lecture then a swim. The lecture was about overall Ironman training etc.
Off to the swim, the swim workout was a simple set that included a 1300M warm up can you say crazy. I only did 400M of the warm plus the main set. I got in 3200M including rest sets in 60 minutes. The main set was pretty solid it went:
400M / 30" RI
4x100 / 30" RI
400M / 1' RI
300M / 30" RI
3x100 / 30" RI
300M / 1' RI
200M / 30" RI
2x100 / 30" RI
200M / 1' RI
100M / 30" RI
2x50 / 30" RI
100M / 1' RI
After that we went back to the hotel grabbed some food then Chris McDonald helped me put my bike together or I should say he did it and I watched. I guess one of the benefits of racing all the time is you learn to disassemble and reassemble your bike quickly. He did it in less than 15 minutes. The whole entire camp I was just in awe that I had the opportunity to workout with some of the best athletes in the world. Even some of the campers were Kona AG qualifiers too.
After lunch we had a short ride thru snow canyon, were we also did a lesson on descending down hills. This was my first taste of some of the scenic views St. George, Utah has to offer. It also included a nice 5 mile climb too. I was well into zone 3 during most of this climb. I was hoping I could do most of the climbing in zone 2 but I could tell this wasn't the case. I am pretty sure though my fitness will allow me to run in zone 3 on t he bike or the run for well over 2+ hours. I was running a compact crank up front - 50/34 and a 12/27 in the rear. My front derailleur's set screws were off and i couldn't use my 27 gear without scraping the chain. So I toughed it out. All the pics are at the end and on my Facebook page so those of you that on Facebook can view if you are my friend.
The descending lesson put on by Chris and Marylin McDonald was excellent. I can now say that I am fearless when I descend. I no longer use my brakes when riding down hill. A couple of key pointers that I got in my own words are as below, one is very visual so maybe I take a picture and include it so you can see it.
- The tires want to stick to the road. This is the visual one.
- You don't turn when descending you move your weight and body.
- You should put your outside foot at the bottom of the pedal stroke and put weight into, this helps to keep you from skidding away. It really works.
- Let your inside knee kick out when moving thru a curve just like the high speed motor bike guys do.
- Lastly if you have down both of those things and you are still feel like your slipping turn your head into the curve
- Also I already knew this one, but it really helps with speed wobble, use you knees to squeeze the top bar.
Read this link for the full article by Marylin McDonald
I was a little nervous about the ride on Saturday considering the hills were longer and the ride itself was longer. My roommate and I were both in the same boat. He had only done 1 Ironman as well and we were both worried everyone would drop us on Saturday's ride.
Friday concluded with a 5 mile transition run. I opted out of this because I really wanted to have a solid Saturday ride and not hinder that by running. We finished the night out with dinner at a great place. Everything but lunch on Friday was included in the cost of the camp. We had all our training nutrition covered, plus dinner both nights. Since we rode all day on Saturday we didn't really have lunch.
Day Two
On day two we would have 3 ride groups, a friendly group, peppy group, and a MAS peppy group. Since I had never ridden hills like this I decided to opt with the friendly group. We rode out at 7:15AM. Gordo took us to the start of the loop and we were off. I took the first loop very easy. I took some pictures and just got into a rhythm. Having never even drove the course I didn't know what was where. My first impressions were that it wasn't too bad. I rode the first loop so slow. It took me 3:09 minutes for the first loop. I missed the second aid station on the course and had to ride the second half of the course without water. Luckily it was mostly down hill and rolling hills. I got refueled shortly after the start of the second loop. We took some pictures here with a small group I was riding in. I was going really slow and I knew it too. The point of this ride was purely to scope out the course. However, I felt really strong on the second loop, so I decided I would push it up a notch and really start to ride. I had come to the conclusion on Friday that when riding these hills there would be no way for me to stay aerobic. So my plan would be to just keep my heart rate as low as possible and stay as fluid and relaxed while climbing. With that being said I will describe the loops the best I can.
Once the loop starts at Hwy 18 and Snow Canyon Rd, it is a steep 8% down hill, you can really move on this. No need to break the road is smooth no curves. Get some free speed here if you can. I got up to around 35mph on this road. Then its a few short rollers before you get thru town. Nothing hard. After you get thru town you start on HWY 91. This where the course goes out into the sticks. 2 lane roads, chip seal, but smooth chip seal if you are used to riding in Texas. It didn't bother me at all. However many of the other folks (most people except like 3 were from Southern and Northern California, the others were from Boulder, CO) complained about the chip seal. As you venture further into the loop, there is a great deal of false flats. These are deceiving. You don't feel like you're climbing, but you really are. They keep coming at you too. Basically when you look at the course map on the website or seen below. The real climbing doesn't start until you get to about mid way up the the left hand side of the loop is where the big climbs are. There are really only 2 big climbs on the course. But don't let that fool you. The course is still really hard from the rollers and the false flats. The hardest part of the course takes about little under an hour to ride. I clocked this on my second loop when I was riding significantly faster. Remember I rode the first loop in 3:09 and the second in 2:26. Huge negative split. I anticipate a bike split well over 6 hours for this course. Gordo's comments were that only the really good pro's would break 5 hours on the bike. Chris McDonald also said that this is one of the hardest courses he has ever done, including France, New Zealand, Louisville, Wisconsin, and Placid. Chris McDonald said he would be around 4:50++ on the bike course here in St. George. Its tough. The hardest climb was a total of 8 minutes long. I rode a 34 - 27 gearing on this hill and my HR still jumped up to 160 on the bike. A big topic of the weekend was discussing power / HR / Pace / and RPE. I plan on buying a power meter for this course and using it to train. I don't think I will be running my aero wheels either on this course. No reason to.
Day Three
Day three was run focused. All I have to say is that it is the hilliest run course I have ever done. I have ran the Austin marathon and that is a joke compared to this course. It seems like you are running up hill the entire time. Both ways, out and back. There are down hills, but in reality they killed me as much as the up hills.
My plan for this course is simple, this is what I got from my weekend, and working with the other coaches. Since I am doing Lake Placid approx 11 weeks after my schedule will be simple. This is a race of endurance, strength, and durability as Gordo says.
After my Ultra 50k race on 12/5/09 I will spend the rest of December doing weight training, hiking with a weighted back pack, and riding big every weekend with hill repeats at the end of each ride, plus Yoga and Swimming. Then January will then be the same thing but I will start to do my runs strictly on hills. I will continue to do big rides as often as possible, and maintain strength training at least 2 - 3 times per week. I am also going to alter my strength training plan to really try to build muscle in these first 2.5 months. I want a good strength to weight ratio for this course, I also want to be durable and injury free. I will be doing as much riding as possible for this course. Swimming will be a once a week or twice a week. Maybe I will pick a few weeks to back off on the biking and do a swim focus week. Not really sure yet, but all I can say is I have a challenge ahead of me training for this course in Dallas. We have no HILLS.... Hope you enjoyed this report.
I'll try this link see if it works for photos of Utah : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2392572&id=9414770&l=5b443a0bfd
