Week 10 of Ironman Prep Training Phase - 08/23/2010 (TAPER!!)

"The hay is in the barn"


"The money is in the bank"


Whatever you want to call it, after 33 weeks of focused Ironman training to build my fitness, I have begun to back things off and let the body recover enough (but not too much!) to carry me to a successful Ironman Wisconsin finish on September 12th.  The work I've done (the "hay" or "money" if you will) has been both very challenging and enjoyable.  I've never been in better shape but I can't help feeling like I could have done more...welcome to the taper!

Even though week 10 is the beginning of a 3 week taper it didn't feel like much of a reduction in the work.  I was still feeling pretty fatigued, especially early in the week, but it sure was nice to only have a 90' "long" run and a 3 hour "long" ride as my key workouts.  However, the intensity of the sessions was still very much there.

My goals for the week were as follows:

• Quality sleep/rest (let the body heal and don't do anything stupid to cause an injury or illness)
• Quality nutrition (maintain body composition in light of less calories being burned)
• Start organizing for race week (create checklists)
• Prepare the mind (mental run-throughs of the race and prepare for the obstacles that will come, i.e. fatigue, pain, weather, mechanicals, etc.)

Here's the day-by-day view of the training I did for the week followed by a summary of the week's data:


Monday: 3,000 yard swim with 1,200 yards of all-out sprinting.  Nice to have a day off of running and biking - legs needed it!


Tuesday: 90' bike with 2 x 20' intervals at FTP.  Was hoping to put in a final FTP test but power meter still having issues.  Rode mostly on feel and heart rate.


Wednesday: Swim redemption: my weekly 1.6 mile open water swim route done in a new PR of 40:18. Makes up for Saturday's embarrassing performance.  Then a solid 8 mile run with 3 x 1 mile at threshold: 5:59, 5:51, 5:57. Perfect weather helps create a strong & enjoyable run.


Thursday: 90' very enjoyable run in perfect weather (finally!): 13.2 miles with 6 miles right on marathon pace & remainder at easy pace.


Friday: 3,000 yard endurance swim in the early morning followed by an easy 40' recovery run with some strides.  Feeling the effects of the taper now!


Saturday: 3 hour solid ride with 4 mile brick run. Still having power meter hub issues so bad data. Gotta get this solved ASAP with Ironman only 2 weeks away!!


Sunday: 2 hour steady effort ride on one of my favorite routes followed by another 4 mile brick run.  Feeling good out there!

Totals for the week:


Training duration: 12:29
Time spent at or above FTP on the bike: Power meter issues so no accurate data for this metric this week, but probably somewhere around 60'
Time spent at or below lactate threshold pace on the run: 34'
Avg bike intensity factor (% of FTP): Power meter issues so no accurate data for this metric this week
Mileage: 154 miles (Swim: 9.6K, Bike: 140 miles, Run: 34 miles)
Training Stress Score (TSS): ~935 (estimate since power meter was on the fritz)
Chronic Training Load (CTL): 144.7 (only down 3 TSS/day since last week=not much of a taper yet!)
Training Stress Balance (TSB): -5.5 (up 7 TSS pts from last week)
Weight: 168.0
Functional Threshold Power (FTP): 295
Vdot: 56


Performance Management Chart through week 10 of Ironman Prep Training: