Training is going great, less than a month out from IM California. Time in the pool hasn’t been great, but I’m feeling ok with that as it is what it is. I’ve already pre-swam the course and it’s FAST so I’m not overly worried about it. Stats for the month:
Swim: 17k yds, 5 hours.
Bike: 425 miles, 24 hours.
Run; 95 miles, 15 hours.
I’m on a recovery week this week, thankfully because I’m pretty cooked from last week. Next week is my last big week and then it’s taper time!
September was a good month…able to complete progressively more difficult workouts in all sports. Ran a 15K and despite not pacing well got 3rd in my age group. Had a half marathon scheduled for October but cancelled due to hurricane damage. Have a cycling race mid October, and in mid November targeting a weekend of run racing with 5K and 10K on Saturday and half marathon on Sunday. Seriously considering a 140.6 for 2025 but may need some talking into it.
Stats from the month…
Run: 14:47:00, 128 km
Bike: 25:01:00, 707 km
Swim: 7:18, 20400 m
TSS: 2927
Thanks for the roll call and good luck to everyone else.
I was cleared by my neurosurgeon to start backstroke and sidestroke, also can start doing very light weight training on machines only. He also cleared me to do Ironman Maryland next year and is encouraing me to chase the Kona slot. Last month I was able to do 120 miles of cycling and 75 miles of walking.
Thanks for the roll call!
September was a fun month for me and the end of my season.
Totals, including Ironman 70.3 Tri-Cities
Swim: 5:16:15, 16,087 yards
Bike: 22:51:53, 314.90 miles
Run: 9:13:25, 60.26 miles
70.3 Tri-Cities was a great course and I am glad I did it even though I had started the year planning just to do some cross country mountain biking and one Xterra race. I know I would enjoy going back to Richland in better shape and seeing how much I could improve my finish time there.
Starting this week, I made an off season shift to a low volume Olympic distance plan with weightlifting added four times a week. I’m feeling the DOMS from lifting after slacking on the weights for quite a while.
Good luck to everyone with the rest of their race season!
After ramping up in August I didn’t hold on to consistency in September. My first planned 70.3 simulation was underwhelming, 36min pool swim was okay given I’ve chosen to sacrifice swim for run, but my bike effort I backed off at 45km and cruised in for 3h10 and felt too shagged for the run.
Running is still, bizarrely, going backwards. I’m tempted to bail but will carry on to my next 70.3 sim on Kona day, then decide on a November marathon attempt.
My mind is already on winter, so I need to focus on the here and now to find late season success.
Just back from the pool for my new CSS test. 400m in 7:45 / 200m in 3:35
That is 1min faster then last month (and 2min when I started 2 months ago) for 400m, and 32s faster on the 200m.
Total hours September:
Still building the run volume slowly…
I love the change of approach to fulfil a life goal 
Swim is not amazing. Between 1:50-2:00 per 100m. Regardless of what I try it seems to stay fairly consistently the same.
Your experience is similar to mine, I was a 1:45-1:50/100 for years. A couple years back did 1 session with a coach, dropped to 1:38/100. This year my best CSS test came in at 1:35/100, so not much different. I think the real path for success is working with a coach. I’m thinking this winter I may spend more time working technique and worry less about actual yards in the pool. Turning out yards doesn’t seem to do much for me regarding getting faster.
Is there to be a new thread for 2025? I have just signed for my first Ironman. Ironman Wales 2025. I will be doing it to raise money for cancer charity having been diagnosed with prostate cancer about this time last year and having prostate surgery on 28 February 2024.
Do you guys/girls do strength training? Why asking? Because I don’t do any of that stuff. Just did cycling the past 5 years only. On my tri journey that started 2 months ago for 70.3 in '25. Do now 3 runs a week of 35min…building slowly and 3 swims.
Next week start more dedicated (am doing zwift FRR stage racing so more bike work) with main focus run, swim and also start strength work, or is it not necessary?
Free time will be for cycling. 3 times (maybe 4) a week. But how should I maintain my bike fitness? (because I normally do 12h cycling a week). Z2, sweetspot, LT1? I don’t want to loose that much bike fitness…
I do strength work 2x a week immediately after swim,
I’m traveling down from Washington to Phoenix next weekend and hoping to get down to Tucson for a day to climb Mount Lemmon. Planning to drive down in the morning and start by LeBuzz. Is there a good place I can get changed into my kit? Is there anywhere to fill water bottles on the climb? Or do I need to plan on carrying everything from the start? Are there any restrooms on the route?
Thanks!
Yup
Training for Ironman man is an all year/lifestyle thing 
so this thread is for this years training regardless of when the race is 
Strength can be hard to include in a busy schedule particularly heavy lifting.
I would focus on swim bike run as you’re new and get that down, solid and consistent.
If you have other specific reasons for wanting to include strength, I’d look at doing some body weight before or after an SBR workout; planks before a swim, eccentric calf raises after a run, lunges before a bike.
For heavy lifting I’d look to get into that in your off season.
Dagnabbit I’m out.
Was training for a self supported 70.3 on the day of the Kona IMWC. Blasted calf strain. Hurt it two weeks ago and just blew it up again on a really short tentative run now.
My running has been even worse than usual this year, I give up! 
I’ll ramp up cycling to end off the season then switch to strength, maybe I can put in a big ride effort to see if any progression at all has been made this year.
Completed my first full distance IM, IM California!
Swim - water was reported to be 60*. Long sleeve suit felt fine, a bit chilly at first but comfortable during the swim. I lined up in the 105-110 group. The swim felt great. Focused on pacing and used the current to my advantage. Finished the swim in 52:22. A bit slower than a couple months ago during the practice swim. The water flow on the American River was reported to be down. Got out feeling really good.
T1 - Easy. Kept the HR down, just jogged through. Took advantage of the wetsuit strippers (loved that). Time was 5:43.
Bike - Weather conditions on the bike were excellent. I worked on holding 150w, .68 IF. Ended up holding 146 NP, .65 IF. Averaged 20.3 mph. Really happy with that. The first lap was super fast. Caught a nasty headwind on the way out during the second lap. Had that wind to my back for the return of that lap. Ended up finishing in 5:31, nearly 30 minutes under my estimated time of 6 hours. Nutrition went well. 2 scoops of Roctain and 1 Gu per hour (80 g carbs) with .5 packet of LMNT for electrolyte (500mg) mixed in seems to work really well for me.
T2 - Easy. Sat down to change my socks and put on calf compression sleeves. Took my time making sure I did everything I needed to do. TIme was 3 minutes even.
Run - Things got interesting. I didn’t care for Maurten gels during training. Knowing this was being served on course I carried my own for the bike and figured I would just gut it out with on course nutrition for the run. This was a big mistake. At about 8 miles and 2 gels into the run my stomach started getting bad. Gas and cramps. Mostly cramps. I sipped water or Mortal electrolyte through each aid station. Even that was giving me stomach pains. After missing nutrition for multiple aid stations I took another gel. Ate about ⅓ of it, just couldn’t stomach it. Grapes gave me stomach issues as well. Most of the run was miserable. Had to walk stretches because my stomach was hurting so bad. Took on some chicken broth around mile 20. Walked with it until I finished it and my stomach calmed down. This gave me a second wind. I was able to start running a bit more consistently. Ended up getting through the run. Finished in 4:52:22. About 30 minutes slower than I hoped for, but still happy with that time.
Overall time was 11:31:58. I’m SUPER happy with that finish time. It would be fun to see if I could break 11 hours if I had a good run. I was quite beat up after the race, starting to feel better now a few days out. Walked for 45 minutes yesterday with my wife, even got on the trainer for a 45 minute spin today.
Missed it by a day, but it’s time for our second to last roll call of the year. Good luck to @pstalley and @teetopmlp, who are racing Ironman Florida today. For everyone else, how’s training going this month?
@ashfordneil @ashman07 @Bbt67 @BenSwimsBikesRuns @Benwgoodfellow @Billabong @bretzky @DanF
Roll call, continued: @Evert @Lee_Badrock @mrtopher1980 @Owenbrown @snryan74 @Wayne_Smith @windyyet
For me, things are chill, took an easy month in October. I’m going through one of the new TR personalized plans with an “increase FTP” goal, and it’s going pretty well despite the high volume and intensity. I seem to be able to handle the high intensity workouts way better than I can in the triathlon plans despite having three of them each week, but maybe it’s just because I’m keeping my running and swim volume pretty low. I’m going to start increasing my running each week and see if I can handle the extra volume, but if I can I might just stick to this plan instead of going back to a tri plan next year.
