Athlete Series: IMMD Training Update
It’s been a busy month of training and racing for Jason as he builds his fitness toward Ironman Maryland. Since my last update, Jason has completed another sprint triathlon (4th in his Age Group and made massive transition improvements) and has logged some serious bike and run mileage. He’ll cap off the the Base Phase of training with one more triathlon, Mountain Lakes Olympic, in two weeks time. Let’s break down what he’s been up to over the last several weeks.
Wet Dog Sprint Tri
Jason wanted to do one more local race so we added Wet Dog Sprint Tri to his calendar. This race was a 400 meter swim, 9 mile bike, and a 5k run. The plan was to go hard start to finish and just see what he had. Jason didn’t let me down there! He put everything out on the line with a quick swim, fast T1 and T2. But the best part was he set all time best 10 minute and 20 minute power, and THEN ran his fastest 5k in a long time. It was good enough for him to earn a 4th place AG finish (he’s in a tough one!) and the satisfaction of tired legs for his 3 hour endurance ride the following day. Sorry, IM training waits for no-one!
General Training
The weeks after Wet Dog we went right back to work. As the summer wears on, his race comes ever closer. We have been in the final weeks of Base Phase training so I wanted to ensure he was in a good place before we begin layering on more intensity in the coming weeks. A typical training week for Jason looks like this:
Monday: Long Ride + Recovery Swim
Tuesday: Swim
Wednesday: Tempo Run + Strength
Thursday: Moderate Ride + Run Off
Friday: Ride or Run (changes weekly)
Saturday: Long Swim
Sunday: Long Run
With work and family time he has still been able to get in some good volume and his fitness is trending upward nicely.
Specific Training
One of the things Jason is really good about is race simulation practice, and I’ll talk through just one of the ways he preps for his upcoming Ironman because it’s great and takes some real dedication to training. In the past, nutrition and the run for Jason have not mixed well. Because of this, he is working with an amazing sports nutritionist. The two of them are dialing in what he can take without issue. Jason takes all the notes and then is super great about testing all of this on his rides and runs. I want to talk specifically about his runs.
On Jason’s long runs, he’s set up for himself a looped course where he can practice consuming his nutrition. He checked the course information for IM Maryland and knows how far apart each aid station on the run will be. He’s got a loop that is approximately the same distance between stations.
Jason went out and bought 4 oz. cups and sets up a line of water cups and Gatorade cups on his truck. Each loop he comes through and practices what nutrition he needs and takes it, and continues on his run. He’s dialing in what to expect on that long day.
All of these little details will keep Jason calm throughout the race. He knows what to expect, he knows when to expect it, and he knows how is body should handle it. And can we all give him massive kudos for doing his long runs on approximately a one mile loop?!
Jason is well on his way to having a great IM. We’ll keep plugging away and putting in the work. Up next Jason has Mtn. Lakes Triathlon, and then he’s going up in distance with a last minute sign for IM 70.3 Maine. Let’s keep it going!