Athlete Series: The Start of IM Maryland Training

It wouldn’t be true Ironman training if it didn’t start out with a minor setback right? As Jason was prepping for his initial base training for Ironman Maryland I received a text: “So, you know how I felt fine yesterday? Well I woke up not feeling fine today. I’ve tested positive for Covid”. Okay. Good thing we have several months to prepare right? Right.

Currently training is postponed for a couple of weeks so that Jason can rest and allow his body time to recover so he can endure the stress that a lot of training volume puts on the body. When we begin his build up, we’ll start in the Base Phase of training and focus mainly on aerobic work. The first few weeks we’ll do a lot of heart rate based training to make sure that he is feeling okay and not working too hard as he recovers.

Training Overview

Today’s blog will focus on the overview of Jason’s Ironman Maryland training. I’ll go through the roadmap of his training so you all can have an idea of how we’ll move along his training journey.

Up first is the Base Phase. We are going to camp out here for a while; until mid June. Jason will have to work to build up some fitness so we’ll spend a lot of time here working on his aerobic conditioning. While a lot of his training will be considered easy, he will have a lot of volume. We’ll break things up with tempo work and short bits of higher intensity. This will be true for swim, bike, and run training. He’ll also spend time in the gym working on strength. As he progresses through Base, we’ll re-assess what needs more attention and focus on some of his limiters as well.

Once he has a solid aerobic engine we’ll move into the Build Phase of training; mid June through the end of August. Here we’ll begin to focus in on some race specific work and include more race intensity into his longer sessions. During this phase I’ll also have Jason do a Big Day. This is a race simulation day so that he can get a feel for what race day feels like. He’ll get to practice nutrition, wear his race gear, and dial in his pace and power.

The last phase will be the Peak Phase of training, the first couple of weeks in September. His training load will decrease a little bit here, but we’ll keep race intensity in the mix to make sure he sharpens up before the main event.

I’m looking forward to getting his training going and I know Jason is gettin anxious to start as well. So, wishing him a speedy recovery so we can get the training rolling!