Taper Week 1

While it's already Thursday, it's not too late to discuss this week's training. The build weeks are over, now it's Taper Time: A three-week cycle consisting of a reduction of volume; first in running, then cycling, then swimming. The taper allows the body to absorb and recover from the long training hours, so you show up well-rested but fit on race day. There is still some intensity to "keep the edge".

Monday: Rest day

Tuesday morning: Swim 1 hour, intervals.
Tuesday evening:Run 45 mins. Z1 (recovery) pace.

Wednesday morning: Computrainer ride, 75 mins., including 15, 12, and 10min. Z4 intervals.
Wednesday evening: Weights, 1 hour.

Thursday morning: Swim 1 hour, technique.

Friday morning: Swim 4000m, including 30x100m at (Ironman goal pace + 10 seconds).
Friday morning: Computrainer ride, 90km followed by 1 hour transition run on treadmill.

Saturday morning: Swim 1 hour, technique.
Saturday morning: Weights, 1 hour.

Sunday morning: 30 min. warmup ride on Computrainer, then 80 min. run with 2x20 min. at Z3 (Tempo) pace.

This Friday is a “Golden Friday”, one of my employer’s earned days off. (TGIGF!) Coach Kev and I are taking advantage of it by moving Saturday’s volume to Friday, to get the last long bike ride done a day early. The Thanksgiving Day holiday is a day completely off work and training. I might sleep in, if I remember how to.

Cycling and running workouts move indoors, so that I can incorporate hot-weather acclimatization into the training. One of the best ways to acclimatize is to travel to Kona well in advance. But this is the real world, it’s expensive, and my employers would frown on me taking another few weeks off.

Fortunately, one can acclimatize to almost any environment from home. This worked well for me for Kona in 2004. I’ll be doing my cycling and running with an extra layer of clothing on, and wearing my cycling raincoat to up the humidity, as seen above. This will elevate my core temperature, resulting in an increased sweat and heart rate. It’s important not to overdo this; about an hour a day is enough.

You’ll notice in the above schedule the reduction in both intensity and volume of running. The Wednesday morning ride was very tough, I was anaerobic for over 30 minutes, and even hit Z5 for a few minutes in the last two intervals. That was the last hard cycling workout; the remainder are at recovery, endurance or tempo pace. Going forward, workout sessions and lengths will decrease further, with occasional bouts of intensity. And frequent bouts of insatiable hunger; unfortunately the appetite doesn’t follow the taper.