Free Advice
A year away and the advice is already coming in. Got a great message from an online friend with these wonderful words of wisdom:
(1) swim 3.8K, OW or straight set in the pool, as often as you can bear. The goal is to come out of the swim without having spent anything.
(2) Do most, if not all, of your long rides ALONE. You'll thank whoever gives you this advice after you've finished. Trust me. This is even more important for your first. After your first, it's no longer an issue because it's what you do naturally.
(3) Do not do any speedwork for the run. Instead, take any time for speedwork and put it to hill running. Your leg strength is what will carry you the last half, and first half for that matter, of the marathon. And, if you want to know what your legs will feel like during the IM mary, go out and run 18 miles and then find a long downhill and run down it...that will come close. You have to be able to run on legs that don't want to run. It's got to be automatic, and that will come from doing hill running. I ran an 18.x mile route 10-12 times before IMAZ that had close to 2,000 feet of vertical gain. The mary at IMAZ was a breeze.
(4) Ride 180K as many times as you can bear, then do it one more. It's all about confidence, and this will build it.
Have started to look at possible accommodations and there are so many beautiful areas to chose from that it looks like it is going to be hard to go wrong on this decision.
I also made a big purchase yesterday. I bought a computrainer. Basically it is a bike trainer that you hook up to your computer. You can get various riding data from it including power (watt) data. You can also download courses to your computer and the trainer will adjust the tension to simulate the terrain. So over the winter I can ride the IMC course if I like, or ride parts of it. Should make winter riding a lot more fun this year.
(1) swim 3.8K, OW or straight set in the pool, as often as you can bear. The goal is to come out of the swim without having spent anything.
(2) Do most, if not all, of your long rides ALONE. You'll thank whoever gives you this advice after you've finished. Trust me. This is even more important for your first. After your first, it's no longer an issue because it's what you do naturally.
(3) Do not do any speedwork for the run. Instead, take any time for speedwork and put it to hill running. Your leg strength is what will carry you the last half, and first half for that matter, of the marathon. And, if you want to know what your legs will feel like during the IM mary, go out and run 18 miles and then find a long downhill and run down it...that will come close. You have to be able to run on legs that don't want to run. It's got to be automatic, and that will come from doing hill running. I ran an 18.x mile route 10-12 times before IMAZ that had close to 2,000 feet of vertical gain. The mary at IMAZ was a breeze.
(4) Ride 180K as many times as you can bear, then do it one more. It's all about confidence, and this will build it.
Have started to look at possible accommodations and there are so many beautiful areas to chose from that it looks like it is going to be hard to go wrong on this decision.
I also made a big purchase yesterday. I bought a computrainer. Basically it is a bike trainer that you hook up to your computer. You can get various riding data from it including power (watt) data. You can also download courses to your computer and the trainer will adjust the tension to simulate the terrain. So over the winter I can ride the IMC course if I like, or ride parts of it. Should make winter riding a lot more fun this year.
posted by sweetpea at 9:48 AM
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