Following Rev 3 Williamsburg I began the "meat and potatoes" of overload training which culminated on July 4th weekend with the "Gordo" series of workouts. Gordo is a compilation of workouts over the course of a weekend and is meant to simulate a Half Ironman effort on Friday, Ironman effort on Saturday, and Ironman marathon simulation on Sunday. My buddy Rob Green has been doing this for several seasons and has had great success integrating it into his training plan. Gordo is named after Gordo Byrn (http://www.coachgordo.com) who is a well known triathlete and coach.
Before I get into Gordo I'll give a quick summary of the three weeks leading into Gordo. Each week was escalated in terms of time and distance and ended up being a solid block of training coming off a hard effort in Williamsburg.
Week 1 (June 16-June 22)
Total Time- 18 hours
Swim- 14,338 yards, 4 hours
Bike- 190.2 miles, 9 hours 20 minutes
Run- 37.29 miles, 5 hours
Strength- 1 hour 40 minutes
Week 2 (June 23-June 29)
Total Time- 19 hours 10 minutes
Swim- 11,356 yards, 3 hours 10 minutes
Bike- 178.3 miles, 8 hours 38 minutes
Run- 42.27 miles, 6 hours
Strength- 1 hour, 10 minutes
Week 3 (June 30-July 6...includes Gordo Weekend)
Total Time- 21 hours
Swim- 13,500 yards- 3 hours 55 minutes
Bike- 200 miles, 10 hours 11 minutes
Run- 37.44 miles, 5 hours 36 minutes
Strength- 1 hour 20 minutes
During this period I felt reasonably good despite training at high volume almost exclusively outside in the heat/humidity. I have had solid swim and bike workouts but my running has been suffering greatly. In fact, coming into Gordo, I hadn't had a "good" run in 3 or 4 weeks and I was really struggling with confidence in my run. Many of my runs ended in total failure with me walking back to the house or car with the "look of shame" (my old Poseidon buddies will know exactly what this means). I was beginning to think that the run was never going to come around.
A key factor during this block (and my training at large) was a high level of intensity and specificity in many of the workouts. Intensity and intervals have been a hallmark of training with Eric this year. I have spent more time riding and running with intensity than ever before. I am hoping this intensity will pay dividends on race day. I have spent more time above 300 watts than I care to recount. On that note, onto Gordo....
The Gordo schedule includes the following:
Day One: 90 minutes swim with intervals, 2 hour ride (with 2x30 intervals at Half Iron Watts, 30 minute steady state run
Day Two: 5+ hours on the bike (with 3x30 mile ascending power intervals, 240/255/270), 10K tempo run subject to Ironman heart rate ceiling
Day Three: 18 mile run (with 3x5 miles at 10 seconds under Ironman pace, targeting 7:35-7:40)
Day One
I got through day one pretty successfully. I started the day with Randy Dash and Dan Szajta at Robious Landing with a 90 minute river swim. We included 5x500 yard efforts in the swim. I actually felt quite good during this workout. I left from the parking lot at Robious Landing within 20 minutes of the end of my swim. I didn't feel great on the bike, but was able to hit my wattage targets. The only hiccup was that I accidentally rode into the middle of a 4th of July Parade in the Brandermill sub-division. It screwed up one of my intervals a bit but I will give myself a pass given that it was America's birthday and all. It warmed up quite a bit during the ride and I ended the session with a 30 minute trail run in the park. As has been the case with all runs recently, my legs were heavy in the heat and I was running embarrassingly slow. At least I was able to run the whole 30 minutes without stopping.....small victories.
Day Two
On the second day, I met Greg Mathe and Dan for a century ride. We got an early start and did a big loop in Goochland and Hanover before making our way to the Southside to push us over 100 miles. Again the ride was pretty successful. I ended up with 105 miles in about 5 hours and 15 minutes. I put together a solid ride and was again on point with my wattage targets and kept a reasonably low variability index (an indication of steady effort). I tried to stay on top of my nutrition and hydration so that it bore similarity to my race day nutrition plan. I was dreading the 10K off the bike. It had gotten hot and my recent track record had me concerned that the run would be another sh*t show. I got the run started within 15 minutes of the conclusion of ride and the first few miles went well. The pacing was good and my HR was under my cap of 160 bpm. Unfortunately at the halfway point my HR began climbing substantially. I shifted my plan to run until my HR hit 165 and then I walked until it dropped to 155. I repeated this yo-yo pattern for the remainder and ended up with a sub-par run effort. This did not give me any confidence going into the last workout of the weekend (which I was fearing the most!).
Day Three
The marathon simulation had me scared. My running has been sh*t and I was worried about completing the distance with heavy legs (let alone running under Ironman pace). I woke up early and had fairly pessimistic attitude about the run but forced myself out the door early to beat the heat. When I got out of bed my legs were jacked up. I was sore!!!!! How the hell was I going to do this? I had a little bit of trouble getting started. I thought I'll walk to the end of the street and then start, and before I knew it, I was at the end of my neighborhood and still walking....Time to suck it up and start.....the first mile was slow and painful, but then something miraculous happened, I started running well. I got through the first 5 mile interval with a great average pace. I proceeded to nail the second two five mile intervals. In fact, the last 5 mile segment was my best of the day with the last 30 minutes at 7:30 pace. I finished the full 18 miles and nailed all of my intervals. This run was such a relief and was a much needed dose of confidence to know I will be successful at Placid.
Since Gordo I have begun tapering. This week was still fairly high from a volume and time standpoint (17 hours) but with much lower intensity. I nailed another great workout today with another solid run at sub ironman pace off a 3 hour Ironman bike effort. This was particularly encouraging in light of the fact that I was out late at a concert and only got 5 hours sleep. I felt sub-par but the data was on point. I really feel things are coming together. The next two weeks will be about maximizing recovery and freeing my mind to allow my body to do the work it has been trained to do. As always thanks for reading!!!!
Another amazing read, thank you.
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