Overview:
My training program for Ironman Mont Tremblant is broken into 4 phases starting October 24, 2011:
- Phase 1 – Foundations: In this phase I will go from my year-long training sabbatical, couch potatoe state to one in which undertaking the rigours of Ironman training will not be a lethal pursuit. It is an 18 week period.
- Phase 2 – Base: This is the first of the “real” Ironman training phases. Its goal is to set the base onto which the other periods of training are built – to ensure that as the training duration andintensity start to grow I won’t injure myself. It is an 8 week period.
- Phase 3 – Build: This is where the first of the significant introductionof higher intensity workouts. The build phase is intended to prepare me for the highly rigourous workouts that will come as I prep for race day.
- Phase 4 – Peak: This phase is where the longest duration and intensity workouts are introduced. They are race specific, and are intended to prep my body for the rigours of race day. The final 3 weeks of this phase are “taper” — where I begin to rest my body in preparation for the actual race on August 19, 2012. The Peak phase is a 9 week period.
Training Calendar:
I’m making my training calendar public (in order to keep myself honest?). Check back frequesntly to see the changes in my schedule as life “interferes” with my best laid plans! For completed workouts, I will embed a link to the metrics (heart rate, power, duration, etc.) as logged in trainingpeaks.com.
Note:
The Foundations phase of my training is a “home grown” variant of the training plan that Paula Newby Fraser published in monthly installments in Triathlete Magazine in 2005. I’ve been using this training program ever since I found it.
The latter 3 phases (25 weeks) are based on the Ironman Training Program (Level 5) found in the Essential Week-By-Week Training Guide published by Matt Fitzgerald, a contributor to Triathlete Magazine.
