Kare writes: 6 weeks out from Ironman
I had a pretty good week last week, my long ride was over 130km, it felt slow but good. The long run was a bit of a struggle so I cut it short, but coming straight after the long ride I wasn't too disappointed and while I'm still under on the swim distance when compared to where I was last year, I'm not too far off. Overall I managed well over 15 hours of training which is really unusual for me. My sore neck has gone away with just occasional twinges to remind me to do more stretching, and I got new running shoes. I had been thinking about changing these from the super-padded Asics Kayano which I have worn since they first came out...decades ago... to a lighter and less padded model one step down. I came home with a pink and black pair of GT2000's which the man in the shop convinced me were the best bet. I'm reserving judgement on these at the moment, getting used to less padding in the forefoot (I can feel every stone on the trail) and a slightly lower heel is taking a bit, but no injury problems after a total of 40km run in the things so far.
A big change for me, the Ironman people have announced that the nutrition available on course is different this time round, instead of Powerbar for both gel and bar, there are Endura gels and Em's bars. They have kept the Horley's electrolyte drink fortunately. At Ironman last year I had taken sandwiches along which I just couldn't face and ended up throwing out, meaning I went completely off my eating plan which is never a smart idea. This year I'm going to try to stick to my plan and using on-course nutrition makes things much easier, so I invested in some of these new items so I could try them out. The first thing I noticed is the Endura gel is of thinner consistency, that means having annoying sticky fingers and you cant fold the top up and save some for later, but on the plus side the top pulls off easily and the grape flavour I tried tasted nice enough. The Em's bars are more natural in texture than the highly formulated Powerbars from last year, you can chew up real oats and lumps of chocolate which almost makes you feel like you have had proper food, and the good news was I seemed to have enough energy combining the gels and bars for my ride and no upset stomach. So, for over 5 1/2 hours on the road my eating looked like this...
1st half hour - grape gel with caffeine
1 hour - banana with Horley's drink
1 1/2 hour - grape gel with caffeine
2 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
2 1/2 hour - grape gel with caffeine
3 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
3 1/2 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
4 hour - grape gel with caffeine
4 1/2 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
...lost track somewhere in here...finished with a handful of jelly belly sports beans
This was an average of 60-70g of carbohydrate/hour for the first 4 1/2 hours before I got mixed up and bored and gave up paying attention. I took in around 2 litres of water as well which worked out about right on a mild day. This is likely to be very similar to what I do on race-day, with a few more bananas thrown in and some electrolyte capsules if it's hot. Plus, the last couple of hours on race-day will be gels only so I can get off the bike and run without food sitting in my stomach. I have several more long rides to practice on, starting with the SRAM Tour de Ranges this coming Saturday. This is a terrifically hilly ride out through the Hunua, to Kaiaua and Kawakawa bay and back to Clevedon which I did last year and is a route that Kate and myself have done a number of times for training. Hopefully the ride will go well and I can tell myself that I am at at least the same level of fitness for this stage in my plan as I was last year...
A big change for me, the Ironman people have announced that the nutrition available on course is different this time round, instead of Powerbar for both gel and bar, there are Endura gels and Em's bars. They have kept the Horley's electrolyte drink fortunately. At Ironman last year I had taken sandwiches along which I just couldn't face and ended up throwing out, meaning I went completely off my eating plan which is never a smart idea. This year I'm going to try to stick to my plan and using on-course nutrition makes things much easier, so I invested in some of these new items so I could try them out. The first thing I noticed is the Endura gel is of thinner consistency, that means having annoying sticky fingers and you cant fold the top up and save some for later, but on the plus side the top pulls off easily and the grape flavour I tried tasted nice enough. The Em's bars are more natural in texture than the highly formulated Powerbars from last year, you can chew up real oats and lumps of chocolate which almost makes you feel like you have had proper food, and the good news was I seemed to have enough energy combining the gels and bars for my ride and no upset stomach. So, for over 5 1/2 hours on the road my eating looked like this...
1st half hour - grape gel with caffeine
1 hour - banana with Horley's drink
1 1/2 hour - grape gel with caffeine
2 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
2 1/2 hour - grape gel with caffeine
3 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
3 1/2 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
4 hour - grape gel with caffeine
4 1/2 hour - half chocolate oat explosion E'ms power cookie plus Horley's drink
...lost track somewhere in here...finished with a handful of jelly belly sports beans
This was an average of 60-70g of carbohydrate/hour for the first 4 1/2 hours before I got mixed up and bored and gave up paying attention. I took in around 2 litres of water as well which worked out about right on a mild day. This is likely to be very similar to what I do on race-day, with a few more bananas thrown in and some electrolyte capsules if it's hot. Plus, the last couple of hours on race-day will be gels only so I can get off the bike and run without food sitting in my stomach. I have several more long rides to practice on, starting with the SRAM Tour de Ranges this coming Saturday. This is a terrifically hilly ride out through the Hunua, to Kaiaua and Kawakawa bay and back to Clevedon which I did last year and is a route that Kate and myself have done a number of times for training. Hopefully the ride will go well and I can tell myself that I am at at least the same level of fitness for this stage in my plan as I was last year...
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