Absolute Madness right?
Currently injured with a Hamstring strain. So while I’m sitting around rehabbing a dodgy hamstring I have decided to say it out loud I want to go Sub 10 hours in an Ironman. Namely Cairns Ironman 2022.
So the goal is at 51 years of age drop an ironman at least 24 minutes quicker that this years race time of 10:23:45, which was a 31 minute PB from my previous time at Cairns which was 10:54:22,
There it’s public. I can’t take it back now. It’s a goal that physically scares the shit out of me. It is a goal that is going to force me to take a hard look at my training methodology, my strength training consistency, my body work maintenance consistency and my dietary habits and lifestyle habits.
This year’s time was a massive PB 10:23:45 had me swimming 56:35, Riding 5:04:15 and running 4:11:47. Adding to the time was a transition 1 time 6:32 and transition 2 time of 4:35. So lets dissect what those times equate to. The swim time is an average speed of 1:30 per 100 meters, The ride gives me an average speed 35.6 km/h and the run of 4:11:47 is an average pace of 6:00 per km.
Now to get at least 24 minutes from my time next year is about finding where I can get the time. What that means which areas of the swim, bike, run and transitions can I shave time off to net me the time that I am chasing. What that also means as well is where do I have to invest most of my time over the next 38 weeks to hunt down and get the improvements I need to attain my goal.
My first thing to look at believe it or not will be to improve my transitions. At 6:35 and 4:35 improving my efficiency of moving through transition can shave vital minutes off my time and in reality I don’t even need to be any fitter than I already am. Perfect example. If I managed to get my 1st transition down by 2 minutes to 4:30. I would have gone from 12 th in my age group to 11th. Dropping 2 minutes here is not unreasonable considering a lot of the time taken in Transition is taking off my wetsuit. Improving that and learning to mount my bike with my bike shoes connected to the pedals already will allow me to run quicker through transition rather than trying to run in my bike shoes and slipping and sliding over the rough transition terrain Transition 2 this year was a bit slower that I wanted. But that was pretty unavoidable as I needed to urinate. I have realised it is better to do it before you start running that after. So if I need to go there I am willing to lose some time to do it. But if I don’t. It would be pretty easy to take at least 1:30 of this years time.
So there you have a possible time saving of 3:30 already. So with out getting any fitter assuming I don’t have to go to the toilet in transition I am doing 10:20:15.
Now on to the Swim. My time of 56:35 was awesome. I am so happy with that time and can honestly say that I don’t think I have too much more improvement in the swim in me without investing a lot of extra time and effort in to it. The guy that won my age group did a 52 minute swim and as much as that sounds great. The amount of swimming I would have to do to get down to that time is a bad use of time. So I will keep my swim routine up and possibly shave a few seconds off possibly take a few extra but in a 10 hour race the amount of time that is available for me to take off is not significant when compared to the other 2 disciplines.
The bike. 5:04:15 was also fantastic. This time saw me having the 85th fastest bike split outright on the day and 4th fastest in my age group. At 5 plus hours the bike leg of an Ironman is just under 50% of the total time of the race. So getting faster on the bike is critical to shaving more time off. But at 5:04:15 how much extra can I remove? Looking at the guys in front of me only 3 went faster on the bike and one of them went 15 minutes quicker than I did on the bike. The question is. Can I go much quicker without a/ destroying myself for the run and b/ putting so much time into training for the bike the swim and run get neglected. I believe I have between 5 and 10 minutes further improvement left in me. My training this year for Cairns was very, very good. But I came from a fairly poor base line of fitness and if I can come at it again with as good if not slightly better level of consistency and intent. I believe I can not only go quicker, but arrive at transition 2 in better shape. So take a conservative view to possible time gains at 4:59:00 there is a further 5 minutes from my bucket of time. So now down from 10:20:00 to 10:15:00. I will also be working very closely on looking at my aerodynamics and ability to hold my position over a long time to maximise my ability to go faster without having to expend too much more energy.
Now that just leaves me the run. This years time of 4:11:47 was a 9 minute PB from my previous best Ironman run. Which is great, but no where near where I think I am capable of running and where I need to be running to achieve my goal. Given the said previous times I think I can do, I must run a 3:55:00 or quicker to achieve what I want. I need to go from 6 min km pace down to 5:34 min per km. A 26 second per kilometre improvement over 42 kilometres. Hence when I look at my race goals. It scares the shit out of me. This year I improved 11 seconds per kilometre from 2019. That took me 2 years to find. But I want to improve at least 26 seconds per kilometre in the next 38 weeks. What the fuck was I thinking. I was thinking Goal setting 101. It needs to be big enough to scare the shit out of you, but not so big that it is impossible. I can do this but my focus on the run now needs to shift to efficiency and run form and ability to weather the inevitable shit storm that will come at some point in the marathon. Shit storm being when every ounce of my being screaming at me to slow the fuck down, or just plain stop.
My feeling is that how I come out of this hamstring strain will largely determine if I have any chance of achieving my goal. So for now it is Rehab central for me. After that I have to engineer a program to get me to the start line in Cairns in June in 2022 in the shape of my life and injury free and running better than I have ever run.
Next Blog I do is going to be me starting to build the blueprint for how I think I can get to where I want to get to.
I hope you enjoyed my look on how I am breaking down how to achieve my goal. As I have said if you create a goal that is huge and it scares you. Don’t look at the whole picture and just say what the fuck. Start by breaking it down to manageable chinks and start by looking at each part and build the picture piece by piece just like a Jig saw puzzle.
Until next time.
Mick Out