PURE PERFORMANCE | BIKE

BY SHANE SMITH

The hardest part for most people who are training for an Ironman is getting in the required mileage on the bike . This is especially true when most athletes are working full-time and have friends and families to keep happy .

Fitting in that second long ride is always difficult , and if you don ' t have flexible work hours , then the usual Wednesday long ride is out .

However , with a little manipulating of the traditional training program you can get the benefits of that extra-long ride . Triathletes are sticklers for routine . Saturday is always the longride day . Sunday is the long-run day . Tuesday is a tempo run and Mondays are the day off .

That ' s fine , and for the majority of the year it ' s OK to follow this practice , but once in a while , when trying to bump up your mileage for an Ironman , changing the program may help you achieve improved performances .

By adding a second long ride to the program when you normally do not have the time for it , you will help yourself get through the 180km of an Ironman more comfortably , and this will assist you with the run off the bike .

While training for the Japan Strongman several years ago , I was working full-time at a magazine and was struggling to get a second long ride in during the week due to deadlines and workload .

So , after some planning and rearranging of my program ( and the panic of knowing there was just 10 weeks until the event ), I was able to achieve the training required to have a good ride during the race .

Here is what I did : Six weeks prior to the beginning of the four-week taper , I used the weekends to build my bike mileage and changed the Sunday long run to Thursday mornings .

On weeks one , three and five , on the Saturday , I would do a hard ride of three to four hours ( usually as part of a group ride ) followed by a transition run from 30 to 45 minutes at Ironman race pace .

The Sunday ride was long and aerobic , which I usually did alone , and varied it between five and seven hours . It was always easy and used purely to build mileage and my aerobic base .

On weeks two , four and six I would do the long ride on the Saturday ( again five to seven hours ) but this time with 2 x 20 minute efforts at Ironman race pace , followed by a transition run of 20 to 40 minutes , which was run 5 to 10 seconds faster per kilometer than Ironman race pace .

24 | MULTISPORT MAGAZINE