Forum Athletica Forum

@Marjaana I’ve just rebuilt my plan making sure that it was the High volume Marathon plan and it still doesn’t schedule the double run days, apart from 4 taper weeks before my 2 races in March and April?

Wow, amazing! Love the casual comment of “only a couple” ultra events in there too. What an adventure and love the pictures!

@jockefc23 The high volume marathon plan double runs as default. You could use that and then delete the ones that are too much. MJ

Thanks @Phil . This being my 10th Ironman, all bring different scenarios. I would rather stop than push through at my age! Goal times are completely irrelevant to me, that boat has long sailed, and this was definitely not a “dark” moment, I was having a great time :). Its quite basic, my body said no, and I didn’t argue. Otherwise all is good and started some light training again in preparation for the next goal, once I get the go ahead from relevant consultants I will choose my next outing.

KCamp: Dizzyness set in, unable to maintain forward movement legs not functioning. Heart rate 90bpm. Tried to run and hr wouldnt rise Couple of things come to mind. I have certainly had the above symptoms from dehydration and low blood sugar. It can also come on quite drastically from a performance point of view. I have learnt to recognise the symptoms earlier since. The symptoms are there, but often too subtle to notice early on, until you learn to tune into your body a bit better. We often ignore them as nothing of concern early on, or do not understand what they are telling us, when pushing through during an event. Oh and low blood sugar can happen if what you are taking on just sits in your stomach as digestion slows or shuts down. You think you are taking enough on, but your stomach has shut down. Gastric distress. Dehydration or low blood sugar, electrolyte imbalance, or hyponatremia Good luck working out what the cause was, and how to prevent / deal with next time.

In that case what you could do is Create a custom aerobic session and add it to your library. Then add it to the day you want it alongside the interval session. You can add to as many weeks forward as you want. Then let the AI adjust sessions around that aerobic session.

My year split into two. First Half As a joint 60th with my wife, we went to Nepal to trek around Manaslu (8th highest in the world) in March / April. Our peak altitude just over 5,000m. That meant the first half of the season was focused on getting mountain fit. Able to walk in the mountains for long hours, tackle technical terrain, day after day, carrying a day sack, and dealing with altitude. In that first half bike training was reduced and primarily focused on base, to allow capacity for the hill walk training. The trip went fantastically well by the way. Second Half The second half was building up to a 1300km, 17,280m 4.5 day event in Scotland in early July. Remote, logistically challenging and self supported.quite the puzzle to solve to unlock its rewards. I worked with the AI conversational coach to discuss changes to the single all day cycling plan for the demands of the event. Documented else where on here. The main difference was the introduction of back to back long and hilly endurance days to develop fatigue resistance plus pacing on tired legs , plus more of an emphasis on longer intervals for intensity and muscular endurance. Some sessions of long endurance rides with intervals added at the end when fatigued, not fresh. Plus the sheer volume of Z2 work to build the big engine ultra endurance demands. I included intermediate ultra events but only a couple, one at 200km in April, another 400km in May. I believe shorter ultra endurance events help sharpen your menta

Thanks @Phil I think I had seen that and checked it, there wasn’t this option last year. It’s not 2 hard sessions thats the thing, generally it would be one aerobic and one interval.

There is this setting in plan builder

KCamp: However, there are other occasions where the body is sending a very different message: “No. Stop.” There are almost always messages you are getting well before a “No. Stop.” message arrives. What becomes event ending; is not event ending if you pick up on it early enough. Learning to recognise messages earlier and how to respond is key to reducing the number of DNF. I always say a DNF comes off a minimum of three things. You can have two things no going well but keep going, add a third thing and that may be the proverbial straw and camel’s back. The trick is never let two things develop without at least one being actively dealt with. That way you have the capacity to handle what additionally comes up, or even have finished dealing with or significantly reduced the severity of one of the issues, so you can tackle the next. On the mental side. When you are in a low, wondering why you are doing something. You have to ask yourself “Why did you enter this event, and does that reason still hold, despite the position you find yourself in”. It helps to understand what your aim is before you enter an event, and if you find you cannot hit that aim mid event, what will your response be? For instance if you entered an event because of the spectacular scenery it will take you through. Then that still holds, if you find yourself significantly behind a goal time you had set yourself. Thus, why not keep going, you are still going to experience that spectacular scenery. Missing a goal

I found it easy at the weekends as I would usually do a group ride on a Saturday morning that was around 2-3 hours long at a steady pace. Then Sunday would be my long run, on my plan these mostly involved various paces and intervals but I really enjoyed them rather than just a flat 2-3 hour run In answer to your other questions, the plan should adjust after a while however it will probably continue to push you to a limit that you may feel is beyond you. Use the workout wizard to help with this, shortening sessions if you feel the need. I’d go with a plan that is higher than you expect normally. I find it’s easier to skip/delete sessions than add them in. But that’s just me! Good luck, I’ll be doing the same as you through the winter into spring now so happy to share any progress or ideas.

Hi @jockefc23 , Thanks for a detailed explanation. I think I’ll be moving in a similar direction. Do you swap all the long runs on the weekend? I’m trying to find a good balance where I’ll do some long runs and some long bike rides. However, from what I see on the max volume plan, it sets up the 32KM runs every second week during the build phase, which I won’t be able to do. So I’d want to understand a few things: Will the plan be adapted and the session volume reduced by the AI coach when it “understands” that I’m not doing all the proposed volume and switching to the easier workouts? Is it better to choose the max volume, swap some existing workouts and miss others when it’s too much for me, or choose the medium volume (where I feel okay) and add some extra workouts (gym + bike + swim)? Thanks for your help, really appreciate it