11 Weeks to Ironman Brazil, 180k ride & BUILD 1 summary

7 weeks since the half Israman, finished the 1st build period of my IM training, and now recovery week!…mui kef & mui rest…

The period ended with a heavy 12hour training weekend which included my first 180k ride. I actually didn’t plan on doing a 180k ride (160 was the plan) but Ariel-“the handsome coach”-Heller that spontaneously joined our ride, easily convinced me with the “you already killed your Saturday morning so why stop at 160?…”. Very happy I did it. Great confidence boost (although the “how do I complete a marathon after this” demon is still very much alive…)
Felt good during the ride, like with every run/ride I do, no matter how long it is, the last 30 minutes are tough. I finished feeling relatively good but definitely not enough to take on a marathon.
I practiced handling the nutrition load on the bike (=eat till you feel sick test) with ~380calories/hour consuming 2,700 calories in just under 7 hours:
6*0.7L Gatorade (900), 3*0.7L water
2*PowerBar Bites (600)
6*gels (600)
2*bananas (200)
1* PowerBar blasts (200)
1 Cliff Blocks (200)
8*salt caps

This (with the 21k run the following morning) concluded a 17hour week and the first BUILD period of my training plan. My (amateure-self-made..) training plan structure consists of the following periods:

Jun, Jul, Aug – PREPERATION – learned the basics of swimming & riding, did my first Sprint & Olympic triathlons, total 8-10  weekly hours
Sep, Oct, Nov – BASE 1 – long runs/rides increased to 21-24k/80-100k, total 10-12 weekly hours
Dec, Jan – BASE 2 – rides of 100k, more hills, preps for the ½ ISRAMAN, total 12-14 weekly hours
Feb, Mar –  BUILD 1 – increase swim to 3k, first 30k run, first very long ride, total weekly hours 14-17
Mar, Apr –  BUILD 2– increase swim to 4k, several 30+k runs, several very long ride, total weekly hours 15-19
May – TAPER – training volume reduction toward race day May 30th

Overall on track according to plan, slightly exceeding original volume targets and most important no major injuries! (hamsa, hamsa, hamsa!)

11 weeks to go!..