How often have you been lounging around the food tables after a triathlon and heard the following:
"Wow, I couldn't believe the course was so hilly!"
"I didn't expect the swim to be so cold"
"Can you believe that one hill on the run? It was so steep!"
"The wind on the bike course was unbelievable."
Now, way back in the stone ages when I started doing triathlons, this was excusable. You see, there was no internet. Those of you who are younger can gasp now. I repeat: There Was No Internet. If we signed up for a triathlon, it was sight-unseen. There were no course profiles online, no Google Earth, no MapMyRide.com to give you an elevation profile. No Garmins, GPS, no blogs to read of other athletes who had done the course. If you didn't personally know someone who had done it, you went in blind. Sometimes, the race director would put a little blurb in the photocopied race brochure that described the course. Of course, these were always done in the most optimistic of ways (my favorite was a race brochure that described the bike course as a "mostly downhill circular course" - WTF? perhaps designed by MC Escher??.) Some courses, like the infamous Whisky Dick triathlon, became reknowned among triathletes for their challenging and difficult courses, but I went in to many races not knowing what to expect.
These days, there is no excuse for this. Which brings up to step one when you sign up for a triathlon and begin training for that specific race:
1) Read the Course Description
These are usually online on the race's website. Often they will give you a specific map, and even an elevation profile. Even if they only give you street directions, take that to mapmyride.com, enter it in (or search on it first, chances are someone may have already done this work for you) and check the little box that allows you to see the elevation profile. Do a google search for "race reports" and the name of the triathlon and read what other people have said about the course. Is it typically windy? hot? cold? Sometimes the name of the race gives it away. In our neck of the woods, the early season "Duck Bill Chill" and "Beaver Freezer" triathlons are unlikely to be warm and balmy. There have been years when these races were run with snow falling. I once did a race in The Dalles, Oregon, a place that regularly holds world windsurfing championships. What do you think the odds are that the course would be windy (I watched a guy who unwisely used a disk wheel get picked up and blown halfway across the road). Find out exactly what you're in for and your race day will go a whole lot smoother.
2) If Possible, Train on the Course
If it's a local enough race, go and train on the actual course a couple of times. Especially if it's hilly or technical, get an idea of where you can go fast, where you need to be cautious. Keep an eye out for 90-degree turns at the bottom of a steep hill, or areas that are exposed to the wind. For races that are too far away, this option may not be possible, although many of the IM courses are now available if you have a Computrainer at home (I only dream of this!)
3) Train in Similar Conditions
If the course is hilly, train on hills. If it's windy, train in wind. Hot? Train in the heat. If you can, train in harder or worse conditions. I did a half-Ironman once where the course description said there would be a hill with a 15% grade. So I looked online until I found a local hill steep enough to have a 15% grade, and I went on my bike and took a look at it. Holy Crap! Good thing the first time I saw a hill like that was not in the race! The bike course was a two-lap course, so I made it my business to set up a training course that hit my 15% hill three times in 45 miles. By the time I got to the race, I was, well... not exactly zooming up the hill. But it didn't kill me or intimidate me any more. I wasn't the one crying by the side of the road at least. Make sure you have met the course conditions before you get to the course and you will be more prepared than many triathletes.
4) Drive the Course
If you can get to the race venue at least the afternoon before the race, drive the course. Even if you've ridden the course, this is a good idea. Make sure you know where any turns are. Pick out landmarks that will warn you of upcoming course turns ("I'll turn right after the big oak tree and the windmill"). You would be surprised how many athletes get lost on courses every season. Don't be one of them! Also look at the course for specific hazards - gravel or glass on the shoulder or on turns, bumpy pavement or holes in the pavement, signifigant roadkill, things like that. Make sure you know what you can expect to encounter on race day.
Now you're prepared to race the course, not just survive it. You won't be one of those athletes telling your friends how stunned you were by the challenges that the course presented, you'll be the one who met those challenges head on, aimed with your knowledge, planning, and training.
Showing posts with label Tri Coach Sez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tri Coach Sez. Show all posts
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tri Coach: Transition Area
The first thing to know about transition areas is that the space you have will be small. It's best not to make it look like a garage sale with gear and clothing sprawling all over the place. Even if you get to the transition area early and set up with plenty of room, chances are that the racks will get progressively more crowded as the start of the race nears, and your spacious area will shrink to about the size of a decent hand towel. So just bring what you need, and leave the rest in your gear bag. Apply your sunscreen and your glide, your lip balm, hair tyes, and anything else you might need, put them away and just bring the basics to transition.
This is a photo of how I set up my own transition area at most races. I bring my nice bright green towel, and fold it until it's just about as wide as my bike's handlebars. This ensures that it takes up the same amount of space as the bike racked on the opposite side of the bike rack from me. If everyone racks their bikes on alternating sides of the rack, that's as much space as you will probably get.
My cap and goggles obviously go with me to the swim start, so I lay them out right in front. Next are my biking shoes, with velcro straps opened and loose. Note that bike shoes can also be clipped onto your pedals, but new triathletes probably don't need to worry about giving that a try right off the bat. If I choose to wear socks in a longer race, I will scrunch them all the way up until they are very compressed, and lay each one carefully inside a shoe. That way when I get to the shoes I can just stick my toes inside the sock and pull it up quickly over the foot.My helmet is beside the shoes, and I like to keep my sunglasses inside the helmet with the earpieces open and pointing up. That way I grab the sunglasses and put them on, smash the helmet on my head, buckle the strap and I'm off.
In the back of the transition towel is the running gear. My shoes have lace locks on them, and they are pulled open and ready to jam my feet into. On top of the shoes is my running hat, with the bill facing toward me, ready to just pop onto my head. On top of that I've placed a race number belt with my race number already clipped into it. Note that in some races (not very many any more) you may be required to wear a race number on the bike. In that case, I lay this on top of my bike shoes, and put it on with the number on my back. When I get to the run, the number is required to be in front so I just spin it around. In most races though you only need the number for the run. So you can pin it to your shirt or singlet, or you can use a number belt and just put it on for the run. My number belt happens to have some little elastic loops for sticking gels into, so for a longer race I can load it up with a couple of gels ahead of time.
That's it! There's not a lot of stuff in this transition area, which means no fumbling around when I'm in a hurry in T1 and T2 of the race. Before I go to the start line in my wetsuit, I stop and look at the transition area. I go to the chute where I'll be entering from the water and walk towards my rack, noting where it is in the area (it's five racks to the right from the entrance, or it's seven racks on the left). Though you will see it recommended frequently, please resist the notion of bringing a helium balloon and tying it to your rack so that you can find your bike. I was at a windy race this June where several people on my rack had done this. The balloons where all blowing horizontally, getting tangled in other peoples' bikes and gear, and bopping other triathletes in the face as they tried to transition. Trust me, you can remember that you are five racks on the left without a balloon.
As I do my run-through, I mentally see myself running in from the swim. I see myself unzipping my wetsuit as I run (not taking off my cap and goggles first, as that ties up your hands). Once the wetsuit is unzipped and stripped down to the waist, then I take off my cap and goggles and have them in hand as I approach the transition area. Now I approach my own area, and I see myself stripping off my wetsuit, putting on my bike shoes, my sunglasses and helmet, and unracking my bike and taking off.
After I take my bike off the rack, I make sure I know which direction I'm going out of the transition area to get to the bike course. Then I come back and re-rack the bike. I visualize myself making the bike to run transition. I mentally put on my race belt, my hat, and my running shoes. Again, I make sure I know which way I'm running out of the transition area to get to the run course. Learning these things ahead of time saves confusion in the middle of the race (you will almost always see race volunteers having to re-direct some hapless athlete who has tried to bike onto the run course or run the wrong way out of transition).
Phew! That seems like a lot, but by laying out a simple transition area, by making sure your bike is racked safely in a position that you can easily remove it from the rack, and by mentally practicing your transition and knowing where you'll be going, you will be on your way to having smooth and effective transitions in your race with a minimum of panic and confusion.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Tri Coach: Three Principles of Training
I'm starting something new here at Chez Ironmom Blog. For awhile, I've been writing up swim technique tips from time to time, usually the kinds of advice that I find myself giving to my swimmers frequently and thus are worth writing down and sharing with others. I've tagged them all with the label Swim Coach. As a triathlon coach, I find that something similar happens with triathlon advice. Most of the very basic stuff gets repeated over and over, and is probably worth sharing here, especially for people who are just starting out on their triathlon journey. So I'll be writing those up from time to time and tagging them with Tri Coach so they're easy to find.
Here's one I find myself regularly harping on with athletes. It's a bit of advice that you can probably find in almost every triathlon book, video, course, and comes out of the lips of most coaches on a regular basis.
Yet it is the SINGULARLY MOST IGNORED advice by most athletes. I myself managed to ignore it for years, to the great detriment of my own training. So pay attention :-)
The three very simple, important, and basic rules of endurance training are:
1. Rest: Possibly the hardest thing for many triathletes to do is to take adequate rest. Get at least one full day off per week (I didn't do this last week and ended up over-tired and with a poorer ability to hit my key workouts hard). If you can catch a 15 minute nap during the afternoon time, that's good for the body and soul as well.
2. Go Easy: On "Long, Slow" runs and bikes, don't ignore the "Slow" part of the equation! It's easy to train at too fast a pace when you're going long. Slow should be easy, it should feel too easy. If you're training to go long, your long runs can be done at marathon pace + :30 or +:45 per mile. That's going to feel really slow. Let it!
3. Go Hard: On intervals, sprints, time trials, hill repeats, GO HARD. People who go a little too hard and too fast on their long, slow, easy days often fail to hit the hard days hard enough. Hard workouts suck. Hard workouts hurt. No one wants to hurt, gasp for air, feel like puking. But that's what hard workouts are about. They're quick and over in a relatively short amount of time so suck it up and make it count.
If you don't go easy enough on easy days and hard enough on hard days, you risk spending most of your training time in the gray zone - not slow enough to work your endurance systems and not hard enough to build muscle strength, power, and speed. So you short-change your own goals.
Here's one I find myself regularly harping on with athletes. It's a bit of advice that you can probably find in almost every triathlon book, video, course, and comes out of the lips of most coaches on a regular basis.
Yet it is the SINGULARLY MOST IGNORED advice by most athletes. I myself managed to ignore it for years, to the great detriment of my own training. So pay attention :-)
The three very simple, important, and basic rules of endurance training are:
1. Rest: Possibly the hardest thing for many triathletes to do is to take adequate rest. Get at least one full day off per week (I didn't do this last week and ended up over-tired and with a poorer ability to hit my key workouts hard). If you can catch a 15 minute nap during the afternoon time, that's good for the body and soul as well.
2. Go Easy: On "Long, Slow" runs and bikes, don't ignore the "Slow" part of the equation! It's easy to train at too fast a pace when you're going long. Slow should be easy, it should feel too easy. If you're training to go long, your long runs can be done at marathon pace + :30 or +:45 per mile. That's going to feel really slow. Let it!
3. Go Hard: On intervals, sprints, time trials, hill repeats, GO HARD. People who go a little too hard and too fast on their long, slow, easy days often fail to hit the hard days hard enough. Hard workouts suck. Hard workouts hurt. No one wants to hurt, gasp for air, feel like puking. But that's what hard workouts are about. They're quick and over in a relatively short amount of time so suck it up and make it count.
If you don't go easy enough on easy days and hard enough on hard days, you risk spending most of your training time in the gray zone - not slow enough to work your endurance systems and not hard enough to build muscle strength, power, and speed. So you short-change your own goals.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Finding Your Climbing Power
It's that time of year: when we look at our upcoming races and the terrain we'll need to cover, and we start to get more specific in our training. If your races involve hills, that means training on hills. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to cycle with some great hill climbers and learn a few tips that have made me a better climber. I'm still learning and growing as a cyclist, but here's a few things I've learned along the way:
While it might look dramatic on TV to be climbing while standing on the pedals (in fact, I had to laugh out loud when I watched the Ironman Florida television coverage - the footage they got from the bike course was of athletes standing on their pedals to climb the only "hill" on the course, an overpass. The triathletes were just stretching out their legs after miles and miles of flat windy riding, there was no other reason to get up off your seat on that tiny incline!), in reality you're often better off staying seated while climbing. This is especially important if your build tends toward the sturdy and muscular and not to the slim and whippetlike. A top road biker who is an expert climber will generally weigh (in pounds) no more than twice his height (in inches). Yes, that's 144 pounds for a 6' tall male. If you haven't yet (or never want to) achieve this body style, every extra pound you carry will cost you in the climb.
Staying seated has many advantages: it keeps your weight partially supported by your saddle instead of by the muscles in your legs (a rule of thumb is that you use about 10% more energy as soon as you stand up to climb), it uses less of your core and arm muscles (fewer muscles engaged equals less oxygen consumed), it utilizes your legs and glutes more effectively with less wasted motion, and it allows you to keep up a faster more consistent cadence.
In order to stay seated, you have to use your gears wisely. Many triathletes who are not yet comfortable on their bikes tend to avoid shifting as much as possible. You wouldn't do this in your car, where you would hear your engine lugging or over-revving when you refused to shift. Your body is doing the same thing when you don't shift to keep your cadence constant. So picking the right gear for the start of the hill and then staying on the shifters to maintain your cadence in the 70 - 90 range is crucial. Keep those pedals spinning and your heart rate in a manageable zone as you cruise up the hill. Hammering a hill and flooding your muscles with lactic acid (especially in a race) might look cool in the moment, but is a recipe for disaster. Those lactic-flooded legs will feel dead on the run!
If you do need to stand, either to change body position, give your back a break, or because the hill is too steep to stay seated, work on keeping a steady line while rocking the bike back and forth underneath you. This is a skill that will come with practice, but many triathletes weave and wobble when they stand on hills, potentially endangering any athletes trying to pass on the side. So when you're out training on hills, be sure to get some practice with standing climbs. Use your body weight to help you push down on the pedals and let the bike travel side-to-side underneath you, but not too far (6 - 8 inches is enough). Observe the track of your wheels and make sure you're still traveling in a straight line. Don't lean way far forward over the handlebars as this takes efficiency away from your legs, try keeping your weight centered over your cranks as much as possible. Don't forget that just before you stand you may need to shift into a higher gear to account for the increased power of a standing climb.
Best way to get good at hills: stop fearing them and start doing them. I know I used to hate hills but now I kind of find that I like them. I've started tracking my times on some local doozies so I know when I'm getting better over the course of a season, and even when I've started off a new season with better climbing skills than I started the last one. This year's Crossfit training has made me a stronger hill climber with lower body weight and more power, so I'm eager to see how I'll stack up against my benchmark hills this season!
Monday, April 05, 2010
Taper: Why, What, How?
Tapering is on my mind this week, since I'm doing a light taper for my swim meet this weekend (a fat lot of good it will do me, since my biggest limiter is really my arm and my form, but still...), and since peaking and tapering are perhaps some of the more talked about and least understood aspects of training, I thought I'd tackle the "why, what, and how" of tapering.
When I was swimming in college, I didn't really understand anything behind the Peak and Taper cycles that we followed for big meets other than the fact that the workload seemed to increase exponentially for awhile (including our coach having us swim with one, then two or three pairs of nylons on our legs--yes, even the guys--to increase drag), and then we had this wonderful week or so of "taper" where the yardage went way down and we could eat all the pasta we wanted. Then we'd shave down (arms and everything) and arrive at the meet feeling at the top of our game. Lucky for us, the coach did all the heavy thinking about building ourselves up and when to effectively taper off and rest. Mind you this was more than twenty years ago, and exercise physiologists now have an even greater understanding of the benefits of a good peak and taper. So how do you take advantage of that?
Many triathletes, whether new or experienced fail to adequately taper for a big race. The pitfalls of tapering are many: doing too little, doing too much, tapering too long or not long enough, not including intensity, going mentally bonkers from the reduced training, resisting the urge to squeeze in one too many quality workouts. However, if you can avoid the pitfalls, the benefits are also large.
Why Taper?
A training schedule that builds to a good peak and tapers effectively for an "A" race leaves you with increased fitness across a broad spectrum of measures: stroke volume of the heart, greater blood volume, higher red blood cell levels, greater strength and power in the muscles, a reduction in lactic acid production at peak effort, a greater ability to utilize fat for fuel combined with larger muscle glycogen stores. Additionally, you should feel refreshed and rested with your muscles no longer in a state of exhaustion or rebuilding that is common in your training cycle. In essence, you should be able to perform in your race at a significantly higher level than you've been able to achieve in training.
How Do You Taper Effectively?
For many athletes, the taper may present the biggest psychological challenge in their entire training year. This is where your mental muscle has to come into play. If you've trained effectively and built to a peak, a taper may feel like you're "not doing enough". Far too many athletes sabotage their race day performance by squeezing in one or two last workouts that are either too long, too intense, or both. Since it takes your body about 10 days to fully integrate the benefits of a workout and fully recover from that workout, training at a high workload within that ten day period is generally more harmful than beneficial.
Length: There are two general rules of thumb that apply to the length of a taper.
1) The length of the race dictates the length of the taper. An Ironman-distance race or beyond calls for the longest taper - about two and a half weeks. A sprint distance can be shorter - a week if you're a first-time athlete who is not doing a lot of intensity, 10 days if you're including more high-intensity and focused workouts.
2) The fitness of the athlete also influences the length of the taper. If you have a great base of training and are an experienced athlete, you can actually taper longer than someone with a lower fitness level. When calculating the length of your taper, erring on the side of caution is always better than trying to make sure you get one last intense brick before race day.
Workload Volume
In a 2 - 3 week long taper, reduce the total workload volume by about a quarter each week. For a 2 week taper, cut back by a third, for a one week to 10-day taper cut volume by half. When you cut back volume, it's best to cut back on the duration of each workout. Don't cut back to just doing one longer swim, bike, and run a week but maintain your normal schedule and cut the length of each workout appropriately.
Intensity
This is where research has come into play - we now know that keeping some intensity in the week(s) of tapering actually helps improve your performance over just totally slacking off. This doesn't mean you slaughter yourself with intervals to keep the feeling of exhaustion that you've gotten used to in training, but within your reduced training volume keep a reasonable amount of intervals and intensity, and decrease this intensity over the duration of the taper (in other words, don't go out and hit the hill repeats three days before your race).
Basically, you want to keep the feeling of your race paces, just for shorter durations. You want to keep the feel of your swim start pace, your running turnover, your cycling cadence in these workouts, so focus your intensity wisely and include some intervals of near-maximal effort during your taper week. For instance, my swimmers this week did a main set that included four 200s at increasing intensities. Normally our main set would be twice as long with much more intensity, but by cutting back the total distance and keeping some fast swimming yardage (though a reduced amount), everyone should keep their feeling of their race pace without over-taxing their muscles.
Other Focuses
The pre-race week can be a good time to focus on the little details that might've escaped you until now. Practice transitions over and over and over. Look at the weather and at your gear, decide what to wear and try it out at the appropriate time in the morning to make sure you will be comfortable at race-day temperature. Make sure you have adequate stocks of your race-day nutrition and other essentials, firm up travel arrangements and print out those Google maps. Use some of your down time to mentally visualize a successful race. Many studies have shown the incredible benefits of positive visualization, so use this time to your best benefit by having a strong mental game.
Many athletes let the itchy not-doing-enough feeling of tapering overcome them, and you can fight this by making sure you have a game plan for your taper time.
When I was swimming in college, I didn't really understand anything behind the Peak and Taper cycles that we followed for big meets other than the fact that the workload seemed to increase exponentially for awhile (including our coach having us swim with one, then two or three pairs of nylons on our legs--yes, even the guys--to increase drag), and then we had this wonderful week or so of "taper" where the yardage went way down and we could eat all the pasta we wanted. Then we'd shave down (arms and everything) and arrive at the meet feeling at the top of our game. Lucky for us, the coach did all the heavy thinking about building ourselves up and when to effectively taper off and rest. Mind you this was more than twenty years ago, and exercise physiologists now have an even greater understanding of the benefits of a good peak and taper. So how do you take advantage of that?
Many triathletes, whether new or experienced fail to adequately taper for a big race. The pitfalls of tapering are many: doing too little, doing too much, tapering too long or not long enough, not including intensity, going mentally bonkers from the reduced training, resisting the urge to squeeze in one too many quality workouts. However, if you can avoid the pitfalls, the benefits are also large.
What is a Taper?
A period of 10 days to two and a half weeks preceding your most important races where you gradually reduce both volume and to a lesser degree, intensity in your training.
Why Taper?
A training schedule that builds to a good peak and tapers effectively for an "A" race leaves you with increased fitness across a broad spectrum of measures: stroke volume of the heart, greater blood volume, higher red blood cell levels, greater strength and power in the muscles, a reduction in lactic acid production at peak effort, a greater ability to utilize fat for fuel combined with larger muscle glycogen stores. Additionally, you should feel refreshed and rested with your muscles no longer in a state of exhaustion or rebuilding that is common in your training cycle. In essence, you should be able to perform in your race at a significantly higher level than you've been able to achieve in training.
How Do You Taper Effectively?
For many athletes, the taper may present the biggest psychological challenge in their entire training year. This is where your mental muscle has to come into play. If you've trained effectively and built to a peak, a taper may feel like you're "not doing enough". Far too many athletes sabotage their race day performance by squeezing in one or two last workouts that are either too long, too intense, or both. Since it takes your body about 10 days to fully integrate the benefits of a workout and fully recover from that workout, training at a high workload within that ten day period is generally more harmful than beneficial.
Length: There are two general rules of thumb that apply to the length of a taper.
1) The length of the race dictates the length of the taper. An Ironman-distance race or beyond calls for the longest taper - about two and a half weeks. A sprint distance can be shorter - a week if you're a first-time athlete who is not doing a lot of intensity, 10 days if you're including more high-intensity and focused workouts.
2) The fitness of the athlete also influences the length of the taper. If you have a great base of training and are an experienced athlete, you can actually taper longer than someone with a lower fitness level. When calculating the length of your taper, erring on the side of caution is always better than trying to make sure you get one last intense brick before race day.
Workload Volume
In a 2 - 3 week long taper, reduce the total workload volume by about a quarter each week. For a 2 week taper, cut back by a third, for a one week to 10-day taper cut volume by half. When you cut back volume, it's best to cut back on the duration of each workout. Don't cut back to just doing one longer swim, bike, and run a week but maintain your normal schedule and cut the length of each workout appropriately.
Intensity
This is where research has come into play - we now know that keeping some intensity in the week(s) of tapering actually helps improve your performance over just totally slacking off. This doesn't mean you slaughter yourself with intervals to keep the feeling of exhaustion that you've gotten used to in training, but within your reduced training volume keep a reasonable amount of intervals and intensity, and decrease this intensity over the duration of the taper (in other words, don't go out and hit the hill repeats three days before your race).
Basically, you want to keep the feeling of your race paces, just for shorter durations. You want to keep the feel of your swim start pace, your running turnover, your cycling cadence in these workouts, so focus your intensity wisely and include some intervals of near-maximal effort during your taper week. For instance, my swimmers this week did a main set that included four 200s at increasing intensities. Normally our main set would be twice as long with much more intensity, but by cutting back the total distance and keeping some fast swimming yardage (though a reduced amount), everyone should keep their feeling of their race pace without over-taxing their muscles.
Other Focuses
The pre-race week can be a good time to focus on the little details that might've escaped you until now. Practice transitions over and over and over. Look at the weather and at your gear, decide what to wear and try it out at the appropriate time in the morning to make sure you will be comfortable at race-day temperature. Make sure you have adequate stocks of your race-day nutrition and other essentials, firm up travel arrangements and print out those Google maps. Use some of your down time to mentally visualize a successful race. Many studies have shown the incredible benefits of positive visualization, so use this time to your best benefit by having a strong mental game.
Many athletes let the itchy not-doing-enough feeling of tapering overcome them, and you can fight this by making sure you have a game plan for your taper time.
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