Getting the right results can be key

Wanted to take a min to show you what some of the tweaks you can make in training can do to effect results.

This is an athlete that is performing at a high level in both bike and run but the principals could be applied for many levels. Too often athletes train every zone too hard. It’s easy to understand the reason and logic behind why they do that. They assume if they work really hard they should get results, and they do! Sometimes though results that they didn’t want.

Last year with this athlete we spent a lot of time building strength and really pushing their ability to hold higher wattage for longer periods of time. The issue though is we wanted to raise high end output this year to a new level. We decided to take a risk and significantly back off the intensity on the longer days trying to save energy for the shorter days. It seems to be working perfectly!

Check out these charts below to see the progress graphically

Setting up your training

When planning for your season, we talk about working backwards. I think too often athletes put themselves into programs that fit into their current abilities. That could mean the things they like to do, or it could mean they live in a cold environment and it’s what is most available to them i.e. indoor trainer versus outside.

Its complete understandable why athletes think like this, and by default it can really be a pretty good way to go. The trend is definitely more towards long course for the last several years. With long course doing short hard workouts indoors is not a bad recipe for having a great season plan. We have to be careful though, because while general fitness is a good thing to develop; you want to make sure you start to develop specific fitness as well.

One of the features we offer in our AMP pro, and to our coached athletes is Best Bike Split. I think it’s another great tool to use. You can select the race you wish to do, enter your specific metrics, what your goals are, and BOOM! You’re give an “ideal” race plan. Pretty cool! Now we just need the World to always be an “ideal” place when we are trying to race and compete. Often times wrenches are thrown in but none the less, it can be a great tool to help you prepare physically and mentally for the challenges you have ahead of you.

Remember, we want to work BACKWARDS to get ahead. So we want to take a look at the ideal race strategy. Whether it is generated from a program, or old school by talking to people and doing self-reflection.

-        Figure out the demands you expect to deal with for the race

-        Figure out the things that you need to get better at to deal with those demands

-        Come up with a plan of action to work on them in training such as “key sets”

-        If you have the time (which is why the “off season” is really important) then what things can you be doing now to help set you up for success in those key sessions which will intern set you up for success in your race

Let’s look at a simple example, using Best Bike split. California 70.3 is a race that is coming up which I also know well. I have had the experience of having my ass handed to me at that race, and then eventually being the overall AG winner, and everything in between. I can’t control who shows up, but once I figured out that race, I was able to have A LOT more success. We can get into the details in our forum about the tricks of the race, but for now, let’s just use the BBS profile and gain some insight on how to work backwards.

In the attached images you will see the race plan. I used the IF (Intensity Factor) setting because this will be the most universal for all to relate to. I set it to 80%. Basically this means I would like my overall average effort to be 80% of threshold. Some may need to go slower; others may be able to go faster but I had to pick something. I feel 80% is a solid 70.3 distance effort that if trained well, you can still run off the bike.

The program will also use your FTP (Functional Threshold Power). This is the power you can produce at you LT (Lactate Threshold). It will use this number along with the overall average intensity factor you want to race at and compute based on the course what is the best way for you to spend your energy to get around the course the fastest.

For this model I used an FTP of 100. I did this so that the model can be essentially expressed in a percentage of FTP. So where you see it say “89” for example, it really would be saying 89%.

Knowing the time is irrelevant because if someone had an FTP of 100 they would be out there awhile, the graph is best looked at in miles. Assuming people will ride 20 mph on average (just keeps the math simple) you can start to predict the demands of the race.

THE MAP

If we look at the Map we see we have about 25-30 miles of flatter course. Wind depending and assuming you are traveling 20 mph we know it’s going to take us 75-90 min to negotiate that part of the course. It has some ups and downs but we can see that it is calling for us to average between 75-85% on this portion of the course for some sustained periods of time.

We then have about 15 miles of some pretty significant ups and downs. If we look at the power outputs its calling for us to have it can range from 85-116% for several minutes at a time! We need to be ready for that. This is also a great example of blending the technology with the experience of advice from people who have been there. I say this because I can tell you that HOW you are going to be doing those efforts can range from standing up grinding the pedals and your legs screaming because the hill is so steep, to being aero and aerobically your lungs are on fire because you are trying to get up a roller or a false flat.

If we look at the last 15 mines (45 min or so) we see the chart has us doing a lot of 65-7% efforts because it’s mainly downhill (false flat). Again though, I can tell you that if you have a headwind coming back. It’s not going to be that easy and this is the part of the course that eats a lot of people up and takes their run from the, as well.

For a lot of reasons.

-       -  People haven’t trained right or specifically enough

-       -  They are mentally rusty from having to push nonstop for 2:15+. That’s a completely different animal then pushing harder off and on in spin class – trust me.

So if we were to set up a training set to help us prepare for this, it would look something like this:

Warm up 15 min

In the warm up include 3 x 1 min big gear low RPM standing with 3 min rest between. (There are some good climbs to get out of the harbor. Practice staying relaxed under high torque.

Main Set

3-4 x 8-12 min @85-89% Half way through each interval do 30 sec. HARD!,  then right back to working intensity (3 min easy spin between)

2-4 x 4-6 min @ 95-115% alternate however you want seated and standing. Can break them up in intervals, or within the intervals, but throw in some sustained hard gear standing (recover 4 min between)

2-3 x 12-20 min @85-90% (2 min easy spin between)

You can mix and match those how you want. You don’t have to progress every set equally. You can do all the longer ones for example and fewer short ones, or some combination you choose. The important thing is knowing and identifying what YOU need to do. We can help you with that. 

consultations coming in!

Our Amp program is growing every day, its so exciting to see athletes really starting to take advantage of the included resources!

Here is an example of one of the athletes and what types of questions and feedback we help them with, included in the 59.00 a month price -

TBC,

I'm 36, I've been "dabbling" in triathlon since 2007. My overall goal is continuous improvement with my focus being on the general fitness the training provides. 

I completed IM CDA with a 16:19 time, IM Florida with a 16:18 time. I competed in the Rev3 Cedar Point in but had to pull out after 70 miles on the bike due to a knee injury. I ran IM AZ, finishing in 15:20. 

I ran IM UK but had not been training well and missed the time cutoff at mile 90 on the bike. This year I ran IM France, my training was improved but still not adequate, especially for the challenging bike route and I missed the time cut off at mile 80. 

I've signed up for IM France again next year (June 5th) and I'm considering IM Wales or IM Dublin 70.3 as well but I need to get my training on track before making that call. My goal for IM France is to break 14 hours.

As you can tell from my results I'm a mediocre age group athlete. This is primarily due to inconsistency in my training. I've been listening to the TBC podcast for a while now to help with my motivation and decided to join the AMP to get a little more guidance, motivation and accountability in my training in order to achieve that consistency.

I currently live in England and my work schedule is quite hectic with changing hours week to week and frequent trips. I can train an hour each week day and 3-4 hours most Saturdays and Sundays. 

I have a small indoor pool to swim in, not big enough for laps so I have a tether to hook myself to the wall. I have a treadmill and Computrainer as well. Necessities as the English winter sets in.

So that's a little bit about me. 

Thanks again for the help,

AMP member

Are you working hard at hardly working?

As triathletes we are used to working hard and overcoming problems. It’s usually an object of pride. If our FTP needs work, we work hard to get it up. If we need to get our pace down on the run or swim, not a problem, we work hard and try to make it happen.

When it comes to the weight room, we either skip that workout all together but if we do go, we want to win at that too. The issue is we start to incorporate muscles to help us keep up with what we think we should be able to do and in our defense, our bodies try to do it without our even knowing most of the time.

When our bodies try to help us by over compensating, this is how injuries start to creep in. This is what I have been learning over the past year.

I have had to recently get PRP in both my Achilles tendons. This stems from having calcification in both my Achilles tendons. The reason I have the calcification is because I have bone spurs on the back of my heel which rubs against my Achilles. The reason I have that… tight calves.

I’m sorry if that seemed confusing, but the point is just like the song says: “the thigh bone really IS connected to the shin bone.” When we get caught trying to do the best we can sometimes we can accidentally or on purpose avoid the process that needs to take place to make us better.  

Here is another example. My Achilles hurt for several years off and on. I would spend time getting them worked on so they would not hurt as bad. I eventually figured out that the calves being tight were what put added strain on the Achilles tendons. What I was not aware of was why my CALVES were tight! I was not using my glutes to run. I had become a calf runner. I was compensating with other muscles, over working them like my back, hip flexors, etc. All these issues were making my calves do more work than they are made to do.

I am lucky enough this past year to meet Gina, she owns Achieve Athletics, and Garrett who owns Champion Sports Advantage. As I rehab my PRP we are using this as an opportunity to work on areas that I need to get to fire. It isn’t even so much of a strength issue. I simply haven’t been activating the right muscles in the right sequence.

Below are some videos at how terrible I am doing this work with proper form. The task was to be able to activate my glute only to raise my foot towards the ceiling. I could do all I could do to just activate my glute! In a world where a lot of endurance athletes run to things like “Crossfit” because they want to work hard to get fit hoping they will get faster from the fitness, trying to talk them into this is a hard sale! This is why I have hired Garrett to work with all my athletes this year. Everyone can benefit from this.

Thankfully Garrett was able to demonstrate the proper form.

If you are interested in learning what you need to work on to get faster and avoid injury, contact us today. We will try to get you sorted out. 

Never too old to learn

This year I turned 40 which unless you are my friends who like to tease me, really isn’t that old. However, I have been doing triathlon in some way shape or form since late 1980’s. So in that respect I am getting pretty long in the tooth with endurance sports.

This year has been one of my toughest years I have had, I have been battling injuries in my lower legs for several years, and this year they have really come to a head. I have calcification in both achillies tendons and something called Haglund’s deformity. It’s like a bone spur on the back of your heel that then rubs and irritates the achillies so much in defense the achillies build up calcium (bone) in the tendon and it hurts. BTW it’s really brought on from tight calves so as a side note, keep stretching!

I have had an amazing team around me trying to help keep me in the game but there just hasn’t been the opportunities to train at the level I usually do on the run in regards to intensity at all this year and it’s showed. I kept telling myself that it didn’t matter so much because at IM I didn’t need to run fast, I needed to run strong. That’s true in the race but I think my economy and motivation were really impacted. I think this was for several reasons.

At first I was pretty disappointed on how my season was unfolding. Last year I was ranked #1 in the World for the AWA rankings for 70.3 (although I would argue I was top 5 actually) I was at the top. This year, it was a battle all year. You race long enough, everyone will have an off time. This was my time. That being said, I really tried to take inventory of WHY and learn what I could so I could learn as a coach. I learned a few very important lessons this year.

First, I walked a lot in my marathons this year. A lot. I have often told my athletes who plan for this you have to plan for the walk, but I now fully feel the impact of having to walk. You HAVE to build walk fitness if you think you are going to walk. You have to. The muscles you use are very different. The only thing I could relate it to is it was like trying to ride a bike with a new fit on race day. Even if it’s a better fit, you aren’t going to be used to it and are going to be quite sore.

My father is a 14+ hour finisher. I would have him cut grass, work around the house, and then go start his run training for the day. I wanted him to practice being active all day. I still think that is a good way to get ready but please build some walking into your training. If nothing else if you are fit to walk you can walk 2-4 min faster per mile then someone who hasn’t! it doesn’t seem like a big deal but if you are going to walk 10+ miles its almost an hour faster.

The second thing I think I really learned is I have been too focused on Ironman for too long and the distance while very hard, isn’t providing the stimulus I need to keep getting better. It’s hard to go backwards in distance which is why short course guys coming across our way have it better, but I think I am getting to the point I need to rebuild shorter fitness (even if I do an ironman next year I want to explore that. I also think that why my body is breaking down. I have done 10 Ironman races in the past 5 years and that doesn’t even include all the training I have done.

In general, you tend to work a program until it doesn’t, then you have to make a change. That is the power of having an attentive coach. I have always been low maintenance, I don’t ask for a lot from people who are helping me, but I will now for a while. I want to look into how I respond to different things and what changes I need to make and trust some new processes.

Leadville

I’ve always wanted to the Leadville 100 MTB race. I’d wondered if the race would suit my skill set. It’s a long course, it includes a lot of sustained climbs and it isn’t very technical relative to other MTB races. These factors would play to my strengths and to the type of training I usually do.

An opportunity to do Leadville presented itself. I was invited to enter this past weekend’s event with a several clients and friends. I jumped at the chance to go! But I wouldn’t be racing at Leadville; I wouldn’t even being riding my own ride. Instead, I was hired to help these five friends through the grueling course.

My instructions for the day were to keep all five of them together and feeling relatively good until the base of Power Line, where they would walk their bikes up or ride at their own pace. Upon the return, I would get them back to Powerline, where each would descend at his own pace. Due to the variability in their skill sets, both athletically and technically, everyone would take the last 15 miles (mainly downhill) at his own pace and we would all regroup at the finish line.

This event was a first for me in more ways than one. I had never before served such a diverse group of athletes and on a course where I was unsure of my own abilities. I understood the demands of the Leadville course; I have coached athletes through great Leadville finishes in the past. While I was confident I knew what had to be done, I personally had never really mountain biked longer than 50 miles in my life – and those rides were all on bike paths.

As it turned out, I could have ridden much harder at Leadville had I been on my own. But I wasn’t there to race. Instead, I was there to help five guys get through most of the course and, according their wish, to get through as much of the course together. This was a difficult task, given the diversity in the group. Most of the guys had “coached themselves” and it showed in how quickly they fatigued. Even the one guy in the group that I usually coach, a small business owner who just didn’t have the time this year to put in the preparation, was struggling.

The struggle up Columbine was real for them. While most people walk the incline, with my Achilles injury, walking was gong to be an issue for me. So, I asked the guys if it would be okay for me to ride up and then meet them at the aid station on the descent. With their approval, I took off. For the first time in that day, I was working REALLY hard, working at my level.

I must have passed 400 people in the two miles up Columbine, and I found myself riding up stuff that I would have believed was impossible to do – but I was doing it! I hit the turn-around at the top and was bombing down before I knew it. I had been descending almost seven minutes before I saw the guys still on their way up. Despite a crash, I still managed to put 35 minutes on them over a very short amount of course. That was a rush!

After they showed up to the aid station and refueled, I paced them on to the next aid station. It took them about 80 minutes to get there and they were pretty wrecked when they did. They were struggling big time. So, we came up with our next plan: I was to pace them to the bottom of Power Line climb, which they thought they would end up walking, and then my job would be done.

 

All the way to the bottom of Power Line, they were doing the math to see whether they could finish in the 12 hour “belt buckle” time limit. When we reached the bottom of Power Line, we were about 80 miles into the course, and at 8:27 of total ride time. It could be cutting it close for some, but from here on out, it would be every man for himself.

My job done, I took off like a shot out of a cannon! “On your left!” “Center line!” “Can I have the line please?!” I was shouting left and right as I rode as much of the climb as I could. I heard, “Rider coming! Rider Coming Through!” as spectators yelled at the participants walking their bikes to try to get them out of my way. It was so motivating to hear their cheers. Even though I felt like I was going to die, I dug deep into a level even I wasn’t sure I had and rode most of that climb.

I had to get off a few times as there was simply no way around the walkers, but I pushed the bike as fast as I could around them and got right back on. I was having a blast! Halfway up power line, I decided to catch the two guys in our group who had ridden ahead. Now I had my own race going!

At the top of the climb, when I thought I had about 15 miles left (In reality, I had 19, because the course is actually 104 miles!), I started to think of what I might accomplish How awesome would it be if I made the jump from the breaking-12-hours finisher group time to the breaking-10-hours group – and within only 20 miles of the finish! Game ON!

After Power Line, there is one more climb. I knew I was going to have to reach the top of that climb at 9:30 or under if I had any chance of breaking 10-hours. I hit the top in 9:34, so knew that breaking 10 hours was not going to happen, but I was okay with that. 10:15 became the new goal and I was just as excited!

It turns out that I did break 10:15 for 100 miles, but it turns out that the Leadville 100 MTB race actually covers 104 miles. I finished that in 10:21. It was so fun to FLY past all the people who had passed me so early on in the day. And I did end up catching our entire group; I caught the last guy just 2 miles from the finish.

Our whole group did fantastic. All five guys – six, if you include me – finished under the 12-hour “belt buckle” time limit. The two guys who went ahead finished in about 10:30 and 10:55, and the two guys I stuck with most of the day went 11:27. (Later, they told me that they couldn’t have finished without my help. Giving them food, letting them drink from my bottles and pacing them into the wind helped them to finish – and finish under 12 hours.) Then, our final guy ended up being the third to last official finisher. He did an awesome job getting in just seconds before the clock struck 12! Celebrating that victory was the highlight of our day.

Going into the race, the guys said that they just wanted to have fun. For them, sticking together for as much of the race as they could was integral in that. They insisted that they didn’t care about their finishing time, but were in it more for the experience, the views and eventually reaching the finish line. Sitting around breakfast the morning after the race, with everyone rehashing the day and their experiences, it became clear to me that each man had given his all out there. It was also clear just how much fun they had. Their mission was a success.

 

 

What is possible? My best races

Last weekend I had a chance to race Leadville 100 MTB race with clients. As I was hired to ride the crew I was with to the base of Power Line climb inbound, I was forced to go out at a very conservative pace for the first 80 miles to include even waiting at an aide station for 40 min while the crew regrouped after the Columbine descent.

At 8:27 into the race I was free to ride the last 25 miles on my own. I was RIPPING past people. My first instinct was can I still break 10 hours which would be tough considering I was pacing a group of 4 to just break 12 hours until so late in the game.

I was FLYING past people. I didn’t break 10 hours in part because I started to go too late, and I didn’t realize it was actually 104 miles. I finished in 10:21 but more importantly I finished very strong and it left me wondering what actually IS possible?

In contrast I think of races I have started too fast and instead have finished thinking WHY am I doing this at all? I have paced friends for the first part of marathons, and have had the same result. The first break through I have had at an Ironman was in Kona, and it was because I started very conservatively and built a head a steam throughout the day.

My first marathon I ever ran was a day before decision and while I had been training to run and do triathlons, I had not been doing ANY marathon training. I made the choice the night before I would just go easy and see how far I could go before I had to walk. I ran 3:30 on a tough Kansas City course, and am happy to report I didn’t walk one time! I tried to “PR” the following month at Dallas White Rock Marathon and blew up impressively.

Now, none of these event are any of my standing “PR” races except Leadville I guess as it was my only attempt. However, ALL of these experiences had left me wondering “WHAT WAS POSSIBLE?” They were some of my best race experiences. They left me excited to take on the next challenge.
Science will tell you most if not all PR’s over a sprint are set with a negative or even split. You have to decide how you want to race though. Speaking with Pros such as Crowie about how he ran Alii Dr. worked more on the mental impact it had on competitors vs. his ability to run the fasted overall split he could.

My point is this. Take inventory of your goals, and what you want your experience to be. No coach can answer that for you, in fact very good ones will not even try. That’s for you to decide and commit to. I will say though, it’s worth noting how each approach can possibly leave you feeling.  I’m pretty excited to go back to Leadville someday and have a legit crack at it. I suspect there is a perfect balance in the two for everyone.