Just keep going

It was good to get away and get some training in some warm weather. I am posting pictures of a couple of the camps we did. One was with Multisport Madness in Palm Springs, the other was a personal camp in San Diego. What was even cooler was Lindsay and I were able to go to Tucson just by ourselves. It was a good boost of fitness but the reality of coming back to winter storms is HARD REALITY that I still live in the Midwest.

I had an athlete ask me the other day how to improve over the winter and would a camp help. Of course, camps are great for boosting fitness and especially if done properly can really set you up for a great increase even when you return if you back it up properly with the right type of training. What my answer to him was also was consistency. Seems that every athlete I coach is looking for the “magic bullet”. There is no one single thing if you just do that it will make you a better athlete. Of course there are specific things you can do to improve, i.e. economy, strength, form, new stimuli, etc. In fact I just received a bike fit at the Bike Shop in Glen Ellyn with Rich Ducar and John Cobb. I will try to post about that in a separate blog, but we made some pretty extreme changes he swears will pay off. However, the that being said, any athlete will have the most significant changes with consistent approach to training. It isn’t the most sexy answer but you just have to go to work and stay at work over and over. At least this is what I have found.

As coaches we know this and can really help our athletes stay on track. We often get the athletes that want to do the New Year’s Epic swim, or the major ride in the summer, or 100 days of swimming, etc. Again, those can be fun and help, but if those are the only thing you are changing, you are going to be right back to where you were last season, just maybe injured from the massive change in stress for the short term.

The good news is the flip side of the coin. Just because you can’t make it to a single camp of an epic day, doesn’t mean you are necessarily at a disadvantage. I have some Ironman athletes right now with busy work and family schedules. We haven’t been able to do many rides if any over 5 hours. Most of them are 4 or less. Our approach has been to consistently introduce the right amount of stress on a consistent basis to keep fitness moving forward. We feel we have been quite successful to this point.

150.00 waived!!

Per Joe's blog:

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Best,

Practice makes perfect?

It is often said “practice makes perfect”. Does it? It might.

I was doing some research and came across an interesting study of ice skaters. Each ice skater was given 1 hour to practice their craft. One skater was an Olympic caliber skater, one was a very solid up and comer, and the final was a beginner.

The Olympic skater spent their time practicing moves they have not yet perfected. The Up and comer spent their time practicing moves they have already perfected. Finally the beginner spent a lot of time talking with friends, and in general reluctant to do much.

All three skaters practiced the same amount of time, however each used the time extremely differently. The basic premise of the study was practice alone does not make perfect, however DELIBERATE practice does.

I send a lot of time with my athletes trying to get them to understand this, especially with weaknesses. Joe Friel used to use the example about golf when speaking with me. He would point out for a new golfer the worst thing they could do was spend hours a day hacking away. The same golfer would do much better to do several shorter practice sessions refining skill.

Self coached athletes will get better with “time in” for sure. The same athlete with a general plan will do even better yet. The athlete with a coach will on average do the best because deliberate practice is forced. It usually does not come naturally to work deliberately on the things you do not like to do.

Coaches will often encourage athletes to invest in devices such as power meters and or speed distance watches for this exact reason, it helps us refine the practice even more.

Kona 09

my friend's Polar watch said it was 105 degrees today at teh bottom of Hawi, and it did not get below 100 until we finally reached the airport at mile 100ish.

Everyone,

Thanks for all the support. I really never write race reports, but Ill give you the down and dirty.


Swim-
Very hard swim. Got knocked around a ton. Saw a girl about 20 yards ahead of our group should out to catch her, took me several min. I finally did, followed her blindly, but for some reason half way back she swam off course, and by the time we got back on course we were back with the group. 

Bike-
I went pretty well the entire way. Went through half way in like 2:27ish. It was so windy and hot coming back I just chose to shut it down and save it for the run. I gave back 15 min on the back half, but it paid off.

Run

Just ran steady. Ran first 10 miles conservative, walked Palani Hill which is like almost half mile steep hill, then tried to run harder. Was able to get it down to 7:15-7:30 pace several times, but then would hit one of the never ending up hills. The hills here are like Campton hills, over and over. Not steep but always on one and they go FOREVER. So I kept getting relegated to 8:30ish pace.

Walked a couple aide stations, and a couple really steep sections, but all in all ran consistent.

10:04, PR for here, by far the hardest Ironman I have ever done with heat and wind. Crowie (male winner ran 2:48! 6 min slower then last year, Macca ran 2:55 and several of the top pros were around 3 hours) It was a very hard day today.

New uniforms!

As I am finishing up some of my long rides and runs I am observing more and more soccer and football games forming with kids and parents getting everything out for these games and events.

It has brought back so many memories for me. I can remember getting assigned to my team and receiving my uniform! I would wear that thing first thing in the am with intense anticipation for the game to come later. Armed in my uniform I would watch Saturday morning cartoons (remember when that alone was an event?) and then anxiously pace around the yard with the sporting equipment I would need for my game.

My coach at the time represented such a figure of authority and I would live to impress him at my practices and games. I was absolutely convinced that the World would stop and take notice when the game I played was taking place. We would do feverish battle until halftime when all we hoped was for someone’s mom to have brought “cool” snacks. Capri Suns, twinkies, fruit roll ups, these were the food of the athletes of the day. Who the hell wanted orange slices anyway!?

What I started to realize is I never grew up in this regard. Here I am in excited anticipation for my next event. For me this happens to be IM Wisconsin then Hawaii. I cant wait for the final ride to take place so I can finally clean my bike and put the race wheels on, set out the transition bags, and eagerly set out my nutrition for the race (still not going to use the orange slices).

I want to impress my coach, my family, and of course prove to myself the work I have put in is for something. At the end of the day though, my results are my results. The person holding final judgment is I, just as when I was a kid. Just as today I sit and watch my kids do their sport and my ONLY hope is they have fun. I base my excitement or criticisms based solely on their own reactions. I suspect the people who love us and care about us will still do that even now.

So as you come into your final races for the season or if yours are over and it’s time to review please be as passionate as that little kid waiting with the soccer uniform on for days before the event, but realize just as then, more defines you then that one game.

We are all awesome; we are competitors each of us on our own levels.

Great things all around

I just spent the last week with Simon Thompson. He is an amazing athlete but more importantly an awesome guy. He has become a life coach and was telling me the tremendous satisfaction he gets from helping people balance triathlon with family, jobs, and other pressures and still perform well.

What he was saying rang so true. How many of you have ever been on a workout torn because you felt needed somewhere else therefore you could not really “engage” in your session? We all have. Simon is not a counselor but specializes in helping us put into perspective the things in our life that pull at us the most. VERY interesting. It is also rare to have an athlete still competing at the highest level willing and able to work with you who directly understands the demands of the sport.

I also spoke with Ryan Bolton last week. He has not raced in years, as he has been focusing on his coaching. He was not only an 2000 Olympic athlete, but also coaches Kenyans for running currently. He decided to jump into a half marathon and ran 1:05:08!!!

Wow!

Well done Ryan.

This week I am hosting one of my athletes Kristin Lie from Norway. She hopes to podium at Wisconsin this year, and she is looking pretty fit!

The Pig Gig

I just did Pigman Triathlon. It is an awesome race. It is reasonably priced, very well organized, tons of volunteers and aid stations, and even has an Elite wave that age groupers can do, as well as a time trial start for all others.

I am in the middle of my Ironman training right now as well as playing a bit of catch up with my knee as I had suffered an injury which just started to feel better a couple weeks ago.

Even though I felt a but off it was awesome to race for the main reason I looked up the last time I did the race which was 2000. My swim was about the same my bike was 2:31ish and my run was 1:43 for a 4:43 total time. That was 2000. This year I went sameish on the swim, 2:16 on the bike in a massive rain storm, and 1:32 on the run for a total time of 4:20.

It was fun to compete and remember vividly the last time I was on the course, who I used to look up to, where I was with my fitness, what I felt were good performances for me, etc. All of those things have changed but I can remember I felt I was pretty good back then and very close to my peak performances I would ever achieve. This is exactly what I try to enforce in my athletes.

What you think now is not what you will be thinking later. ANYONE can get faster do better, reach further, and set new goals. Please note in the example it was 9 years ago! You have to be patient I invested in good coaching, and have started to reap the rewards it has brought.

Pigman this years was insane. When we started it was raining and it was getting progressively more and more windier.

I took the swim out very quick knowing David Thompson would be the guy to watch. After a couple minutes I felt I was still in the lead. I saw Thompson start to come around me on the right hand side but about 10 yards away. I was sprinting as hard as I could to try to get on his feet. I worked myself into some bubbles but was not quite on yet. To my left I say a couple more swimmers. When I sighted I noticed David and I were pretty far off course. I decided to head back to course and gave up chase. That was a mistake as from that point on he just got further and further ahead. I was able to stay very comfortable in the chase pack and we came out about 90 seconds behind.

The bike was the single most insane bike ride I have ever done. It was raining so hard I wasn’t sure if the glasses would work so I left them behind. The rain was coming down so hard though and the wind was blowing so hard it HRURT to look forward. I caught an edge a couple times because I couldn’t see where I was going.

I had two riders in front of me that were riding pretty strong. I usually like to average about 300 watts for my half races and I was well over that trying to keep pace. After a few miles I was able to drop into second place but was clearly even matched with that athlete. We were able to maintain a pretty good average trading leads which was mentally helpful as at times I had to go 450 watts just to go 15 mph into the wind and quickly ran out of gears and was going 46 mph with wind at our back!

Coming into T2 I was 3rd, felt solid but no “snap”. Did the best I could to run solid but it simply was not happening that day. That is Ok too as I have to keep building up fitness on my knee.