Endurance Nation | Online Triathlon Coaching & Community

For a chance to win a FREE 4Keys DVD — a $37 value:

1. Log-in to your Twitter account, then tweet RT @teamen I signed up for the free #outseason #triathlon seminar and now I want to win the Four Keys DVD! http://bit.ly/6gaKGC
2. You can enter as many times as you like – obviously the more times you enter, the better the chances of us picking your Tweet as the winner.
3. Make sure you’re following @teamen, so we can notify you via Direct Message if you win.

The most creative Tweets will win.

Winners will be chosen WEEKLY through midday EST on Friday, December 25th and notified via direct message.

Best of luck!

Rich and Patrick

Popularity: 11% [?]

Swim Finish / Transition Area by Mill Street Bridge

November 22nd, 2009 dawned cool and clear, with minimal breeze. The first thing I thought, stepping outside at 6am was, “Man, what a great day for a race!” Turns out I wasn’t that far off, with some incredible record-setting performances in both the professional and age group ranks. But that doesn’t mean it was easy. View EN pictures here, EN results here.

The Swim
Things were calm for the whole swim…any chop to be found was a direct result of enthusiastic swimming. It was also remarkably “not sunny” with sunrise not really taking place until 7:30. As a result, the Pros and faster AG swimmers really had minimal glare to contend with. Ironically the biggest challenge was the cold water temperatures. The longer you were in the water the worse it got, but everyone was affected in some way. From early onset of cramps (in the swim) to nearly debilitating shakes on the early miles of the bike, few were able to shake off the temps without difficulty.

T1 was well organized and chock full of volunteers. The only twist (no pun intended) was the ridiculously sharp turn at the transition exit. Athletes had to make a 90-degree turn in order to get to the mount line. Soaking wet, eating a gel, and running with a bike with one hand made being safe practically impossible. Yes, that picture above is of an athlete exiting T1 in a space blanket…he was that cold!

The Bike
True to form the bike was fast. Almost across the board everyone was faster in the first lap, mostly the result of a lack of any wind, but let’s not discount the desire to try and get warm either! As the day wore on the wind began to pick up a bit, slowing things down in lap two and three. This made heading out of Tempe towards the turnaround very difficult but gave everyone very favorable conditions for a final 18 miles back into town. The men’s winner, Jordan Rapp, set a bike course record in the low 4:20s, and the elite age groupers weren’t too far behind. There were the usual reports of drafting on the bike; it will be interesting to read more of the athlete reports as people get the chance to relate their complete version of events.

The Run
Skipping through an uneventful second transition, athletes were headed out for the three loop run. While it’s not a tough run on paper, there are plenty of turns and enough hills at the end of a long day to make even the toughest suffer.  The wind had little to no effect on the runners, and the heat wasn’t overwhelming. It was warm in the sun, for sure, but that quickly changed when the sun started to go down around 5:30.  If you didn’t have warmer gear for the night, you were going to be in for a very long, very cool run. Overall run times were quite consistent with previous editions of the race, and were a proper reflection of the conditions: you got out of it what you put into it.

The Finish
The atmosphere at an Ironman finish is electric, and Tempe did not disappoint. Loud music, cheering fans and inspirational moments everywhere. There’s something about watching folks who, pushed to the brink, suddenly bounce back to dash to the finish line. A testament to human will, or to some innate force that drives all of us to attain a goal we have sought for so long. I get goosebumps just writing about it!

Congratulations to all of the athletes at Ironman Arizona. You have earned your medal and some solid time off as well…probably best to rehydrate and try to get moisturized before the dry air turns you into human jerky! This is the end of the 2009 Four Keys Tour, and Rich and Patrick will not be on hand to support Team EN folks at Ironman Cozumel. So bummed to not be there, but know that you are racing on the shoulders of the other 200+ amazing Ironman finishes by your fellow teammates this year. You are fit, you are ready, and you will crush it!

Until next season, this is Rich and Patrick signing off. Be safe, have fun, and go fast!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Greg Charbeneau at IMFL 2009

Ironman Florida is in the books. Even though times were fast, the 2009 edition proved the maxim that there is no such thing as an ‘easy’ Ironman. After a calm race week, race morning dawned with a decent wind and promises of some good temperatures. Anyone paying attention that morning knew going fast as hoped would be a challenge!

What was the difference this year? A steady easterly wind made for nice chop on the swim, particularly on the cross-section from the out to the back. Add to the wind the fact a total of 2400 folks toed the surf at 7:00am made this swim, according to many, one of the most brutal IM swims in recent memory.

After making it through the two loop swim, athletes were treated to a new and unimproved transition area. Due to construction, the layout had changed such that athletes had to get their bags, run all the way down into the back of the hotel (women had to run further), then athletes ran all the way back to where they picked up their bags…and only then could they enter the bike area. Think the “shuttle run” test from your Presidential Fitness days in elementary school. Or just think “nightmare,” as one competitor put it. This made for some of the slowest T1 times in recent memory.

Out on the bike, the athletes had a nice tailwind to start the day, but this quickly turned into a solid 30-mile headwind (miles 20-50), made the out and back portion of the bike almost unbearable and rendered the last 6 miles on Front Beach Road practically uphill. Side note, the out portion of the out and back (around mile 70) were described by many as practically unrideable. The drafting, as you have probably seen via YouTube, was in full effect. This somewhat offset the wind on the day, keeping times relatively fast. Par for the course, the longer you were on the bike the windier it got and the more you suffered.

To be honest the wind had little effect on the run, but the damage from the swim and the bike had already been done: salt water swallowed early on led to stomach issues later in the day. The decision to push the bike early despite the wind turned into running out of gas way too early. As a result, the serpentine run course was littered with broken race dreams. It certainly didn’t help that the sun was entirely gone by 5:20pm, making a not-so-long day for some seem quite long indeed.

Going back to recount the day, there were still plenty of fast people and many fast times…but know that those folks earned every single second!

Time to pack the bags for Tempe and Ironman AZ…see you soon!

RnP

Popularity: 9% [?]

Probably the best part of our coaching gig are the emails we get after a major race. Below are excerpts from a few we’ve received this week after Ironman Florida, the last two from athletes who are not even members of TeamEN:

“Hey guys, it was nice meeting you 2 finally. IMFL was an awesome experience for me, I beat my IMAZ time from last year by 3hr and 30min. If I could improve half that much this year I will be at the top of my age group for IMLO. All the stuff you guys had taught me played out exactly as you said. To be honest, most of the run I was hurting as expecting but all I could think about was how you guys had drilled it in my head that we could and will keep our LRP pace and that is exactly what I did. The only thing was my time in the aid station got a little longer throughout the race but my pace stayed the same…Looking forward to working with the team this year and getting fast enough to start competing. Thank you guys again for everything you have done and also for the cake for my new fiance and I at the dinner!!” — Chad

“I found your course talk to be very informative and helpful. Your tips and strategy for the bike and run helped me pace my day and I was able to break 10 hours (9:52). Plus, it was my first iron distance event.” — Jon

“I am holding you two and Robin Cline personally responsible for my awesome Florida IM race this past Saturday.  I did exactly what you said to do at your talk and in your literature.  It nearly killed me to watch what felt like 1000 people pass me on the bike… I held my ridiculously easy pace until I hit 231, picked it up a little bit, but then really picked it up at 85 miles… I started running sub 8 and felt like I really could, but thought about your advice and pulled back to 9:30 for 6 deliberate miles.  By 7, I thought that I could ease into 9 min miles, I felt strong, and I was determined to run the whole run (my one thing).  I never hit my line!!!  I also averaged 9:30 and did a 4:11 marathon (my pr is a 3:32)… but I never walked.  Plus I have struggled with bilateral Achilles tendinitis for the past month from Levoquin… and I still ran the whole thing.  An 11:35 for what little training I could do with my injuries is so above and beyond what I expected!  Thank you and thank you!  My dad also did what you suggested and he ran a 13:56 with many many injuries.  His last IM, he barely broke 16.  We just are incredulous with how well your technique has worked for us!!  Thank you!” — Jenny

Popularity: 10% [?]

Over the past year we’ve shared many articles with you on training and racing Ironman triathlon, the very same guidance that our 400 members have used for 200 Ironman finishes, with several age group podiums and wins. We are now transitioning the Team into the OffSeason, the most powerful time of our athletic year, and it’s time to outline exactly how you too can make the most of the winter. Don’t miss the invitation to our FREE OutSeason seminar at the end of the post!

Warning: You will need to forget what you know or have read about OffSeason training and consider something complete different.

Train Less, A LOT Less
Any coach is really just a time investment manager. This includes you, the self-coached athlete. “Real Life You” gives “Coach You” X hours of training time to work with. First time must be assigned to the more important areas of your life: family, holding a job, personal interests, social stuff, etc. As Time Investment Manager, your job is to maximize the Return on Investment (ROI) of time spent training. Over the last eight years of coaching age-group triathletes we’ve found that all training time is not created equal. In the winter, training time is particularly more expensive:

• There is less time available as the days are shorter.
• It’s cold, raining and/or snowing outside = indoor training = training time has a HUGE mental cost.
• You’ve been training all year, or at least a long time. You need to give your head a break before you ask it to commit to the work you’ll expect of it next season.
• Most importantly, you’ve asked your family to sacrifice a great deal as you swim, bike or run for hours and hours and hours every week. You owe it to the people you care about to spend more time with them…and this means less time with your bike or running shoes.

While we completely understand that training is part of your lifestyle and you want to do what it takes to get faster year after year, “November-Thru-March You” owes it to your family and “April-thru-September You” to make that training as time efficient as possible. And the best part is you can still improve on a more focused training schedule. We suggest you achieve this ROI by making your training VERY low volume and VERY intense.

Fitness is the Ability to Perform Work
The physics of you moving your body down the road or through the water, using your hands, your bike, or your feet is simply work. Work X applied to the mass of your body yields speed Y on the course. Your fitness is then simply an expression of your body’s ability to perform work. Your body is adapted to perform Work X, yielding Speed Y, but there’s only one problem…it’s lazy. If you ask your body to do X, it will ever only be an X body. The purpose of training is simply to apply a load greater than X, forcing your body to adapt to this greater load. Over time, your body adapts and is able to perform Work > X, yielding Speed > Y.

You have three variables with which to manipulate this training load across the week:

• Frequency: The number of swims, bike, and runs you can schedule each week. This is mostly fixed by the constraints of your life (pool times, hours of daylight and road conditions in the winter) and is therefore not a useful manipulation tool to use.
• Volume: More flexible but much less so in the winter. See our arguments above for why we strongly suggest you keep your winter training volume to an absolute minimum.
• Intensity: How “hard” or fast you go during each session. This is infinitely more adjustable. For example, I can just run easy for an hour, or I can do endless variations of speed work, pace changes, and other hard running. Two runs, both one hour, but dramatically different in the training load applied to the body.

Intensity is our preferred method for manipulating the training load of our athletes across the training week, particularly in the OffSeason, because Frequency and Volume are largely fixed. This is why we call it the OUTSeason, eliminating the concept of “off” from our vocabulary.

Work is SPEED Entering the Body
We combine these two principles above to create the cornerstone of our coaching: Works is SPEED Entering the Body. It’s on our t-shirts, jersey, singlets, and more. Nowhere is it more important than during the OutSeason. Our logic is this:

• OutSeason training volume should/needs to be as low as possible during the OutSeason, for the reasons outlined above.
• Ok, I get that, but I still want to become a faster triathlete. If life keeps my frequency and volume relatively fixed, then the only variable I have left is intensity. If my body has adapted to doing Work X while training 12 hours per week, but I now allow myself to train only 6-7hrs per week, I need to dramatically increase the intensity in order to maintain or increase this adaptation.
• Therefore the OutSeason is the perfect time to train less, and get dramatically faster, by training yourself to bike or run faster by…biking and running faster!

In the end, you earn the right to go faster on race day by making yourself faster in training. The most time efficient method to get faster is…to go faster in training.  And nowhere else is time efficiency more important than in the OutSeason. Our athletes realize that the OutSeason is where they build the speed now, that’s translated into faster race times next season, when we put FAR on top of this OutSeason FAST.  As you read this, they have their noses on the grindstone, putting in the work to get faster, while training far less than their peers.

Interested in learning more? We’d like to invite you to attend our FREE five week “Rethinking the OutSeason” Virtual Seminar. We’ll cover these topics above in much greater detail while also teaching you the basics of training with power, pace, annual scheduling, and much more. During the seminar you’ll receive our OutSeason, Training with Power, and Training with Pace eBooks (3 total).

You’ll also automagically become an ENFan, receiving a FREE Four Keys DVD, 10% training plan discount, and an invitation to create a FREE 14-day trial membership to TeamEN, September 20 through October 4!

Popularity: 8% [?]