Endurance Nation | Triathlon Coaching, Ironman Training, Half Ironman, Beginner Triathlon » How To

Year End Sale — 50% Off Coach Patrick’s Guides!

admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:23:15 +0000

Save 50% On All My Training Guides!

It’s the end of another big year, with this one seeing me set PRs at distances from the 5k to Ironman, culminating in a personal best finish at Ironman Hawaii of 9:52 (photo on left).

In addition to all the racing stuff, we moved the family to Rhode Island into a great neighborhood that’s perfect for the kids. It’s kind of hard to ask for anything for Christmas when your year goes so well!

So, I’ll GIVE instead of TAKING this year. Use the code Holiday50 to save 50% off of any one of my training guides. I have written books on how to train for triathlon, how to prepare for your best marathon and how to build the ultimate training lifestyle.

Click on the cover below for more information, and don’t forget to use the code Holiday50 to save!

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Competitive Triathlon In Ten Hours A Week		Your Best Marathon: A Racing Primer	Train to Live, Live to Train: The Insider’s Guide to Building the Ultimate Fitness Lifestyle

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How To Execute the Final Aid Stations in an Ironman

admin — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:45:12 +0000

The video below is of our good friend and seasoned Ironman veteran Vinu Malik of Fuelbelt. In a hunt for a Kona slot at Ironman Louisville, he knew that most of the folks in front of him were running way slower. Here he is giving it full gas at the Mile 22 aid station, getting it done right. Enjoy!

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Endurance Nation’s Triathlon Fundamentals

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:53:35 +0000

It’s Time to Go Back to Tri School — You Ready???
photo credit: mueritz

We initially were going to title this post something like: “Everything I’ve Learned About Triathlon Has Come From Coaching Over 5,000 Athletes, Not From A Random Book” But that wasn’t as catchy and we’re pretty sure no one would read it!The reality is, there’s what you learn from books and then there’s what you learn when you apply that book stuff to your own training (25 IM finishes, including Kona, between us) and the training of thousands of real-world, age grouper long course triathletes. There’s what you learn when you coach 15 people at a time…then there’s what you learn when you guide 500+ athletes per year to Ironman finishlines around the world.

So put down that TriRag with all the sexy models, bling components, and the latest and greatest way to lose 20lbs while training to qualify for Kona in just 12 weeks. Do your best to quell the urge to pull out your wallet and spend your way to triathlon success.

Just because you have a full-time job doesn’t mean that you need to spend 10% of your annual salary in order to be competitive. In fact, as you’ll see below, there are plenty of things the average person can do to improve their fitness, strength and ability to race that don’t involve tons of money or time.

1. Work Is Speed Entering the Body (aka Go Fast to Get Fast)

As a triathlete, you move your body down the road, either by running or cycling. Your body has mass and by moving it at a certain speed/velocity you are performing work.

You and I weigh the same and we run the same three mile course. I average 8:00 miles and you average 9:00 miles. I’ve moved the mass of my body (the same as yours!) over the same distance in less time. I’ve done more work than you. Lets call it 300 units to your 200 units.

All things being equal (conditions, our fatigue level, etc) the reason why I can do 300 to your 200 units is because I’ve forced my body to adapt itself to be able to support a workload of 300 units. Your body will only adapt itself to the workload that you expose it to, nothing more. Doing more work forces your body to adapt. So how do you develop the ability to go from running 3 miles at 9:00/mile pace to running at 8:00/mile pace like me? You need to do more work.

The most time-efficient way to do this is to spend more time running at / under / near 8:00/mile pace: half-mile repeats, mile repeats, pick ups, etc. Hard work plus recovery will make you stronger, eventually enabling you to reach your 8:00/mile pace goal.

A well thought out and proven training program will prescribe work that’s appropriate for your level of fitness, turning the dial up and up, and then backing off a bit just when you need it.

Most importantly, work is measurable. You can measure watts on a bike, or pace on a run. You can quantify the % of level effort you are able to sustain, and then improve upon it on a regular basis. Leave the thoughts of just adding volume or training for 25+ hours a week for your single friends or those TriRag profiled athletes. As an age grouper with a job, a family and other responsibilities, doing more “work” in your training is the most direct way to see improvement.

To put it another way, if your primary definition of “more work” is “more volume,” turning up the dial so that a 12hr week becomes 14hrs becomes 18hrs becomes 20hrs…becomes what? Where does it stop? When you’re divorced, unemployed and homeless?!

We’ve learned, through experience, that our primary tool to impart greater and greater training stress to our athletes is to manage the intensity of the workouts first, volume a very, very distant second.

Weekly training volume for the average grouper is largely fixed by life, family, job, life and life. However, the intensity at which you do workouts within that fixed volume is infinitely flexible. This is why intensity, not volume, is the primary dial our age group athletes use to adjust training stress within each training week.

2. Fast Before Far (aka Volume is Easily Added)

Since 2007 we have been teaching our “fast before far” approach, where we use the winter months to improve our athlete’s speed and strength at threshold. We can afford to do this higher intensity training because in the winter there are no volume demands on our training schedule and there are plenty of opportunities to recover from the hard training.

The net is that our Endurance Nation OutSeason plan has between six and eight hours of weekly training — total! — across four or five months of the year.

So in the winter, roughly October/November through February/March, we drop the volume dramatically, turn up the intensity…dramatically…making our athletes much, much faster. The average Endurance Nation athlete improves his/her Ironman or Half Ironman race pace on the bike by 1.5 to 2 miles per hour, and over a minute per mile faster on the run…often making them 30 minutes faster than last years version of themselves, long before they have even started to ride longer than 90 minutes.

Once the weather turns and we can add volume without burning the athlete out on a trainer, we drop the intensity and add more miles. Spring is our favorite time of the year, when we unleash the Team on their training partners and hear the stories about dropping the pack, putting the hurt on, and leaving lots of folks scratching their heads.

Triathlon training culture and old-school coaching books continue to sell the need for many long, aerobic miles before speed can be properly added. The result is snow-bound, age group athletes doing 4-5hr trainer rides, and 12-15hr training weeks in February, months and months before their goal race. Not only is it an inefficient way to train, the mental cost to the athlete is off the charts. Since we all live in a world where 5-7hrs per week in the winter — when it’s cold, dark, and months and months from goal race — is simply more appropriate, our training approach shifts to low volume/high intensity because it’s simply the best, most time efficient way for real world age groupers to train.

3. Volume is Race-Specific

Just because volume isn’t the means by which we build your fitness over the season doesn’t make it any less important inside Endurance Nation. In fact, we provide multiple options for our Team to put in some epic training: our annual Tour of California Cycling Camp, various Triathlon Rally events on IM courses, member-run camps across the country, and even members-only plans for big bike and big triathlon-specific training weeks.

Each of these different opportunities shares a single common thread: they are all focused opportunities ranging from three to seven days in duration. They are structured to have an impact on your actual race performance, with the timing of the Texas Rally, for example, set to approximately 4 weeks prior to the event.

We’ve found that these relatively short volume pops are a much more time-efficient way to dramatically boost endurance — assuming, of course, that you have the time to do them. Rather than requiring them to nickle and dime their families for multiple 5-6hr training days every week for months and months, we work with our athletes to put a Big Bike or Big Tri Week/Weekend “X” days out from their race.

With your Fast already built, it’s easy to add Far to the equation because volume isn’t actually that hard. If you and I were planning on a 2.5-hour ride, but I rolled up and said let’s go 3.5-hours, it ain’t no big thing. You wouldn’t tell me that you have to train more before you could ride another hour with me…you’d simply go get another energy bar. Done.

It’s not the individual dose of volume that can be damaging, rather it’s the cumulative effect of repeat days, weeks and months of such training that can cause serious issues such as injury and over-training.

For the average age-group triathlete, the weekly volume of training required to complete an Ironman or 70.3 is at or above the basic level of time they can sustain.

By leveraging intensity early in the year and then dialing the focus over to volume as race day approaches, Endurance Nation takes a season of massive training hours and boils it down to a four- to eight-week focused exercise.

Remember, the reason why the Endurance Nation athlete doesn’t do months and months of 5-6hrs long rides, 3hr long runs, 2hr brick runs, isn’t swimming 3x week in January for a race in September, or spending 2hrs/wk in the gym is because Rich and Patrick have learned better through their own training (aka School of Hard Knocks) and through coaching thousands of age groupers just like you. We have done the 3-hour tempo runs, the back-to-back to back 120 mile cycling days for weeks on end, the 25-hour training weeks until implosion.

We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t–through our own extensive training, racing, and coaching experience–so you don’t have to experiment and, frankly, make the same mistakes we did.

4. Race Day is about Execution not Fitness

Conversations in the triathlon space are dominated by discussions on how to train and what $$$$ aero widget to buy. How far/long/hard/often should I bang my head against the wall each week and which $150 bottle is going to save me 15 seconds on race day?

We’ll say it again because it bears repeating: we’ve raced over 25 Ironmans between us. We’ve brought thousands across finishlines in the last decade. TeamEN has 20-45 athletes at every US Ironman. Either Rich or Patrick has been AT every one of those races to support the Team, for years. In short: we’ve made, managed, or observed more rolls of the Ironman racing dice than probably any two coaches on the planet.

Our Number One Observation is that race day is about execution, not fitness. Regardless of how they got there, how they trained, etc, 95% of Ironman athletes at the starting line are very, very fit.

What separates people at the finishline the most is how they drive that fitness vehicle on race day. The race course is littered with the bodies of very fit guys and gals…who just don’t know how to race.

Therefore, we view proper race execution as free speed and about half of our members-only resources are dedicated to teaching everyone on the team how to race with the collective experience of 1000’s of Ironman finishes — an extensive Ironman How-To, webinars in swim, bike, run and nutrition execution, power and run pacing calculators, threads to collect sneaky speed tips on bike set up, gearing, and much more.

It’s important to remember that there are many different ways to get stronger and faster as a triathlete. Endurance Nation’s approach focuses exclusively on the age-group athlete who has real-world constraints and commitments, but the lessons we have learned above can help anyone looking to seek improvement. And who knows, your family might just enjoy being on the sidelines watching you execute the perfect race!

To learn more about Endurance Nation, our triathlon coaching and triathlon training plans, please visit us online at www.EnduranceNation.us.

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Triathletes: Stop Shopping For Speed

admin — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:00:02 +0000

photo credit: Håkan Dahlström

The triathlon world is littered with expensive bikes and fancy gear — part of the undeniable allure of our sport, on some level, is in the gear. Sure there are many triathletes who do without, but most of us enjoy our toys.

The funny thing is, almost none of these things are 100% guaranteed to make you faster. An aero helmet helps — but not if you can’t stay aero for the full 112 miles. Lightweight shoes are faster — but not if they can’t take the beating you lay out over the marathon, reducing you to a walk.

At the end of the day, it’s the training you do to build your fitness and develop your sport-specific skills that matters. Add in the race experience you cultivate over time and you are quickly approaching the upper end of your potential.

On some level, it really makes sense to start significantly upgrading your gear after you have established some fundamental speed. In other words, first look within to find your potential. Once you have done this, move externally to find new ways of maximizing your return on training investment.

Here is a look at each of the three disciplines, and where to draw the line between go do more work and green light for adding gear. Feel free to adjust the metrics to fit your situation or sport; remember our goal here is to get you to focus on the things that you personally can improve upon. If you already have some fancy gear and are looking at more, set a performance benchmark and earn your way to getting faster gear!

The Swim

Swimming is 80% technique, 20% fitness. This means that the vast majority of your swimming, whether early in your year or during your race-prep cycle, should be focused on technique. There are countless drills you can learn to refine your technique that don’t require metronomes, special kicking fins, fist gloves, mono-snorkels, etc. Your best bet is to get into the pool as frequently as possible to drill your technique and become as good as you can.

The Cut Off: The cut-off line is swimming a 500 yard time trial effort in less than 10 minutes (2:00 / 100 yds) or faster.

The Exception: We do recommend investing in a solid one-on-one swim coach or similar learning tool to facilitate your development if you are truly challenged.

The Bike

Cycling fitness is your secret weapon in triathlon. The stronger you become on the bike, the faster you’ll be overall. There are two distinct ways to improve on the bike, and neither one involve dropping cash.

The first is frequency. The more you ride your bike, the better you’ll get at riding. You’ll corner better; you’ll climb better; descending will be second nature; you’ll be able to eat and drink no problem. Soon you’ll be able to ride no-hands. All of this means you’ll simply be better prepared to actually race on race day instead of spending your time focusing on all the logistical things (eating, aid stations, passing, not drafting, shifting, etc).

The second is intensity. The harder you ride your bike, the stronger you’ll get. Given that cycling is such a low-impact sport, almost anyone can get on a bike and start pushing their fitness to the limit. When you get tired, you can coast or shift gears. You can stop anywhere to eat more if required and, in a worst case scenario, you can always use your cell phone to call for a ride.

The Cut Off: This is a flat, time trial effort. The benchmark is 18 miles covered in one hour (for Men), 16.5 miles for women.

The Exception: You do want a solid bike fit. Whether your bike is $500 or $5000, it won’t be worth a dime if you can’t actually ride it.

The Run

On race day it all comes down to the run. You can be the best swimmer or cyclist on the day, but odds are a runner will catch you before the finish line. Success a running is a little trickier than cycling, since it’s a high-impact sport with potential for injury. It’s not as technically challenging as swimming, however, so there is some middle ground.

The best way to improve your running is through frequency and body composition. I mention the body composition stuff only because being lighter means you are faster; how you get there and what is “right” for you depends on a very diverse set of personal factors; I will not cover them here.

Frequency, however, is the most direct way to get faster on the run as a triathlete without risking injury or overtraining. Given the standard training load of swimming and cycling, a high volume run approach will lead to fatigue and breakdown. Instead, break your running up into 4-5 sessions that are mostly less than 45 minutes in duration. Include some intensity and plenty of focus time for running with good form. Add four such runs to one longer session and a few short bricks and you have tons of cumulative run time without the compounding cost of lengthy individual sessions!

The Cut Off: A 5k run in faster than 25:00 (consistent with a sub-4 marathon and sub-2 half marathon).

The Exception: Give the pounding your body takes from running, it’s important to change out your shoes as frequent as every 300-500 miles. Don’t put this expense off; by the time your body lets you know that you need new kicks it might be too late!

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Beginner Triathlon: Avoid These Five Mistakes

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:00:57 +0000

Triathlon’s popularity has exploded in recent years. From single-sport athletes looking for a new challenge, to non-athletes interesting in using the sport as a vehicle for lifestyle change, every race sees first timers standing at the starting line next to veterans with years of tri-experience.

As coaches of a 500-member triathlon team, with nearly 20 years experience between us…we’ve seen it all. Rich is a former Team in Training head coach and the founder of the Pasadena Triathlon Club. Patrick started by leading triathlon classes at the local HealthWorks gym and running Masters Swim classes. In short, working with beginners was the foundation of our successful coaching careers.

We’d like to share our experience by telling you what NOT to do, and then offer you a free opportunity to jump several years up the learning curve.

Mistake #1: Investing in Gear, not Yourself
Three sports, each with its own complement of whizzbang expensive gear. Shiny magazines full of ads trying to sell you the latest carbon aero widget or supplement. For whatever reason, triathlon has a culture of buying speed rather than learning how to train and race more effectively. At the end of the day, it’s about the engine (YOU), not the $$$ parts hanging off of your bike. Invest in yourself, your tri-education and your fitness early on; Save the whizzbangery for later.

Mistake #2: Thinking the Swim is an Exercise in Fitness
You’re fit (or not), you can ride a bike and run (or not), so why is that 12-year old girl in the outside lane swimming laps around you?! Because she’s been swimming 1-2hrs per day, 5-6 days per week since she was six. She has the technique…you do not.

For you, swimming is not a fitness exercise, it’s a skill, like learning to play a musical instrument. Rather than just banging on the keyboards for an hour a day, with no idea what you’re doing, invest in quality swim technique instruction to maximize your time in the water.

Mistake #3: Waiting to Get Faster on the Bike
In our experience the bike is a very low risk activity: assuming your bike fits you, and you don’t crash, you’re just not going to injure yourself by riding too hard. There is no need to wait to begin getting much faster on the bike.

If you want to ride faster you need to ride faster and the time to begin is a soon as you throw your leg over the saddle and clip in. Work as hard as you can for as long as you can…then recover and repeat.

Mistake #4: Bringing a Running Plan to a Triathlon
It’s very common for new triathletes, especially those coming from a running background, to insert a run-only training plan into their weekly triathlon training schedule. If not that, then most try to hold on to the running schedule they’ve done for years, but now with the addition of cycling and swimming.

This approach is a surefire way to overtrain and risk injury. You’re training for a triathlon, not a 5k, 10k, or marathon. Ignore the addition of cycling and swimming into your training week at your own peril.

Mistake #5: Forgetting to Have Fun!!
Three sports, three sets of gear, how do I fit X number of workouts into only 5-6 days per week?! It’s very easy to get caught up in how much there is to learn and master, and to get stressed out and often obsessed with your first race.

We’ve got news for you: this is all just a game and it’s supposed to be fun.

Invest in your head, delay $$$ investments in gear, expect to make a LOT of mistakes in your first few races (you won’t be disappointed) and promise to laugh at yourself when you do!

For many triathletes, our multisport passion and pursuit of fitness merge into a singular pursuit: fitness as a lifestyle, not simply an exercise activity. Rather than meeting the boyz at the bar at 8pm on a Thursday, you now look forward to your Saturday ride or Sunday group run…your new social activity where you share your fitness lifestyle with like-minded adults.

Interested in learning more, in skipping several years up the learning curve, and in saving solid buck$ on high-dollar race entry fees?

We invite you to register for our latest FREE seminar: The Beginner Triathlon Seminar

Nine seminar lessons, each with written, audio, and video content.
“Bonus” material: ebooks, webinars, and more
A 10% discount on any training plan.
Finally, a FREE Four Keys of Ironman Execution DVD, a $37 value! While you’re not yet an Ironman, you WILL turn a ton about triathlon race day execution…and did we mention that it’s FREE?!

Register today!

Visit Endurance Nation to create a FREE Five-Day Trial or Shop our Triathlon Training Plans!

Triathlon Tip: Internal Goals Yield External Results

admin — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:49:18 +0000

someone’s inside you just trying to get out
photo credit: h.koppdelaney

Note: This post is part of our Annual Training Plan Sale Series. All Endurance Nation Ironman & 70.3 Training Plans are 30% off through January 9, 2011. Visit the EN Store for more details and information.

Inside Endurance Nation, we hear goals all the time. From prospective customers to our own members, everyone has a position staked out that is a large part of what drives them on a daily basis. While goals are a natural part of how we operate as athletes, they are not all made equal. A large part of what we do inside EN is turn your focus inwards, towards elements of your fitness that you can control and improve and away from external metrics that could remain out of grasp for a myriad of reasons.

Sample External Goals:

I want to be on the podium.
I just want to finish.
I want to beat my sister-in-law.
I want to be faster than last year.

These are all solid goals, clearly meaningful to the goal setter. But each of them is, in some way, truly out of the athlete’s control. As a result, you aren’t necessarily rewarded for hard work, and your ability to attain the goals is a function of the race itself…providing you minimal feedback or support or guidance for the months of training beforehand.

Improved Internal Goals:

Improve body composition, drop weight by 5%.
Drop 5k time by 30 seconds.
Increase bike Functional Threshold Power by 15%.
Add daily core strength to my routine.

In this set of goals, the difference is clear. These are all very individual numbers that can be measured, tested, and improved. No one else can affect your FTP, for example, and the final test result will (or will not) show results.

More importantly, we are building your self confidence and internal momentum by putting you in the driver’s seat. Being in charge of reaching your own goals is a critical first step towards being your best. Guaranteed if you can improve your bike and run fitness as well as dial in your body composition, that PR will take care of itself!

Visit Endurance Nation to create a FREE Five-Day Trial or Shop our Triathlon Training Plans!

Ironman Coach Q&A Session #3: The 360-Degree Pedal Stroke

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:31:50 +0000

We get email and Twitter questions regarding our training plans all the time. We strive to answer each one, and it occurred to us that maybe sharing this information could be good for other self-coached triathletes out there. Enjoy!

Rich and Patrick

Looking for info on pedal stroke technique. ½ iron athlete and have always kept an even down/up power stroke and sliding across top/bottom of the stroke. Trying to keep circles but seems something is missing. Seems that there would be a hole in the power in the top/bottom…Any references / thoughts/ suggestions ???
Thanks!
Ron

Ron, there are tons of great resources out there on proper pedaling techniques and drills. A quick search of YouTube should give you more than enough fodder. The particular deadspot you are talking of is pretty common for triathletes, especially in the aero position. Good on you for noting it’s top and bottom…most only notice it on the bottom side. These folks are forgetting that the cranks are fixed, and that your ability to pull through the bottom of the stroke is only as good as your ability to push the other foot over the top of the other side!

This could be a flexibility or strength related issue (or a combination). I suggest two approaches.

#1, work on hip flexor flexibility. Consider doing some lunge stretches, where you really push your hips forward to open them up. Perhaps even consider arching backwards to really do a number on your hips. You can also do this as you stretch your quad on that side. Holding your heel to your butt, stand erect and push that hip forward as you hold the stretch. You’ll feel it!

#2, work on strengthening the area. The hip flexors and psoas muscles can be a bit weak and fatigue easily, especially if they are tight. Once you have started stretching, consider adding in some cycling-specific strength work. I prefer to do single leg pedaling while on a trainer at about 60-70 rpms. Load the wheel up to the point where you really need to slow down – but not so hard so as to put undue strain on your body. Work on a smooth transition from 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock. As you build up confidence and skill, add more speed (less resistance). Do this each leg for 45-60 seconds, alternating sides. So six minutes of that plus 4 minutes of regular pedaling with both legs as recovery, done a few times a week, should help you out!

Keep us posted!

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Ironman Coach Q & A Session #2: Adding A Big Triathlon Week into a Half Ironman plan

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:00:37 +0000

photo credit: benjami

Rich and Patrick

Any advice appreciated. Managed to snag week in majorca, have bike but wifi in hotel screwed, hence email from phone. Can’t access training plan + want to adapt it – on wk8 of 12 adv Half Iron plan – l raced a HIM on sunday, lost 2 days traveling, just done 1 hour wetsuit sea swim (resort on beach) – have good running plus great riding scope. Within 5 miles of a 4 mile climb (never get this at home!), can ride lumpy, mountain or flat terrain here – roadie heaven!!

Last opp to ride is next monday, could run or swim however. Just training and resting up – is it okay to pimp my plan for this week? Any advice – sea swim newbie, hilly 70.3 coming up so thought this ideal to do a big tri week in the sun.

Thanks, Dave

Hey, no worries. I think you should definitely go with a big tri week based on the fact you are free, can train, and are 8 week out from a hilly HIM. You can search Big Tri Week on the Endurance Nation Blog for full info to do your own remix, but here’s my quick advice to you.

First, course, the customary word of caution: don’t over do it here. Your goal race is a half and you have some key workouts coming up in the next few weeks before you taper. Not to mention you just raced (nice work!). The goal here is to place an additional aerobic load on your system that won’t take away from our typical intensity-focused training. In addition to Mondays swim only day, you might have to take Tues / Wed off as well; if so then you should aim to pick things back up by the scheduled Thursday long run.

Thursday as Run .5 hrs, Bike 2.5 hours. Run early, maybe do some light stretching afterwards. All easy w/ high cadence. The ride is on rolling terrain. Very aerobic zone 1-2, goal is to negative split the ride by coming back home just slightly faster.

Friday as Run .5hrs, Bike 1.5 hrs, Swim 1hr. Easy AM run followed by a Solid Hill ride. Roll over to that 4 mile hills and do 4 repeats climbs, each with at least 5′ of rest afterwards. #1 is done steady at 95 rpms; #2 at steady at 80 rpms; #3 is steady at 90 rpms but include a 1′ acceleration every 1/2 mile (ouch!); #4 is whatever you can do. Easy PM open water swim.

Saturday as Bike 2.5 hours, Swim 1hr. Nice easy aerobic ride, last hour is steady zone 2-3. Easy PM open water swim.

Sunday as Run .5hrs, Long Bike of 4 hours. Get the easy run done first, eat up, then put in your longest ride of this block. Ideally this will be done as easy out, steady back, with the hills in the first half, flats in the second. This way if you fade early, you aren’t done for in the hills.

Monday: Swim 1hr Pack up and get out of town…nicely done!

Good luck!

Coach Patrick

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Ironman Coach Q & A Session #1

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 10:00:11 +0000

Rich and Patrick

Hi!

I purchased the Out-Season Plan and I intend to buy the 12 week Advance IM plan also. I’ve attached a spreadsheet with my schedule. Would I be better off finishing the out-season plan at the same time as my HM race as its scheduled three before the 12 week IM program kicks in. If so – what should I do for the three weeks between my OutSeason and IM Race Plan? Or should I just leave it and race the HM at week 18 of the Out Season program? And them move straight into the 12 Week IM program with no break.

Thanks – PS Week 4 of the Out Season plan and I’m already feeling faster!!

Cheers
Jeff G
Perth, Western Australia

Coach Patrick here. Thanks for the email!

I would go OS thru your HIM, modifying it for distances on the bike/ run/swim as needed over the last 6 weeks. Include at least 1 HIM race simulation workout. (56 ride / 6 run).

For those 3 weeks, I suggest you take 2 wks off HARD, really to recover. Ideally you’ll be chomping at the bit to come back. You can SBR in week 2, but with no goals.

Then on that last week I suggest you build it into a big bike week, with good weekday rides and then fri/sat or sat/sun big rides, then pick up the plan on Monday. You can find the big week guidance by searching the sidebar of the EN Blog.

Good luck!

Got training questions? Ask us via Twitter; EN training plan athletes can even email us!

Visit Endurance Nation to create a FREE Five-Day Trial or Shop our Triathlon Training Plans!

How to Taper with Intent

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:00:25 +0000

photo credit: rharrison

As the early big races of the season are approaching, it’s time to once again consider perhaps the hardest part of your training: the taper. While almost every triathlete has heard of tapering, very few actually get it right. This article has two goals: to help you understand your personal needs and cues for tapering based on your event, and to give you active steps you can take to implement your taper.
Before we begin, two caveats:

Those of you looking for number crunching and data-driven analyses will have to go elsewhere. In my experience as a coach, each individual and indeed each specific taper is different — formulas are nothing more than a slightly more specific guideline.
I believe the taper is equal parts physiology and psychology; understanding and incorporating both elements into your pre-race plan is the only way to build the ideal taper for you.

“Not Doing” and the Type A Athlete
The hardest part about executing a proper paper is understanding when doing more actually yields less. There is a distinct point of diminishing returns, and a true taper begins when you actively stop working to create fatigue. By that I mean you are legitimately focused on what we would call recovery and sharpening. The first phase of your taper is recovering, letting the work that you have most recently done — some of your longest bikes, runs, and swims of the entire year — be absorbed.

Once your body is well along the path of absorbing that work, only then can you move to sharpening. This is where you can begin to add a little bit of intensity back into the equation. Perhaps even including some race pace efforts, as these will help to acclimatize your body to where you want it to be by the time the race day arrives.

Testing Your Fitness
One of the biggest challenges that endurance athletes face as their key event gets closer is a desire to test their fitness. In many ways a large part of the exercise in preparing for an endurance event involves spending weeks and months building your fitness in preparation for a single day. The nature of the event itself, however, prevents you from actually doing your event in training.

It’s not like a 5K race for example, where you can go out and do a bunch of 5K racing to get ready to do more 5K races. As a result, when your race day approaches, you really have no sense of where you are in terms of how you’re going to be able to put your race together. The temptation then, as the race gets closer, is to go out and do a couple of key workouts.

Perhaps, for example, if you’re doing a Half Ironman, you might be tempted to go out and ride 56 miles (or something close to it) at your goal race pace just to make sure you can really do it.

Or maybe you have a time in mind. You’re going to go out and do whatever it takes to earn that time despite the fact that you’re on a test course in a non-race environment. And you’re not rested. Your body will respond to that call for action. And it will deliverable the goods most of the time. The problem being that now you’ve proven you’ve got the goods means you will now most likely not have the goods by the time you need them to race!

Trust your plan, trust your taper. Take confidence in the fact that you have done tons of training and that you have a very long day — up to 140.6 miles — to demonstrate how well you have prepared.

Last Minute Speed
Lastly, there is often a last minute desire to put in some kind of speed work to become a little bit faster. You’re maybe six to eight weeks out from your race, you’ve done a couple of key workouts, put in a big block of training, and now that you’re starting to taper you’re looking at where you’ve been. You’re looking at what you’ve done. And in looking at where you want to be…there’s a little bit of a gap.

How can I taper suddenly becomes, “Can I please go out and do some work?” “Can I please go out and put in another block of training, do a little bit more intensity, and then reap those results on race day?” And the quick answer to that is what you already know: absolutely not. Any extra work you do now during the taper period is only going to interfere with your body’s ability to absorb the work that you’ve already done.

It’s very tempting to allow your brain to take over the taper process. From your brain’s perspective the only workout that really is still on your mind is the one you did just yesterday or the day before. But your body speaks in a much more holistic and long-term manner. It’s still dealing with workouts you put in the bank three weeks ago and the residual fatigue from that work.

If your fitness is a lake, each workout then is a giant stone that you drop into the water. The effects of that work are the ripples that spread out across the surface. That’s what happens from each workout, and every additional workout you do is another stone you put in that pond. More ripples, and ripples upon ripples. Those add up over time and in some cases, like a miniature butterfly effect, even seemingly unconnected events can have a significant fatigue wave to them. And if you don’t take the requisite recovery you’re going to be facing a seriously underwhelming race day.

If you are concerned about getting some last minute speed, there are some things you can do to get that speed.

Number one, the easiest thing to do is obviously to rest. The more rest you can get, the better off you will be.

Number two, body composition. If you could do anything in the last two to three weeks to keep the weight down, or perhaps take a little bit of weight off in a sensible way, you will absolutely reap the benefits of that work and you will be fast on race day just by virtue of having to carry less of you around.

Another option for you of course is to check into your equipment. Is everything dialed in? Do you need to put a new wheel set on your bike? Perhaps new tires. Perhaps you can lube things up, take care of your bike. If you’re doing another type of adventure race, maybe you can look into new equipment or just cleaning up and tightening the bolts on all the equipment you do have. The point being that you can be fast on race day simply by having better equipment and using that equipment better during the race situation.

The Only Two Race Morning Goals That Matter
The entire point your taper is to get you 100% physically and mentally ready to race. That’s it. It’s very tempting to think about the need to gain speed, to look for a miracle workout that’s going to prove that you really are ready, but ultimately the goal of the taper is to make sure you are rested.

After months of training, you now have to focus your attention and energy towards the not doing, towards things that are going to promote your ability to have a full stock of energy when you need it on race day.

Making that switch is very difficult to do; a lot of people really get confused and really suffer because they are unable to manage that execution and to do the work that’s really required to be as fast as you can be on race day. There’s so much that it comes down to getting yourself ready.

So, you need to sit down and really start thinking about what it is that you need to line up from a mental standpoint, as well as a physical standpoint, to be ready to execute on the day. You can review your training logs to make sure you’ve done the good work. You can go ahead and review your equipment and feel confident about what you have. You can go ahead and outline the race plan to make sure that you know what you’re going to do on the day. You can make sure that your travel arrangements are all lined up, everything’s printed out, all the itineraries, family friends, everyone else knows what they need to do.

Good luck on race day and remember to smile and have fun!

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