Endurance Nation | Triathlon Coaching, Ironman Training, Half Ironman, Beginner Triathlon

With the recent passing of our friend Chris Gleason, many here at Endurance Nation have been wondering whether we should be doing more to ensure that our participation in our beloved hobby is a safe, smart idea.  To that end, a few of the MD’s in the haus have offered up a summary of the risks and recommendations specifically for endurance athletes.

Risks

According to a literature review, the heart responds in a variety of ways to exercise.

1. Short Term Response

a. “Exercise induced cardiac fatigue” which is a decrease in pumping and resting functions of the heart associated with ultra-endurance events

i. Decrease in pumping function is variable and seems to be associated with duration of event and training status.

ii. Not all studies report a decrease in pumping function.

iii. Decreased resting function is more consistent and repeatable.

iv. Exercise induced cardiac fatigue seems to be more prevalent in the right ventricle (lower chamber) and may lead to remolding (changes within the heart muscle) in some athletes that might predispose them to the development of ventricular arrhythmias.

v. The decrease in pumping and resting function appear to be transient and resolve within 48 hours but may persist up to 1-4 weeks.

b. Elevations in troponin (c-Tn)

i. Overall rate of c-TnT elevation in endurance events is 47%. However, single blood draws post event may underestimate the overall number of post event elevations in c-TnT.

ii. Most studies have shown no correlation between elevations in c-TnT with altered function in the left ventricle but many have linked c-TnT elevation with dysfunction of the right ventricle.

iii. The cause of c-TnT elevation is also unknown but leakage of unbound protein across the cell membranes is suspected. Myocardial damage (ischechemic injury) and death of the heart muscle cells is the other possibility.

iv. Bottom line it is unknown if the elevation results from reversible or irreversible damage to the heart muscle cells

2. Long Term Effects

a. Change to heart structure and function (these changes are expected and are not considered to raise health concerns)

i. Eccentric hypertrophy is an adaptive response to endurance training

1. This is dilation of the cardiac chamber to improve stroke volume or the amount of blood the heart pumps every time it beats.

2. Finding is well documented and balanced between the right and left ventricles.

ii. Changes result in an increased maximal stroke volume with exercise which raises cardiac output during exercise

b. Other changes

i. Studies overall show that endurance exercise decreases cardiovascular risk. However, a 1995 study hints that a high dose of physical activity (>4000 kcal/week) may lead to a small increase in risk.

ii. Greater incidence of atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter in endurance athletes.

iii. Two studies have shown an increase in asymptomatic ventricular arrhythmias in endurance athletes and another has shown 25% of those with ventricular arrhythmia’s have inducible non-sustained ventricular tachycardia. The studies differ on the impact of decreasing training volume of stopping training on the development of the arrhythmia.

iv. Studies have also suggested that there may be a link between the right ventricular changes mentioned above and the development of ventricular arrhythmias that is termed “Exercise Induced Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy”. This process is not seen in all study participants and I stress that this is not a proven entity.

v. Some endurance athletes have fibrosis (scarring) of their heart muscle noted on MRI that is not consistent with coronary artery disease. This fibrosis can lead to the development of ventricular arrhythmia’s but no link or risk information is available on athletes with scarring of there heart.

In Summary

a. Overall endurance training leads to healthy changes to the heart that promotes long life with a decreased risk of death from all causes.

b. There is a slight increase in the risk of death during and for ~ 24 hours following an endurance event. That risk is about 1:50,000 at the highest but may actually be lower.

c. For a small subset of endurance athletes there may be an increased risk for the development of ventricular arrhythmias that may increase the risk of sudden death whether engaged in activity or not. At this time, there is no screening method known to identify the population at risk for arrhythmia development, though evaluation with a Holter and/or contrast MRI may identify athletes with a potential increased risk.

d. Bottom-line the risk seems to be very small that exercise induces changes to the heart could lead to sudden death. This does not take into account the presence of coronary artery disease, or a congenital/genetic cardiac disease that might predispose to sudden death with physical exertion.

Recommendations

1. If you feel like you want to get your heart checked out, do it. But don’t forget that heart disease is not something that happens due to a single cause. It is typically a combination of different risk factors that interact with your individual genetic makeup to create and build atherosclerotic placques in your body’s arteries. These things take years to build to significant levels which is why older people have more heart disease, but why youth does not make you immune. Because it is so uncommon in people under 40 (without family history of heart attacks in 40ish family members), don’t be surprised if you get a history, physical, EKG, and a clean bill of health. For people over 40 with few, if any, risk factors, your check up may not be much different. Of course, if you have any symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, progressive fatigue, etc., your risk is higher and your workup will likely be more extensive. But if you are having symptoms, you are stupid if you are ironman training without medical clearance.  Assuming Chris was never evaluated for heart disease, chances are that if he truly had few, or no, risk factors, he would have received a routine workup that probably would have been negative. So would him walking into his doctor’s office 3 months ago saved his life? No one will ever know, but it probably wouldn’t have. Then we would all be sitting here having the conversation about what the point of having heart check-ups was if they didn’t prevent sudden cardiac death.

2. Being physically fit, whatever that means to you, is always healthier for your heart than a sedentary lifestyle.

3. It makes no sense whatsoever that it’s OK for your heart to race for 10-16 hours, but not OK to sprint the last 200 yards to the finish.

4. While it may often be true that many people die near the end of different types of races, my understanding is that the majority of people who die in triathlon do so during the swim……of heart-related causes.

5. Everyone needs to assess their own perceived risk of participating in triathlon and weigh their own personal consequences in determining if they want to participate. I certainly do respect the person that quits to eliminate the risk of leaving behind a spouse and kids for what they consider a hobby. But don’t forget that this is extremely rare. Trying to explain statistics to Chris’ wife will mean nothing because as far as they are concerned it was 100% in him. But the statistics are real. Whether it’s 1 in 50,000 or 1 in 200,000, it’s still extremely rare. And while I don’t know her, I would bet that she would encourage people to get checked, to be careful, but not to stop racing because of Chris. I never knew the guy, but reading all the stuff from people who did, I would doubt that he would discourage anyone from doing it either.

Folks, at the end of it all, the one thing we can say with certainty is this.

If you have concerns or experience any unexplained chest or upper body ( back, arm, jaw or stomach) pain, palpitation, unusually high heart rate, or feel faint or light headed during or after exercise stop the activity and please consult with your physician and/or cardiologist for further guidance as soon as possible.

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By Patrick McCrann

This time of year there are lots of great things to reading about swimming. But that doesn’t mean you need to do everything you read, all at once, and starting today!

Swimming is a skill-based activity, with more than 80% of your “effort” being directed into proper form and positioning. This isn’t something you just start doing; it takes time and the proper attention. Here’s my age-grouper approach to working on my swimming across the context of a season of triathlon.

Step One: Stop Swimming
Time: Approximately Three to Five Months

The first thing I do at the end of the season is take a huge chunk of time away from swimming. That’s right, I essentially spend part of my year–every year–desensitizing myself to swimming. I know it sounds radical, but bear with me. At the end of the day, becoming a better swimmer for the average triathlete means two things: engaging your swimming frequently and engaging it with the open mind set of a total beginner.

Swim improvement for the vast majority of us comes from improving our technique. The ability to improve your technique is a function of how you swim. Not a function of how much you swim, but rather what you do when you swim during the time that you do get into the pool.

Step Two: Dedicated Swim Re-Entry Time
Time: Approximately Four Weeks

Taking time away from swimming means I can focus on improving my bike and run fitness during the winter OutSeason training months. After a few months of hammering the bike and run, I need a break to transition back into being a triathlete. I usually take two very easy weeks, followed by two weeks where I slowly build up some volume again.

This translates into four weeks of no-pressure, technique-oriented swimming. During this time I’ll hit the pool two to three times a week and I will exclusively do drills. In fact I usually do this type of workout before I’ll do a harder workout on the treadmill or something else at the gym. This low-pressure time is a great way for me to get back in the water, focusing on technique, before I begin to even think about about my swim fitness.

Here’s what I do during my Re-Entry Period:

• I focus exclusively on technique.
• I strive to find what feels right, smooth, and effortless.
• I avoid looking at the pace clock for the first two weeks; last year’s splits don’t matter.

When I say technique, as a triathlete of ten years I have my own personal set of drills that really help me “get right.” I use these drills to recalibrate my stroke; they form the baseline for how I get back into the water. My personal favorites are one-arm swimming (side view video), the catch-up drill (side view video), and the fist drill (side view video; front view video).

Step Three: Add Swim Fitness
Time: Approximately Eight Weeks

Now that I have spent some time in the pool, I am both physically and mentally ready to begin laying down the work required to build my fitness for race performance. I don’t start by targeting a pace per hundred yards / meters that yields my goal time.

Many triathletes make the mistake of working backwards from that goal time. By putting themselves in a box, striving to swim to a goal time that represents their peak swim fitness, they’ll quickly lose the ability to swim with proper form and technique.

Instead I focus on what my average 100 pace was from the prior year. My first goal is to get back to that level.

During this phase most of my swim workouts consist of very short intervals (between 50s and 100s).  They are at varying degrees of intensity but all have more than enough rest. My goal here is to string together as much fast, with excellent form, swimming as I can.

The minute I begin to feel my form deteriorate, I increase the rest or reduce the set that I’m attempting to complete. Being able to identify the point at which your form falls off is a critical skill–not just for this phase but because that’s how we recommend you race: only swimming as fast as your ability to maintain form, managing the line between speed and skill, and making sure that we never move outside our comfort zone in terms of proper swimming technique.

Step Four: Race Specific Swimming
Time: Approximately Eight to Twelve Weeks

With race day on the horizon, it’s time to begin switching into some longer swim workouts with longer individual interval sets. Since my key race every year is an Ironman, the demands on my swimming time are extremely high. I need to put in some real quality swimming that needs to be as race specific as possible.

Across three given swims a week, at least one of them will include a longer swim set. This is either a recurring 2,000-yard time trial or something at least over 1000 yds. This set is both for fitness as well as mental training on what it means to manage my stroke across an extended period of time. The rest of the time my workout emphasis is still on quality over quantity, as I focus on stringing together quality intervals ranging between 200 and 400 yards.

The only exception to this three times a week model is if I have the time to get in some open water swimming. In many ways, open water swimming is an entirely different undertaking than swimming in the pool. There’s no black line to follow, there’s wind, there’s chop, there are distractions like other swimmers…all the various elements that make swimming so dynamic. The only way to get better at open water swimming is to just do it.

Open water swimming should become a top priority within the last five to six weeks of your race preparation phase, especially as the volume on the bike and the run peaks out and begins to fade away. At this point, we recommend you increase your swim volume and intensity, keeping it rolling until about 7 days out from your goal race.

Conclusion
Never lose sight of the fact that swimming, while an important part of our sport, is almost never the deciding factor between whether or not you will have a great day. Learn how to swim well, practice your swimming when it matters, and swim with your head…and you’ll have a fantastic race. Good luck this season!

Want to boost your swimming this season?
Check out our FREE Swim eBook. You can download it, watch the videos and begin doing the right work to improve your swimming. Get it here (and be sure to open with Adobe!).

Author’s Note: This article is a follow up to our most recent article on what it means to focus on your swim. It’s entitled Seven Essential Tips for Swimming, you can find it here on Active.com.

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photo credit: Sonic Fitness

6:59am — music blasting, kayakers herding swimmers, and nearly 2500 Ironman athletes treading water or standing on the beach of the Ironman swim start, waiting pensively to start a very, very big and long day.

7:00am — BOOM! And so begins perhaps the most unique spectacle in all of endurance sports — the Ironman swim start. Nearly 2500 bodies and 5000 arms and legs churning the water to start a 140.6 mile day. Below are our tips for surviving, and excelling at, the Ironman swim.

Where to Line Up
Endurance Nation had over 1000 Ironman finishes in 2011. Rich and Patrick have nearly 30 Ironman finishes between them and have been to 4-6 Ironmans every year since 2002.  We’ve learned that a lot of fast people position themselves right on the buoy line. Many more people position themselves as far as possible away from these people, as far from the buoy line as they can get. As a consequence, the middle of the start line is often less crowded than you would expect.

Therefore we usually recommend you position yourself near the middle of the start line and then seed yourself front to back about 2-4 minutes faster than you expect to swim. For example, if you expect to swim a 1:10, find those 1:05-08 people. In our experience it is better to be swum (politely) around by slightly faster swimmers than to be timid about your starting position, seed yourself around much slower swimmers, and then have to swim through many swimmers for 2.4 miles.

Only Swim as Fast as Your Ability to Maintain Form
The net difference between you swimming “hard” and swimming “easy” is usually only about 2-4 minutes in an 11-17 hour day. It’s just not worth it to try to make something happen. Instead, focus on swimming as smoothly and efficiently as you know how. Swim with your best possible form and only swim fast enough as your ability to maintain your form.

It’s helpful to have some individual cues for what good/not good form is for you. For some folks your breathing count (3-count or 4-count strokes per breath) is a good metric. Others prefer to focus on perceived exertion. Whatever you choose, know that it’s time to slow down if you start to feel your form slip!

Keep Your Head Inside the Box
2500+ bodies trashing around in a small space, all trying to go the same direction. It’s the very definition of chaos! Maintain your focus by keeping your head inside The Box of what you can control:

• In the Box: Head position, breathing, body rotation, catch, pull, etc. All of your form cues. These are things you CAN control, focus on these.
• Out of the Box: Any contact you experience, the pacing of other athletes, etc. Basically anything that takes your focus away your form.

The simple tool we use to keep our heads in the Box is to count our strokes. Left, right, left, right, 1, 2, 3, 4, keep counting until you lose count then start over again. The simple act of counting arm strokes will bring your head back into the Box of what you can control, helping you let go of the stuff outside of your Box. Try it, it works!

Keep Head-Lift to a Minimum
We typically lift our heads to keep feet in sight as we draft (a little), or to sight on navigation buoys (a lot!). Every time you lift your head…you drop your feet/hips…and you compromise your form a bit. Here’s what to do.

• Drafting: Don’t think so much about drafting, and looking for feet, that you forget to keep your head in the Box and focused on form. 2500 people all swimming the same direction…relax, it’s gonna happen. 
• Navigation: 2500 people all swimming the same direction…that’s a lot of people to follow, put on your right or left side, and in general decrease how frequently you need to compromise your from by lifting your head to sight for buoys.

FREE Endurance Nation Swim Clinic eBook
Go here to download our “Swim Clinic eBook“– over 25 pages of swim drills, videos, 45 minutes of podcasts, and much more. Published in 2005 and revised in 2008, this resource has been used by over 10,000 athletes as their go-to swim technique guide!

Do you have course-specific swim advice? Where to line up, navigation tips, etc for specific Ironmans? Please share them with us and our readers in the comments below!

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The phrase “racing Ironman” is essentially an oxymoron. Within any given Ironman, there are maybe fifty athletes who will be racing to the peak of their fitness. There are another 250-ish athletes who think that they are racing, but they will most likely end up with a slower-than-desired finish.

The rest of us? Well, we are focused on getting to the finish line as fast as we possibly can.

One hundred and forty point six miles has a way of filtering out the best within the field of competition, but also within each individual. Having a great Ironman is less about what you bring to the table in terms of your fitness, and more what you do with that fitness on race day.

Years of coaching and racing Ironman has taught me that the race really comes down to the marathon. And running the Ironman marathon, 26.2 miles after having swam 2.4 miles and biked 112 miles, is an execution problem first, a fitness problem a distant second. That is to say, no amount of fitness can overcome a poor race execution strategy.

With that in mind, we like to share with you our six Ironman marathon race execution secrets, helping you to “out execute” your competition and your not-so-smart self.

It’s Not About Pace, It’s About Not Slowing Down

It’s easy to get caught up in planning your race out long before the gun goes off. You tell your family when they can expect to see you based on what you think your paces will be…but odds are you won’t be there when you said. That’s because race day pacing has very little to do with that one great run you had six weeks ago and are basing your entire performance upon.

Instead, a great Ironman marathon is simply about not slowing down. If you look at the detailed results of any Ironman event, you’ll see that the splits for the majority of the field over the second half of the race are significantly slower than the first half. Usually a minute or more slower per mile.

Your goal when racing isn’t to find new speed, but to find a sustainable speed that you can hold across your entire day while the competition takes off too fast…and then blows up as you run steadily by.

Incorporate Walking as a Strategy, Not as Failure

If anyone tells you that they aren’t going to walk a single step in an Ironman they are either Criag Alexander (so fit!) or a total newbie (so unaware!).  Based on our experience coaching thousands of Ironman finishers through Endurance Nation, we have learned that walking is actually an important part of your overall strategy.

We encourage our athletes to walk 30-45 steps at every single aid station, which is roughly once a mile. This will allow you to get your nutrition in, assess your current status, drop your heart rate and refocus on the next mile. In this manner, walking at an aid station becomes your reward for running between aid stations. We give you a hard number like 30 so you can’t fudge it and sneak in extra walking…30-45 steps and get back to work!

Six Miles of Conservative Pacing Is the Key to a Strong Finish

In 2008 we had over twenty Endurance Nation athletes, from 10-hour to 15-hour finishers, wear their GPS units on the run and report back their data. From this grand experiment we learned two things. First, that every single person ran too fast in the first six miles of the day relative to their overall run performance. Second, that the athletes closest to an overall equal split actually performed the best within their respective age group.

In other words, if you want to have a great race, your job is to focus on slowing down over the first six miles. We recommend you aim for a target pace of approximately 30″ slower per mile for these first six miles. After that point, you can bump it up to your target run pace and go from there. Since 2008 thousands of Endurance Nation athletes have applied this 30 second per mile strategy to dozens of Ironman PR marathons. It works! Just give us three minutes (30 seconds x 6 miles) and we’ll make your day. Your last 10k will thank us for sure!

Have Three Physical Running Cues for Your Day

Since our goal is to not slow down, a huge part of that “steady” running lies in maintaining proper form.

Good form requires less effort to move down the road; how many of you have watch an Ironman only to see some of the fittest people you can imagine doubled over at the waist or leaning terribly to one side?

Instead of following a pace into a brick wall, identify three running form cues that will allow you to maintain good form and proper pace. My personal favorites are Chin Up to promote good posture; Elbows Back to keep my stride open and Loose Fingers to reduce tension in hands, arms, shoulders and the neck area.

Build A Repeatable Nutrition Schedule by Mile Marker

Having a food plan is better than not having one. Just because there’s a ton of free food on the course doesn’t mean that your body will be able to process it all. Instead of relying on a plan based on time (i.e., a gel every 30 minutes) build these into the existing support structure on the course.

Since aid stations on the run are located about every mile, use your calculator to do some fancy math. If you plan on running 8:00/miles and you need a gel around 30 minutes, then you are eating at miles 4, 8, 12, and so on. You can then fill in the other miles with water and sports drink.

This four-mile routine is not only infinitely repeatable on your day, it’s easy to remember and execute…both of which are critical components of success on your IM race day.

Be Equal Parts Mentally and Physically Ready

Fitness alone won’t get you across the full 140.6 miles. In fact, the reason why we pick such a compelling event as the ironman is precisely because we want to push our bodies to the point where we are truly tested.

While many Ironman competitors have hit the “wall” when running a stand alone marathon, that struggle pales in comparison to what happens at the end of the Ironman. With your body pushed beyond its limits, running on fumes of gels and sports drink, you have to find a way to will yourself to the finishline despite the pain and/or discomfort you are experiencing.

It is precisely at this point that the mental component of your race day toolkit becomes so important. Given the strength of the argument you can expect your body will have with your head, you must set the terms of this conversation early. Prepare your notes, burn it into your subconscious. Know that your body will try to sneak up on you. It’ll throw a cramp at you; it might even make you see crazy visions or disrupt your ability to do math.

Whatever the challenge, that your top goal is to continue making forward progress; this momentum is your best friend and one of the most important elements towards creating a great Ironman marathon experience.

What else do you have to add about the IM marathon, please add it in the comments below!!!

photo credit: koadmunkee

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 photo credit: Gamma-Ray Productions

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