You’ve trained for six, nine or more months for this day. The chaos of the swim is gone, you’ve gotten your cycling legs back and now it’s time to get to work, to get down to racing the Ironman bike.

STOP!!

In our experience, if you’re going to booger months and months of training and ruin your race, you’re going to do it on the bike leg. Below are our tips for riding the optimum Ironman bike leg…plust be sure to read to the end for a bonus link to download our Bike Fit eBook, released from the EN Content Archives!

There’s No Such Thing as a Good Bike Followed by a Poor Run
The last time we checked this was an Ironman TRIATHLON — swim, bike, and run. The difference between a “good” swim or “bad” swim is only about 2-4 minutes. The difference between “easy” bike or a “hard” bike is only about 10-15 minutes. But the difference between a “good” and “bad” run can be measured in hours. In our experience, your chances of dramatically slowing down happen in the last six to eight miles of the run. Therefore your focus all day is on creating conditions for success in the final six to eight miles of the run, NOT on putting up a sexy bike split. The Ironman run course is littered with the walking bodies of athletes who put up great bike splits. Just think about that.

Ride the Bike You Should, Not the Bike You Could
Your “could” bike split is the one you dream about, the one you told your friends on your last long ride when they remarked how fit you look, how hard you’ve been working, and ask you what you could ride at IMXX. In contrast, your “should” bike split is the bike that sets up the run. In our experience, the difference between Could and Should is about 10 to 15 minutes — add 10-15 minutes to that sexy Could split and set up the run. If you’ve made the mistake of riding too slowly…you have 26 miles of running to fix that mistake. But if you made the mistake of riding too fast…that mistake now has 26 miles of running to express itself.

Do the Opposite of Everyone Else
In our experience, over 80% of the Ironman field doesn’t know how to properly execute the bike. Proper bike execution is then largely a matter of doing the opposite of everyone else.

• Ride easy for the first hour. Are you being passed by a LOT of people? That’s a very good thing, trust us.
• Managing your effort on this hill, setting up the run vs racing for $100 KOM prime they are not handing out at the top…and going backwards through the field? That’s a good thing, they will come back to you somewhere during the day.

Flatten the Course
You best cycling strategy to set up a great run to maintain a very steady effort across all terrain — no big effort surges on hills, no excessive coasting on downhills, etc. Imagine your foot is on a gas pedal:

• On a hill you give it just a little bit more gas…but just a little. Per the 80% rule above, everyone around will stomp in the gas and surge ahead of you. That’s a good thing.
• Across the crest of the hill and into the downhill, stay on the gas. Maintain that steady effort as everyone else comes way off the gas/coasts as they pay for that surging effort on the climb. You descend at 33-36mph, for example, to their 28-30mph, carrying that speed into the next hill…and the next…and the next.
• That foot on the gas pedal is locked in the same position on flats, false flats, slight downhills, etc.

Show Up with Enough Gears on Your Bike
Having the proper gearing for your course is a important part of our “flatten the course” strategy above. What gearing is best? In general, you can never have enough gears in an Ironman. More specifically, these are the gears that Coach Rich, a 5:05-15 Ironman cyclist, would ride on US Ironman courses:

• All: compact crank, 50/34 gearing, then…
• IMTX, FL, AZ: 23-11
• IMSG, IMCDA, IMLP, IMNYC, IMTremblant: 26-11, or 25-12
• IMWI: 26-11

Look for Free Speed First
112 miles is a long time for smart, slippery, aerodynamic choices to express themselves. In our experience, your biggest return on investment opportunities on the Ironman bike are:

• Bike fit: The largest aerodynamic component of the bike/rider system is YOU. A proper bike fit can dramatically improve your aerodynamics while keeping you comfortable on the bike.
• Aero helmet: A big aerodynamic return for your $130-200 investment.
• Bottle/tools placement: An efficient, clean, well-thought-out setup will also significantly improve your aerodynamics.

FREE Bike Fit eBook
Created in partnership with Todd Kenyon of TTBikeFit.com, this resource has been used by thousands of athletes to learn about and improve their fit and aerodynamics. Please go here to download your FREE copy of the Bike Fit eBook today!

What are your tips for the Ironman bike leg? Please share with us below!

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In Part I of this series we introduced you to the concept of using “Return on Investment” to make decisions on how you invest your limited resources of time, headspace, Spousal Approval Units, and money towards triathlon training. These constraints are simply part of being an Age Group triathlete.

To help you navigate your own particular circumstances effectively, we recommend you continually ask yourself these three questions:

1. What returns on race day will I see for this investment?
2. Is that return worth the associated costs?
3. Can I achieve a similar or better return with a smaller or similar investment ? In other words, can I do less, do something different, not incur this cost at all, or buy this vs that?

In this second installment of the ROI series, we continue our exploration of maximizing the average Age Group triathlete’s training by applying these questions towards the investment required to become a faster swimmer.

Question #1: What returns can I expect to see on race day for the time, headspace, SAU’s, and money I invest in becoming a faster swimmer?

First, the training focused required to become a faster swimmer changes as you improve. Our general observations of the types of investment required along the swimming spectrum are:

• If you are slower than about a 1:15 to 1:20 Ironman swim, or a 38 to 40 minute Half Ironman swim, becoming a faster swimmer, for you, is like learning to play a musical instrument: it’s 95% technique and the fitness required to sustain that technique for the distance of your ace. That is, you don’t need to bang for hours on the keyboard to develop finger fitness. You need to work primarily on technique for a focused period of your season. In swimming parlance, it’s all about the shape of your boat (speedboat vs barge) vs the size of the engine.
• Between about 1:05 to 1:15 for Ironman, or about 32 to 37 minutes for Half Ironman, swimming begins to have a larger fitness component. That is, your barge is almost a speedboat and swimming faster begins to be about putting a bigger engine in the boat — learning the technique of grabbing more water and then developing the fitness to sustain that more powerful pull.
• Faster than about 1:02 for an Ironman, or 31 minutes for a Half Ironman, it definitely becomes about swim fitness. You need to have turned your barge into a speedboat and then developed the fitness to maintain a powerful stroke/engine for the length of your swim.
• Obviously, there are caveats to these general guidelines above based on sex, age, natural talent, confidence in the water, etc, but the point here is to show you where the proper training investment is to be made as you progress.

Second, the nature of the appropriate investment for each group of swimmers changes as they move along the swimming improvement spectrum:

1. Beginner Swimmer: A very, very large percentage of your swimming time and resources should be spent developing the skill of swimming…and then about 12-16 weeks out from your goal race, developing the fitness required to sustain your best possible stroke for the length of the swim. For these swimmers, small, incremental technique improvements can yield huge gains on race day. If you’re a 1:45 Ironman swimmer, the difference between you and your 1:20 Ironman friend is technique first and fitness a very, very distant second.
2. Intermediate Swimmer: Technique is becoming dialed in but swimming also shifts slightly to be about grabbing more water; this is your fitness component. After making massive gains in your first season through the judicious use of a local technique coach, future gains will now be:

1. Much Smaller — It is now a game of working all season to shave 5-7 minutes off your swim, not 20-30 minutes.
2. Much More Costly — These smaller gains come at the cost of many 1:1 sessions with a coach to find _that_ technique improvement that just clicks, and/or 3x swims per week at 1 hour each + 30 minutes of admin time on each end of those sessions = a 6hr total time investment each week for a 5-7 minute gain on race day.

So, to the question “what returns can I expect on race day for the typical investment in the swim?”

• Slower Swimmer: Massive gains (15-45 minutes or more) depending on how “challenged” you are at the start and assuming you make a significant time investment with a quality technique resource.
• Intermediate Swimmer: Moderate gains of 5-7’ minutes, assuming you continue to apply significant resources to refining your technique as well as building powerful swimming fitness.
• Advanced Swimmer: Tiny, tiny gains. Swim, swim, swim, all season, to net 1-3 minutes on race day.

Question #2: Is the return, listed above based on your ability, worth the associated cost?

Consider that every swim session, regardless of length, is typically accompanied by 45-60 minutes of total admin time — pack a bag, drive, change, shower, change, drive again…it adds up. Also, since you are subject to the hours of pool availability (ie, you can’t just toss on your suit and knock out a 30 minute swim from your door like you can with your run), you likely compromise other areas of your life to fit in these swims — a very early wake up to make that 6am masters workout, for example. Finally, incurring these swim costs month and months before your goal race, soon after ending a months and months long triathlon season, can have significant motivation implications later in the year. 6am on the pool deck in January or June for a September race are two very different scenarios.

We believe that you should make your own personal assessment of these costs, as they relate to your situation, and determine what investment of your time and effort is worth the expected gain on race day. You perform this cost/reward assessment in many other areas of your life and we believe that triathlon swim training should be no different.

Question #3: Can I achieve a similar or better return with a smaller or similar investment?

This is the question we as coaches asked ourselves in about 2007 when we first started Endurance Nation. As coaches, the question was framed from the perspective of what we could legitimately ask of our athletes: “Before I ask someone to invest into an activity, what is the expected rate of return on race day, based on our experience of having coached hundreds of Ironman athletes? Are there better return on investment activities?”

In our experience:

1. The cost of swimming is highly variable across the year. Waking up and starting a cold car three times per week at 5:30am in January to swim for an hour after a loonngg triathlon season, while training for a race in September, is much more costly than that same investment in July, eight weeks out from your race.
2. Because such a significant part of swimming is about technique, you can take large amounts of time completely off from swimming–bringing your swimming fitness to near zero–without becoming dramatically slower than your PR swimming self.  This is because you still have the good technique of efficient swimming. What’s missing is swim fitness and that comes back very quickly.
3. Your swimming speed comes back very quickly, even after a long layoff. Again, your technique is there, you just need to shake off a little rust, regain your “feel for the water,” and rebuild some fitness to apply to your technique. In our experience, this process of going from Zero to PR/Hero was about 16 weeks of focused, consistent, quality swimming.

Based on this assessment we made the following changes to the swim training of our athletes:

• We eliminated swimming altogether from our OutSeason (Winter) training plans, their training solution from October/November through February/March.
• By eliminating or greatly reducing swimming from 4-5 months of their season, we could now apply these recovery resources (ie, two to three days off per week, days that you would otherwise be swimming) to making them much faster cyclists and runners.
• We then encouraged them to make their own cost/reward assessment. If they did decide to swim during the off-season, we bundled for them…

• Our “Swim Clinic eBook” so our athletes could have a high quality technique resource regardless of the availability of a quality local technique coach.
• A comprehensive schedule of very solid, make-me-faster-through-hard-work swim workouts

So Does This Approach Work?
We’ve applied this approach to thousands of triathletes since 2007. These have been their experiences and comments:

• Swim speed and fitness comes back very quickly — many of our athletes have taken months and months off from swimming. They’ve reported that they are usually back to their past season swim PR form within about 3 months of focused swimming. Still more become much faster swimmers as they apply our technique + fitness solutions above to the swim training much closer to their races.
• This approach allows them to focus on becoming much faster runners and cyclists, where the potential gains on race day are much, much better. Not swimming 2-3 times per week creates the opportunity to bike and run VERY hard, taking 2-3 days off per week to recover from those workouts. They then apply their much improved bike and run fitness to the much longer, by comparison to the swim, bike and run courses, reaping massive PR’s.
• By not requiring themselves to make a large head investment months and months away from their race, they report much less mental burnout and the ability to maintain their motivation across a very long triathlon season. They are then more able to make a concentrated investment in improving their swim technique and fitness when it will do them the most good: about 14-16 weeks out from their goal race.

Please go here to read Coach Patrick’s “everyman” take on this approach.

In summary:

• As you move from Beginner to Advanced swimmer, the flavor of the investment you need to make in additional improvements shifts from technique to fitness.
• These improvements become smaller and smaller and at a greater cost.
• At some combination of swim ability, time of the year, and potential swim gains on race day, we recommend you suspend or significantly reduce the investment you make in the swim and consider applying that time to becoming much faster on the bike and run, where the potential for race day gains is much greater.
• If you do decide to continue investing in the swim, use our examples above to determine where you should make those investments — technique and/or fitness.

We’d like to help you: go here to download, for FREE, our Swim Clinic eBook — 25 pages of swim instruction, video drill demonstrations, poscasts and more, used by thousands since 2005 as their go-to swim technique resource. And we’ll also include our Four Keys of Ironman Execution DVD, a $37 value, used by thousands more to learn how to race triathlons, and Ironman in particular, like a vet!

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

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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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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TeamEN rallied instantly around Chris’ family, raising almost $6,000 for the G. Christopher Gleason Education Fund for his two children (details below). To continue our Team commitment to this cause, we have partnered with Road ID (www.roadid.com). Using the code pcEndurance, you can save 10% on any RoadID purchase — and 25% of every order will be donated to the G. Christopher Gleason Education Fund. This deal will only last until December 31, 2011…so act quickly!

This is a great way to proactively protect yourself and those close to you while saving some money and giving to a great cause. Whether you need an entire RoadID or simply want to add a commemorative tag in Chris’ memory, you’ll be all set.

Again, the website is www.roadid.com and the code is “pcEndurance” (without the quotes). Shop before 12/31 to get your discount and help the Gleason family!

Thanks!

Coach Patrick

ps — if you simply want to make a donation to the fund directly, here’s the information!

The G. Christopher Gleason Education Fund
c/o Gordon C. Emerick
1550 Route 9 Clif
518-371-5454

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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

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

EN had a total of  10  athletes race in a variety of races with an 80% PR rate! Congratulations to everyone — you can read the full details below.

If you’d like to join our age group members in training to be your best, please create a FREE Five Day Trial Membership here or consider purchasing an Endurance Nation training plan here.

Races on 11/20

Ironman Arizona

Al Truscott (photo at left) crossed the finish line in 11:25. You can read his race report here.  He also said “Coach Rich was there to provide quiet help a total of 10 times along the course during race day; and Coach P laid down the breadcrumbs on his comeback trail for me to follow. They are coaches in the true sense of the word – they don’t tell you what to do, so much as show you the way to go.”

David Lesh (photo at right) PR’d with a time of 10:23:02.  Members can read his race report here.  He also said “In only a year team EN took me from an absolute beginner triathlete to finishing my first Ironman. I learned so much from both the coaches and the team members and it was awesome having the support of the team on race day. Thank you for making my first Ironman journey such a wonderful experience.”

Jennifer Eckert earned a PR with a finish time of 13:33:38 and said “How do you go faster when you’re 5 years older?  Train with Team EN!  Thanks you guys…maybe I’ll have a shot at that Kona slot when I turn 60!!”  Members can read her race report here.

Jeremy Behler completed his first Ironman in 10:06:12.  You can read his race report here.

Jonathan Needell (photo at left) also raced his first Ironman for a finish time of 13:48:41.  Members can read his full race report here, but he said of the experience “I overlapped a coach and EN and found out EN was right when I was injured during a typical build period eight weeks before the race. EN only next race.”

Stephanie Stevens earned a new PR with a time of 13:13:00 and said “Still have room for improvement, but I know where that improvement needs to come from.  Thanks RnP!!”

Paul Stone completed the race in 12:20:18 for a new PR and said “Without the execution guidance from Endurance Nation I would not have finished my first IM at all.  But to come back and have a great second IM proves the coaches have something great going. I’m glad to be a part of a great community and team.  Thanks guys.”

Terry Olivas PR’d as well with a time of 10:29:49 and said “There’s no way I could have made it to the top 10% of the M40-44 age group without EN.  How many PR’s can one person have?”

Races on 11/27

Polar Cats 5k

Kevin Walter finished this race with a time of 20:59 and said “Fastest VDOT of 2011 and over 1-minute faster than the last time I raced this course! Managed 10th Overall and 1st M40-44. One month into the outseason.”

Races on 12/4

Rock N Roll Las Vegas

David Salzman completed the half marathon race in a PR-earning 1:40:05.  You can read his race report here.

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