Flex in the schedule

Triathletes always have a workout schedule. If you are like me, you plan the months well in advance, at least on a Macro level. The actual details of the week may not come until a week or two ahead but you certainly know what phase of training you are in and have things scheduled to meet those Priority A races. Last week I got reminded of two things:

Your immune system gets really beat up when you are traning hard and you get sick much easier during this time.

Make sure to have flex time in your schedule to accmodate the "real life" family, unexpected emergency and sickness.

Last Monday I was on yet an other 20 hour week of workouts. This is pretty much my limit and is a LOT of training for someone who works full time with no kids. I had switched my long run around due to some pretty nasty weather on Sunday and found myself running on Monday evening - planning on about a 2hr 30min run - probably 16 or 17 miles? I started out and only 20 minnutes into the run noticed my heart rate 10 beats above normal and my pace a full 1 minute off, I did not feel that bad so I kept running, 1 hour down and the same thing, 2 hours same - well I did not figure out this was a sure sign I was either overtrained (Impossible since I take good recovery weeks and just got finished doing one) or that I am getting sick. I soldiered on, At 2:20 I am shelled feeling terrible and walk 10 minutes to get home. Into bed I went feeling very tired. Got up the next morning went to work just long enought to type an email to say I am going home - feeling sick! Long story short I was down through Friday with the FLU (Yes I got a Flu shot this year - did not help matters). Let me tell you, it sucked! However by Saturday I was good to go and back on the bike for a 95 mile day! Lesson learned - pay attention - had I stopped my long run maybe after 30 minutes or so I may have gotten through the sickness a day or two quicker!

Seond lesson I learned but I already knew this one. Don't try to make up lost time. I had scheduled a full Flex week into my trianing for the winter for this type of thing . So I do not feel like I have lost anythnig, I just finished out the week and started this week over again. Still on schedule. Good lessons to learn - sometimes I guess we all need to have a gentle reminder now and then.

Recovery Weeks - are you taking them seriously?

Here I was last year, a nephite to the whole Tri training season. Reading plenty of articles and books, mostly by my friend Joe Friel, plenty of others chime in, but most follow his advise with a few modifications here and there. So what did I learn last year. I learned to rest when my body said rest! Last year I was pushing my BASE training hours up to the 18 hours per week. Of course back then I was not as fit as I am today so this year an 18 - 20 hour week puts in many more miles than it did last year. However, that is not the important part - miles that is. The core idea is to train consistantly pushing yourself up to a limit and then back off some and then do it again. This happens on 3 levels a Micro (Weekly scale) you schedule a tough day, or maybe two followed by an easier day or even a off day depending on your fitness level. The next level is the Macro "monthly" cycle which has you add to your training for 3 straight weeks and then back off on the 4th week. Finally there is the seasonal cycle which has you do longer (Less intense training) during the off season followed by shorter (More intense) training during the racing season. Of course this is VERY VERY basic but gives the overall understading of how to lay out your training. Most people beleive it is about how many miles you run or ride. However you have to rememember everyone is different, has different goals and have different levels of fitness. A 6 mile run for some is considered a "long Run" while for others it would be considered an easy run - even if done at an intenese pace. That is why it is best to represent and record your trianing volumes in hours instead of miles. An 80 mile bike ride for me in very windy conditions could take 6 hours verses an 80 mile ride with a group and no wind easily 4 hours. Last year I was training hard and trying to get better, all the time wondering - HOW to train better, quality not quantity, that is the key! Anyone that wants to do well in Triathlons is usuaully a pretty motivated person, so that is rarely the problem. In fact, we are usually so motivated it sometimes presents a problem. Last year I had two straight 18 -20 hour weeks plus normal family and work related activities makes for a lot of training. (My guess is anyone that works full time will struggle with any more than this, maybe an epic week here and there but 20 hours is a pretty loaded week for most, only professional can honestly build a 30+ hour week routinely.) This was a lot and the first time I had aapproached that level, everything was fine the first two weeks however, on the 3rd week I started feeling VERY tired and dragged my butt out of bed and forced my way through every workout, as prescribed in my SELF training schedule, I finally took my recover week the following week backing my training down to a more sensible 11 hour week. One week later I was ready to go again. I pumped out a couple more 20 hour weeks, increasing millege once again. Again I struggled through the 3rd week and then took a rest.

This year I just finished 3 BASE II weeks of 20 hour weeks of training, each progressively harder and farther than before. Bingo I start to go into my fourth week (Lucky for me a recovery week) and BAM! I feel no motivation, legs are tired. I learned from last year what this meant - TAKE a REST! Who cares what the training program says. Your body cannot read a program! Now you know why the experts like Joe Friel says to recover every 4th week, becasue for most people the timing just works out this way. But if you are listening to your body this could happen at 3 weeks (Like it did for me last year)or maybe you can push it out to 4 or 5 weeks (I am going to try that in BASE III) wiht an EPIC week somewhere in there as well, you simply have to learn how to listen to what your body is telling you and understand that rest is good. You definately have to push yourself out of your comfort zone to get better but you also have to rest to get the benefit. If you never take this rest you essentially will never get the fitness gain from all the work you just did. As you get more and more fit, this becomes a finer and finer line, you have to push past your confort zones but not too far. Essentially the ONLY person that can really know this is YOU, most coaches cannot read your mind, your motivation. they might could look at hear rate or something like that and see if is unusally high but no one will understand your body like you do. A lot of very motivated athletes actually are training in an over training state most of the time and would probably benefit more from looking at their recovery cycles and adjusting those to better match their tough sessions. However, that is hard to tell someone who is just plain motivated to win! They always think more is better, they also always think more intense work is better, again not necessarily. For some of you, I am simply preaching to the choir but heck it does not hurt to send out a little reminder now and then. We are all so motivated to do well we simply forget sometimes to stop and listen to what are bodies are saying. I think the best lessons sometimes come from just years of training and learning the "hard way" CRASH and BURN! - but it does not have to be, those who learn to listen to their bodies ultimately perform at their best (This may not be a win) but it will be "their" best and that is what really counts. So don't forget to rest - besides I get pretty damn grumpy when I am tired and do not want to train, at least that is what my wife tells me. Trust me she is always right!

Swim Coach?

So what do you do when your swim was your weakest area and you still struggle with a decent swim after a couple of years of self coaching. Simple, get someone who knows how to coach swimming. To date I have been pretty successful with self coaching and I must say I enjoy learning about how the body works and how best to train for Triathlon. However, certain things just require another person's insight, an expert and someone who can explain it to various athletes and personalities. To all the long time high school and college swimmers out there, you have no idea how much advantage it is to already have a good swim stroke and to know how to effortlessly glide through the water. For the past two years I have read articles, looked at videos, took advice from other people and with out a doubt I have gotten better. However, that is simply not good enough, bottom line if you want to be a good Triathlete you need to be able to exit the water in the top 5 and then bike and run with the best of them. I am getting close on the bike and run but was always somewhere around 15th out of the water, that is a lot of time to give away during a short coourse race. For the longer Tris, it is not the time that gets you, but the effort expended. Good swimmers spend much less energy per a given distance. Triathletes have to be able to swim short or long but more importantly they must swim effortlessly. This envolves having a near perfect swim stroke and the ability to remain calm, find good feet to draft on and have the power when needed to bridge a gap. When done correctly, this leaves plenty of energy for the bike but more improtantly leaves you ready to run when everyone else is on empty. So now I have a coach - Dawn Chuck at DUKE started teaching basics swim strokes and provides workouts to people like myself or anyone simply interested in swimming better. She certainly has the credential to do it. Two time Olympian and now DUKE assistant swim coach. I guess if I cannot learn something from her I might as well give up! No worries though, I am confident I wil be swimming much better in just a few months, provided I work hard. But that is usually not a problem for me. I will let you know if my decision to get coaching pays dividends. April 15th will be the first test with an Ironman Swim of 2.4 miles. My goal is 1:10 or better. I should be able to meet that with my current best of 33 minutes and some change at the half distance.

"Quality" long runs

So I have been working on getting more running time in. For about the past 7 weeks I have slowly inched up my 2 long runs. One on Thursday and One on Sunday. The Thursday run I have come to realize is my quality workout; the one I feel most rested on and the one I am going to push the most, not intensity but distance. Last night I broke out the GPS Forerunner once again and set off knowing I would do at least 2 hours. I run around my neighborhood, lots of great bike trails to run on; I have several routes but decided the first route would take about an hour before circling back to the house to get a quick 30 second drink from the accelarade bottle. The second lap I take a different route but circle back a little quicker at about 50 minutes for another short drink, finishing up with a 2:19 run. This is my longest of the season and was 16.1 miles according to the GPS with 3,624 feet of climbing, not sure if the GPS is right on elevation, it does not seem very hilly, certainly no big steep hills, maybe just desceptively or gradually up and down more than I previously thought. My Sunday run I am usually still tired from the long Saturday ride usually 5 hours plus a short 30 minute brick run afterwards so that run has usually topped out at 2 hours to date. I will probably only push that one out to about 2:15 or so. My Thursday run I plan on getting to about 2:45 before my April Ironman race. That should be about 20 miles or so for me. I am struggling with knowing how far, how much volume etc but I guess everyone struggles with that part, so far I still recover weel between the quality workouts so that is key. The intensity is somewhat easy for now - keep everything easy and steady. Currently for me that is 145bpm or less on the hear rate monitor, to be honest my legs start to give out long before the lungs so this is usually not a problem for the longer stuff. I feel good about the long runs, in fact I have to say I look forward to the Thrusday night run every week. Last night the first hour and half was quite easy and I was jammin out to the new Rob Thomas tunes on the IPOD Delane downloaded for me. Even though I love to bike and I have started to like swimming much more than I used to, there is simply nothing like a good long run. Not sure what it is but I usually cannot wait to get started and just feel like I am crusing along effortlessly sometimes. Of course you are tired when it is over but you have the satisfaction of knowing you are doing all the things neccessary to get ready for Ironman.