Ongoing development of the athlete

Often I’m asked why are we doing this (mountains) if the next race I’m going to do is flat? Why are we doing backstroke when all I need to be able to do is freestyle? Why do we do hypoxic breathing workouts so often? Why run at a pace slower than race pace so often?

The answer to all of the above is, “I’m training my athletes to develop them to their potential”. Not training them to one race down the road.

That’s not going to happen in three months. It’s widely accepted in coaching circles, that it takes seven years to fully develop an aerobic system. It’s extremley rare for anyone to ever get to the Olympics in either swimming, cycling or running in less than ten years. That’s not ten years of watching the Tour de France on tv. That’s ten years of early mornings and cold fingers and toes.

The group of athletes who I have just trained to the Australian Ironman are only part of the way down their development trail. Some are several years down the trail and some are only two years into the journey.

Most likely some of my group have as much talent as Vernay (the winner) or Anderson (second place), the only way this talent can be released is by doing the “hard yards”. That’s buildup after buildup, not continuous slogging.

The only way we can keep the passion going is to committ to an event not too distant into the future. About 16 weeks is an ideal time. That 16 week period can then be broken down into a base building period and a sharpening, race specific period.

Once the event is reached, the performance is evaluated, the lessons learned. Then it’s time for recovery. The length of recovery depends on the length and intensity of the race.

Usually after an Ironman, I give the guys two weeks off training, to sleep in, go to the movies, have a bit of “normal life”. During that time we keep all of the dietry supplements up, this is a critical time for the immune system to be supported.

After the recovery break we go into another build phase. It’s good to find another gaol race 12 to 16 weeks away. If the next important event is 24 or 26 weeks away, it’s too far to maintain focus and another training goal can be placed about 8 weeks away. A time trial or a smaller less important event can become the object to focus on.

It’s always important to have a destination to be aiming at. Training without a goal can become meaningless and it’s just too hard to get out of bed.

The important over riding principle is that in order to reach your potential, you have to be “at it” year in, year out.

It’s good to have a race to test yourself at every year. Simply to test the progress in your development. I have used the Gold Coast marathon over several years as a test race. The overall result is not important to me as I’m simply using the race to develop as an Ironman triathlete.

Running the marathon three years in a row at set HRs has given me a real measurable performance to test my progress. The same can be done with bike time trials. Especially mountain time trials. These type of tests are far cheaper than lab tests and just as accurate.

It is very important to keep records. Times, dates etc. It’s good to see how the plan is unfolding.