Sometimes I wonder what’s kept me in this demanding sport
for over 25years. Lots of people have come and gone over that time. I’ve seen
hundreds come through our club in the last 18yrs. People come into the sport,
tick the boxes that are important to them, and they move onto something else.

I would say what has kept me interested, and kept the
passion strong is probably several things. One has to be the sunrises, I love
seeing all the sunrises that so many people sleep through. Training is almost
always an early morning activity.

Another motivator for me is achieving my goals, I feel I
have still got things to achieve in this sport. I do enjoy competition, it’s in
the blood. I see it in my daughter, she’s inherited this competitive gene. It’s
amazing how much work you can get done when two of you are racing each other.

One of the most valued parts of this sport for me is the
quality people who I have been so lucky to work with. This morning was another
example of the passion and commitment shown by these special people.

We had a planned workout scheduled to start at 6am, at the
little town of Walloon about 45min west of Brisbane. The workout was a 100km
bike time trial with 6 x 1km run repeats off the bike. There was an optional
extra 50km that could be added to the bike time trial, by those who felt it
would help them in their mental preparation for Ironman NZ in five weeks.

We are right in the middle of the wettest weeks of the past
few years. It rained all night last night, and at 6am it was raining steadily
as I arrived at Walloon. Cycos members often travel quite long distances to
some of our workouts. The bike time trials are one of those tests where people
will  travel. We’ve had athletes drive
down from Gladstone (about 6hrs) drive up from Tamworth (about 6-7hrs). This
morning one guy drove up from Kingscliffe in northern NSW, another couple drove
down from the Sunshine Coast and one of our girls drove up from Coffs Harbour
(about 4-5hrs), to ride a 150km TT in pouring rain.

When I arrived, there were 28 cars in the car park. Some of
those cars bought two people out. We started  in rain, we rode the 100km or 150km, in
pouring rain, then we got off and ran in the rain. This would have looked crazy
to some of the locals, but last year in New Zealand it rained heavily all day.
I’m sure everyone who was out there feels a great deal of satisfaction, after
that workout.

The rainwater was flooding onto the roadsides from the
paddocks, hiding some of the potholes from view. I hit two of them so hard my
teeth clacked together. One of them gave me a puncture, as soon as my tyre
started to go flat, I thought. “That’s it for me,  I’ve done 65km, I’ll just fix it and ride back
easy”.

Then I thought, “It is only a flat tyre. I’ve driven all the
way out here to ride 100km, what am I thinking?” So I just changed it, got back
on and finished the 100km. As I rode off down the road, I thought about all the
great people in the squad who were out there, doing what they had to do. What
thoughts are going through their heads?

We do our time trials out between Walloon and the next town
of Rosewood. It takes six repeats of the loop to make 100km, nine laps for
150km. We do these workouts to encourage the development of concentration
skills. Up and down the same loop, over and over again, can challenge the
athlete’s ability to concentrate.

We all have those little voices in our head, giving us all
the reasons to ease up, or to even cut the workout short. The best place to
develop the ability to over rule these thoughts, is on a boring, multi lap,
time trial course.

The Ironman race is 70% mental. Completing many of the
necessary workouts to do well in an Ironman, is 70% mental. I’d say one of the
strongest motivators for me in staying with this sport, has to be witnessing the
mental toughness of many of my training mates. It makes me feel very proud of
them all.

I don’t often have the opportunity to watch his show, I find
it a bit far fetched. Here’s Bear out there surviving with a full film crew
behind the scenes. But it was the night before the West Australian Ironman and
I had time to kill. If I wasn’t racing an ironman next morning, I’d probably
find something better  to do.

Lots of people choose the West Australian Ironman because
“on paper”, it looks like an easy Ironman. There are no easy Ironman races. The
fact that it has no hills on the bike or run make it attractive to a lot of
first time Ironman competitors. The swim is usually a very pleasant experience
in fairly calm conditions.

The days before had been a bit windy and the bay a bit
choppy, but things can change overnight, and the three times I’d raced here it
had been calm on race day.

On race morning we had everything in order. We’d been carbo
loading for two days on mainly rice based dishes. We walked into the transition
area fully hydrated and loaded with carbs and minerals. Loading with carbs and
drinking lots of fluids in the days before a race can cause an athlete to “wash
out too much of his mineral reserves”, with his many trips to the toilet. We’d
been careful not to let this happen.

The swim was choppy. Constant buffering with waves about two
foot high, that’s nearly four kilometres of waves two foot high. I do have to
admit, I did think of how the older and weaker swimmers were going to handle
these conditions. I’ve had lots of experience in rough water swims and I still
felt it a battle. My swim time was about five minutes slower than my previous
swims here, but you race the conditions you find on race day. We’re all in the
same boat. Well actually if you end up in the boat, things have not gone to plan.

I expected the bike to be windy, the course is close to the
coast and at no time is it further than a couple of miles inland. But the wind
is going to be behind us at some points and in our face other times, it all
balances out. It does get tiring, fighting headwinds and cross winds. Lots of
competitors fail to take advantage of the tailwind, they use it as a rest period.
You can’t give a gift like that away.

My own bike time was not affected all that much, I had drank
all my planned drinks and taken all my planned food on board. I had no idea
where I was in my category, all I knew was there was at least one competitor in
front of me. I had passed one early on the bike, but two bikes were missing
from the rack when I picked mine up.

I got off the bike in good shape, well as good as you can be
after a 3.8km swim and a 180km bike time trial.  I
had a fast transition, around three minutes to run the length of a football
field, rack my bike, get my shoes and socks on and run out. I was still racing.

It always takes two or three km before my legs come good
(loosen up and move freely). After about three km things started to work
better, the cloud cover which had blown in shifted off, letting the hot summer
sun through in full force. I handle the heat fairly well, after a lifetime of
working outdoors, landscaping, and pool building, it’s simply a case of doing
what you have to do in any conditions. I did give a thought to the first
timers, especially the ones who spent most of their lives in air conditioning.
They were going to suffer out here, my guess of the temperature was about
thirty degrees. It had reached thirty-one the day before.

It was a four loop run, all dead flat, not more than a meter
of rise or fall across the whole distance. I think looped runs are a little
easier mentally than a long out and back run. But it doesn’t matter which way
they lay it out you still have to run 42km, in thirty degree heat. This was
going to hurt a few.

I reached the half way point of the run, lots of people say
half way in an Ironman is thirty km into the marathon. In my third loop I
started to have a few threatened cramps, I was fully hydrated but had run out
of salt capsules. I slowed my pace to “just below cramping pace”, had a few
walks here and there to relax the muscles. Starting up again was not easy, but
the fastest walk is still slower than the slowest run, and I was still racing.
A casual observer may not have thought this was racing, but it is an Ironman.

My racing changed into surviving, I was cramping in my feet,
my calves, my quads and even in my biceps. I had 12km to go and started to
calculate how long it would take to walk 12km? I’d been though plan A, plan B, plan C by this stage.

Then I struck it lucky, right there on the road was three
“Salt Stick” capsules wrapped in electrical tape. The course is often littered with bits and pieces that people have dropped from their pockets whille pulling something else out. Often people wish me good
luck before a race, I often joke and say, “The other guys will need the luck,
I’ve done the work”. I usually add, “I’ll take any luck that comes my way”. I
pounced on those Salt Stick capsules like it was a one hundred dollar note.

It was less than 200m after taking the first capsule that I
started to jog freely with no cramps. The salt is absorbed in the mouth if the
capsule is crushed, causing the body to react immediately. Those three capsules
turned my race around. I felt like Bear Grylls eating a maggot to survive as I
grabbed my new treasure off the ground and popped it into my mouth.

I ran the whole last lap, feeling as good as is possible in
the last 10km of an Ironman Marathon. In the finish shute I ran up behind a guy
with grey hair who was high fiving his family over the fence, I was taking no
chances of him being in my age group, it’s too hard to pick ages in a race like
this. I powered past him and ran down the last 100m like I was bowling for
Australia. I didn’t need to finish that hard because after the race I
discovered I had won my category by 55min.

That was the hardest conditions I had experienced in
Busselton, I had raced there three times before and this year I was 66min
slower than my last race here. If it wasn’t for my lucky break finding the salt
capsules, I’m sure my time would have blown out by another hour.

The last time I
walked that much in an Ironman race, was in 1986 in my first Ironman. Any
competitor who is disappointed with his time from IMWA 2011, believe me this
was not a soft race. A lumpy swim, a windy bike and a hot run, these were a lot
like Kona conditions.

There’s no point in practicing bad habits. I often see
athletes out running when I’m on my way to the pool or out for a ride. Two
hours later I see the same athletes still running. Or should I say plodding
along, dragging their tired bodies along with the most inefficient form you
could imagine.

What they’re doing is practicing exactly what they’ll do on
race day as soon as they get tired. They unconsciously tell their body, this is
the way we run when we’re tired.

There’s a much better way. Simply never run with bad form.
Never run inefficiently. Learn how to run well and practice it every time you
lace up a pair of running shoes. A really useful method is to insert a short,
measured walk into your long run every 4min or 5min. I like to walk 30 paces
every 5min. Don’t get caught up in the mathematics, it’s just not important.
The simple formulae is to run well for a period, then walk with good posture
for a measured amount of steps.

This method often has a runner covering more ground in a
90min or 2hr run than they would have if they ran continuously. The bonus is
that all of the running is done technically well. The short walks are just
enough to reset the mind onto the right pattern. A bit like hitting the refresh
button. Some athletes fear taking up this method because they fear they’ll lose
the ability to run continuously . It’s not a good idea to let fear be your
guide. The simple fact is that you only ever run well, and that’s all the body
knows.

An athlete who was not happy with his result in a recent race
approached me for some advice. He wondered if he should start some track
sessions. The same athlete has dodged our group track sessions for the past six
weeks, and has never taken advantage of the water running, leg speed sessions
the rest of the squad have been doing. Ironically the rest of the squad are
very happy with their progress in the run.

After giving this athlete the free advice, he promptly told
me what he would like to do. Which was quite different to what I had just
advised him to do???  I’ve seen the same
athlete running along, obviously very tired, in a survival plod. Actually
practicing exactly what happens in his races when he gets tired.

The same thing happens in the pool. It pays to never
practice bad technique. If I am so tired that I can’t hold good technique, I
just get out. If I see a swimmer in my squad losing it, I tell them to get out.
Or in some cases, put fins on to take away the fight for survival.

There’s a lot of good sayings a coach accumulates along the
way, one which applies here is, “Any fool can suffer”

]]> http://www.aptriathlon.com/2011/11/15/avoiding-the-plod-can-give-you-better-race-results/feed/ 0 http://www.aptriathlon.com/2011/11/09/good-intentions-are-no-substitute-for-action/ http://www.aptriathlon.com/2011/11/09/good-intentions-are-no-substitute-for-action/#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:33:41 +0000 apitman http://www.aptriathlon.com/?p=649

Sandy and I had the dirtiest training bikes in the club, they were a disgrace. They creaked when we climbed, they barely stopped us when we braked. They needed help.

I usually service them myself, I owned a bike shop for ten years and did thousands of bike repairs. But I have a habit of overcommitting myself, and not having enough time to do all I plan to do.

Anna came to train with the Cycos, one day she asked if her partner Jimmy could come on a weekend ride with us.  I said no problems. Jimmy runs a mobile bike mechanics business, just what I needed.

We left our training bikes with Jimmy when we went down to Forster Long Course race. The best move I could of made. I have been “getting around to” servicing those bikes for months. We came home to two bikes that performed like new.

The most successful people I know are good at delegating work to good people to free up their own time. In the bike industry, it’s not easy to find good people.

Jimmy is passionate about his work, and he does it well. He’s a little hard to understand, he’s a Scot. He’s got the job of looking after these bikes while I concentrate on coaching and renovating.

There’s a belief out there that more is better, when it comes to Ironman training. Very often I have had a new athlete join me after many attempts to qualify for Hawaii. I’ve reduced his workload by 20-30% from previous IM preparations, and he’s gone 30-60min faster and qualified. An athlete carrying deep muscle fatigue from one week to the next, or one month to the next will have a disappointing result on race day.

It’s an easy trap to fall into, when you’re feeling great, to fit more in. If you’re feeling great, doesn’t it indicate that what you’re doing is pretty close to right. If you’re setting PBs in training, doesn’t that indicate that your workload is close to right for you. What often happens is EGO steps in and whispers in the ear of the athlete “Man you’re on fire, you smashed them on that climb. You’re in a different league to these guys. You need to train with faster guys. You’ve outgrown this group”.

The athlete likes what his EGO is whispering in his ear, often raising his expectations for race day. Often changing the training plan which has been working well up to then. Sometimes a plan is changed on the strength of a new article in a triathlon magazine. Training for a successful Ironman race can sometimes be boring, routine work. Not a lot of EGO gratifying workouts along the way. I try to structure the training in a way that gives the athlete a series of confidence building experiences. I think building confidence and being guided by your EGO are two closely related, but quite different experiences.

Guys who work manually, on their feet all day, every day, up and down ladders, pushing barrows, can be overtraining, simply by under-recovering.  Doing a hard days work after a tough workout will make you tougher,  pure toughness is a great asset, but if this is done too often it can lead to overtraining and deep fatigue that may take months to get over.

The best test of fatigue levels is to have a week off. If your quads are empty when you get into the hills on the bike. If your power figures are difficult to achieve in your intervals. Take a week off training and sleep in each morning. After 5 days of no training try a hill you are used to riding to test how well you can do it. Try a test set with the power meter to see how your figures are. Then do the same workout 2 days later to see how you handle it.

A week of training can be an investment in your results later in the season. Overtraining can sneak up on you, it can only show up on the bike at first, where most strength is needed. Running, especially endurance training can feel OK even though your recovery procedures are not working well. There’s not as much strength involved in running as there is in cycling hills. This will be the first place to show up when you cross that invisible line to overtraining.  

Having a nap after your bigger weekend sessions, and feeding yourself like you’re an expensive racehorse, good rest and good feed, in your stable early each night, pays big dividends.

The world class marathoners are very good at simply accepting the pain as part of the game. Running three minute kms for forty-two kms has to hurt like hell towards the end.

I look at athletes training and am often surprised to see how much they show their discomfort. The good ones don’t show it. It’s there but their body language does not show any sign of discomfort. This is a skill worth cultivating.

One of the reasons developing athletes show their pain and suffering is because they don’t know how to put it aside. This skill needs to be practiced in windtrainer intervals and running efforts. On the bike the simple strategy of  counting the number of revs which can be fitted into each 30sec block can become the task to achieve. If the mind is focussed on this simple task, it can over-rule the need to focus on the misery or discomfort. In fact, knowing how many revs you can fit into a thirty second block, then trying to fit in just one more can be a challenge which will wipe away the suffering.

By using this simple technique, an interval of any length can be broken down into a series of thirty second pieces. Each one can then be an achievement. Before you know it the long effort is completed, even if it takes many pieces to make up the time. This strategy can be used very successfully in races. Especially in climbing long hills, count how many revs it takes to get to the next guide post, or power pole.

In the Hawaii Ironman course, during the last third of the bike leg, everyone is tired. Often the head wind, or cross wind is relentless. Then the riders meet the long gradual climbs, some as long as two kms. Counting revs between guide posts causes the hill to just disappear below your bike. The goal becomes getting to the next post, and onto the next post. It becomes a little personal challenge between each post. Another amazing thing that happens is that your pedaling rhythm becomes smoother as you count revs. 

When running repeats in training, often I see athletes watching each other. Trying very hard to keep up. Trying not to get dropped. While others are running very smoothly, with perfect technique and showing no pain and suffering. The runners are all running the same speed, some are hurting, some aren’t?

During running intervals, counting steps can work well for some. Feeling the sensations can work for others. Feeling the pressure on the ground, feeling the wind rushing past the ears. Feeling in control, leading with the knees, feeling relaxed, staying calm, all these simple thoughts can help. I often pick a point (a tree or a sign) and run to that point, then pick another one. This is a great strategy for running Ironman marathons well. Divide the course into small managable pieces.

Even the athletes who are racing for age group or overall wins will benefit from never looking like you’re hurting. Looking cool at turn around points in a race can undermine your competitor’s confidence in catching you. 

Pain is part of the game, just accept it. It’s there, it’s not going to kill you. Learn to work with it. Not against it. You’ll find that simple acceptance, and a change of focus to “the process” can make it far less intense.

If Lance Armstrong did what he has done in his cycling career with only one, what would be possible if we used our own to their full potential. Imagine the possibilities if we discovered that we had one more?

I ask for weekly feedback from all of my athletes. Some like to get real technical, some I have to squeeze the information out of them. The feedback is a really important part of our coach/athlete relationship. As soon as someone sends me their feedback, I copy the important bits I want to be able to refer back to, and post it on “their page”. That way when I write the next monthly program, I have the facts I need to focus on.

Last week one of the guys sent in his feedback. He’s been progressing really well. Every time trial is faster, his power figures in intervals are through the roof. He’s going so good that he announced that he was so powerful, he felt like he had three testicles. I smiled to myself, but he really had something here.

His progress has been good, I’ve had to hold him back so he doesn’t cook himself too soon. He has nailed all the power figures I’ve asked for. His body weight is as low as it has ever been. His run time trials, both outright speed and aerobic time trials have been faster than he expected with the type of training we’ve been doing. All of these indicators have boosted his confidence to an all time high.

Maybe that third testicle is in the head. Maybe when you have a series of confidence building experiences, every one boosts your confidence levels. If you can train through a full Ironman preparation without any injury or illness, and post regular PBs in training tests, the feeling you have is as valuable as the higher testosterone levels you’d get from an extra testicle.

My goal is for the athlete to stand on the start line, without injury or illness, with a confidence that a cat couldn’t scratch.

Now the girls are asking, what about us? Well girls you know how good it is to set a PB. You know how good you feel when you tick off everything on your program. Girls are good at ticking all the boxes. Most of the girls I know in this sport are as tough as the guys, in many cases tougher.

With the girls, we’re working on the same plan. Completion of a series of confidence building experiences, gradually raising confidence and self belief, as they become fitter along the way. Whether they see that as a third testicle, I’ll leave that to them. I’m real happy with the spirit and toughness they show in training and racing.

For the guys, this is something you can aim for. Don’t go looking for the extra one, let it show in your performance.

I’ve been coaching Ironman athletes for around twenty years now. One of the crazy things about them. Many are not as smart as a dog.

I’ve always had good dogs. They’ve always been females, and either Australian Cattle dogs or cattle crosses. Many years ago I bought a book on dog training. It’s simple stuff. To have a good dog, one who’ll defend the family, stay up all night watching your property, and do what you tell them. All you have to do is treat them like a dog. A big mistake people make is to think they need to be treated like people. They’re not people, they don’t think like people, they’re dogs. They think like dogs, that’s if they think at all.

My dogs respect me as though I’m their leader, the Alpha male in their pack. They read my body language, and I read theirs. They never get to eat before I’ve eaten, that’s the way it is in our pack. They know their place in the pack. I could be going soft on them, this winter my wife bought them dog jackets. I have been putting them on each night before I feed them. In forty years I’ve never had a dog with a jacket till now. My wife feels that if her horse has a choice of four different rugs, the dogs should have a jacket for the cold nights.

One thing I have learned watching my dogs. When they’re tired, they sleep. When they have a sore foot, they just lie around and lick it. They don’t try to keep running on it. They will if duty calls and they have to defend the house when the postman comes. But they’ll soon go back to resting. Triathletes on the other hand have great difficulty in resting when they’re tired. Or stopping whatever activity hurt them, long enough to give it a chance to heal.

Another thing dogs are better than triathletes at, is racing for the sheer fun of it. They don’t take races too seriously, they just love to run. They love to chase balls, frisbies, anything. They have to be seriously sick to not be able to fire themselves up and be ready to perform in a really short time. No excuses, just give everything they have.

Dogs are not that hard to manage around each other. They soon sort out who’s going to be the boss, and then they just get on with it. There might be a bit of a snarl here and there, but it’s forgotten quickly. They don’t get offended and have to leave the pack. I’ve seen that happen with adult triathletes.

Our training is our play time. If we were always ready to go hard when the stop watch came out, and ready to switch off and rest like a dog, we’d probably gain more from our training and racing. If we could race for the sheer joy of racing, we’d go faster with less muscular tension. Have you ever watched a dog chase a ball, all they think of is the ball. If only humans could race like that, just focussed totally on the finish line, no distractions, just keep the “eyes on the ball”.

Dogs don’t know what their power output is, what their heart rate is, how many calories they need to do a days work in the hot sun. Working dogs often do a ten to twelve hour day with little more than a drink of water. They pace themselves, they make the job as easy as possible, but they get the job done.

Along that path, the weather is not always going to be sunny and warm. If you only move forward when the weather is good, you won’t make the progress you would if you accepted the weather as it is and did what you can. You may have to slow down, maybe take a different approach, but you’re still moving ahead.

The committed athlete rarely wanders too far off that narrow path. There’ll be lots of temptations, lots of things that appear more attractive than sticking to the boring old path. Those long boring bits seem like they never end, you feel as though you’re making no progress at all, then all of a sudden you break through to a new brighter view. It’s during those long boring sections of the path where the less committed athletes drop off, maybe to be waylaid by some temptation. A sleep in, drinks with the boys/girls on friday night. Maybe later nights, shorter sleeps.

Sometimes we come up against what appears to be a blank wall, with no way through. Like a recurring injury, maybe recurring because it hasn’t been treated well in the first place.  Sometimes along that path there are going to be scheduled maintenence stops, massage, acupuncture, rest. These pauses are going to ensure that the progress is ongoing, scheduled maintenence, prevents un-scheduled breakdowns.

Sometimes staying on the path is as simple as what you order for lunch. Lunch is most likely the meal where the the poorest choices are often made. Unless you pack your own, the choices are often too high in sugar or fat and too low in nutrition. You might say what difference does one lunch in a year make? Not much, but it’s a little scar on the psychological champion you’re building. One bad choice can lead to more, it can become a weekly “treat”? If you reward yourself with bad food, aren’t you supporting a negative habit? If you go off course once a week, that deviation has to have some cost at the end of the journey. 

Why not reward yourself with an extra effort in the pool. Maybe an extra interval on the bike. Why don’t we introduce a reward system where we actually look forward to doing more than our competitors, rather than taking shortcuts. Maybe the reward to reaching a milestone in our journey can be a day at the beach where we only eat great fresh food and drink filtered water or fresh juices. Maybe a whole weekend of running in the forest and eating great home cooked food. How kinky is that.

Most of our competitors are rewarding themselves with a deviation off the path, drinks with work mates, a greasy pizza or a big parcel of fish and chips cooked in super heated fat that’s virtually undigestable. The right choices move you further ahead of them.

Your own path can be planned with progress markers long the way, PBs recorded along the way. A plan in place to reach each milestone, there doesn’t have to be a strict timeline. Reaching each milestone happens faster if there are fewer deviations from the path.

Draw out your own path – list the steps you want to achieve along the way – make a list of steps which will help you progress along that path – maybe a list of pitfalls to avoid – have a plan in place to help dodge the pitfalls, and a list of rewards for achievements gained along the way. Use the rewards as carrots to chase.

Then comes the “off season”. Depending on the stage of development of the athlete, some should be spending the off season filling their diary with miles.

Others who have 5-10 Ironman finisher’s shirts in their closet, maybe it’s time to build a bit of speed. You really can’t build your basic speed during an Ironman buildup. You need to have the “pace” before you start the long stuff.

There’s no short cut. If you’ve just done your first Ironman, or second, your time will be best spent accumulating miles in the legs and maybe refining your swim technique. Those miles should be all aerobic. (below 80%HR)

It’s possible during that off season aerobic block to do regular time trials, mountain climbs and rides of all distances, from one hour up to eight hours. It’s all adding to the conditioning which will give you a bigger platform on which to build your next performance.

The guys with a cupboard full of finisher’s shirts would do well now to start their off season with a five km running time trial and a 100km bike time trial (or FTP test if they have a power meter) I have been testing athletes this week to detirmine the intensity we should be aiming at in development work through the off season.

It’s not a bad time of year to enter a marathon, especially if you don’t have a big running background. There’s nothing like a looming marathon to get you out there early in those winter mornings.

The worst thing you can do for your development is to try and shortcut, by going into speed development work when you don’t have a big enough base built. The base building is the easiest way to get fast in your first few years.