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New Sponsors
This month I have added: Ironman Wetsuits – They have been helping me out with some innovative products for Ultraman and will be backing Epic Camps in 2004. http://www.ironmanwetsuits.com/ Bradventures – Race Director of the World's Toughest Half Ironman – Worried about drafting? Then race Brad's events – they are so tough that you don't need officials. http://www.bradventures.com/ Leppin Sport – Has come on board for Epic as well as my personal nutritional needs. One of the best things about the Leppin range is that they only contain what we need – nothing extra. There is a lot of overlap with being involved in Publishing, Race Management as well as the Nutritional side of things. We'll be bringing the Epic crew through Auckland in January for the Leppin Half Ironman. I'll tell you more as we get into the season. www.leppinsport.com HFP Racing – Another option if you don't like drafting – find an event where it just doesn't matter! I'll be racing the American Triple T in May. A fine way to cap off 8-10 weeks of training across the US. If you clickthrough then you'll see what I have to say about why I chose this race. http://www.hfpracing.com/races/3t/index.htm
The key point that I'd like you to remember for November and December is that the single most important thing for us to achieve is consistency in training. Many of us will have memories of race fitness, race simulation workouts and tough BT sessions in our minds. That phase of our season is behind most of us. The early base period should be skills, endurance and strength based. It's also the safest time of the year to make nutritional changes. For those who had a late season race – IMF, GFT, IMH, IMWisco – be very careful with your approach to intensity. Especially in November, if you are going to run into issues it will be from trying "too hard" on your steady+ workouts. Watch for fatigue warning signs and know that workout frequency should be your top priority. I'd far rather you back off (today) than miss training (tomorrow). Athletes that finished their seasons in August, should be starting to feel the beneficial impacts of resuming consistent training. You'll be ready to increase the amount of steady training in your program as well as the intensity of your strength work. Don't be in a rush to get to back to "hard" training. If you are feeling good then test your endurance rather than your speed. One of the best articles that I have written on Endurance Fundamentals is my Four Pillars piece. It's worth a review and can be found here – www.byrn.org/gtips/aet_xt.htm.
This is pretty simple. My view is that athletes should periodize based on their limiters, rather than playing with volume and intensity just for the sake of it. IM is about strength and endurance. That means that we should nearly always be focusing on the Four Pillars. Also, the tough race simulation workouts are very draining, start these too early and you'll end up tired for your race. Some folks think that they peaked too early when this happens – more likely – we simply fatigued ourselves by not pacing our season.
At its most basic level, training is about creating, managing and recovering from appropriate fatigue. Fatigue is an essential part of the training process. One of my favourite Molina quotes is "don't be afraid to get tired". Rob de Castella notes in Running with the Legends... "a world class athlete wakes up tired every morning and goes to bed tired every night". I don't expect you guys to get that shelled but we need to understand what constitutes appropriate fatigue. I've noticed that my body responds differently to different training stimuli. Through my training, I seem to have four clear types of fatigue that I need to manage:
Q&A – Early Base Period Intensity
Question: Looking at your board lately it seems lots of guys are alluding to a fair amount of intensity-based training over the off-season. Care to elaborate??
Scott and I have been talking about how to make me swim faster. So far we have come up with swim more, try harder and get stronger (earth shattering stuff) OK, so if the same approach that I use with my running and cycling will work for my swimming then I was wondering...
The test results will give you a pace/effort to HR curve and you'll have (one measure) of your efficiency. It will also give an idea on just how hard you are working in the pool – you might also learn about pace discipline in the early repeats.
What I found out was that my steady pace was about 120-125 bpm – for a guy with my aerobic stamina – that's totally cruising and not what it takes. I had been worried that pushing harder in the pool might smoke my other sessions. What my testing showed me was that I needed a lot more mod-hard work in the pool.
Thinking back four years, my HRs were far, far higher – I'd sit at 140+ for the whole session. What I needed back then was to slow down, improve my economy, relax and learn how to breathe bilaterally – that's how I spent the winter of 2000/01.
Each of us will have an area that's most important for us to focus – this test will help you see what that might be. Even if I don't coach you, feel free to post your results on my board – I'll review and offer comments. I think that our results will be interesting and educational. I suspect that we will see different approaches being required throughout the speed spectrum.
Guys, the HRM is a pain with a Speedo so you'll need to wear a skinsuit when testing. It will be even easier for the single sporters to spot us.
gordo
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