Trains, Travels

Yesterday was my biggest training day this year. It’s a template that will repeat for the rest of the week. I may be at home, but this is my training camp. Hours in the saddle with some swimming and running around the sides. After a winter of light training and a slow progression into spring it comes as a shock to the system.

Training camps are a chance to live like a pro. Just train, leave your regular life behind. It seems simple, but like a pro you need to put the time into recovery. The objective isn’t to wear yourself down through continual fatigue; you will get tired, it will get harder, but you should always be capable of more. The aim is to complete a week that tests your limits not crosses them. A fine line which takes care to tread.

I’m a veteran of big training weeks whether on Epic Camps or organised with friends. I know what’s involved in handling heavy training loads. I’m relying on that experience to make the most of my week. Incorrectly managed I could set back my training or aggravate injury. Big rewards come with risks. The goal is to complete the camp, but never be at the expense of my season.

A successful camp begins in the week leading in. A camp should be treated with the same respect as a race. Effectively you taper, train hard and recover. At this stage the priority is losing fatigue. You want to arrive fresh and ready to train hard. Sacrifice a few days from your routine beforehand to ensure this.

Plan. Have a set of goals. Write down what you want to achieve on the camp. At times you may want to quit; at times you will want to do more. Written aims help you keep perspective and make sound judgements. Know how the camp fits into your season and what you expect to get from it. Planning keeps you focussed on the key benefits and the long term goals.

Once a camp starts there are two priorities: eating and resting. Repeated long training days expend huge amounts of energy, it is hard to consume sufficient calories. Driven by this deficit poor food choices are increasingly tempting. A few hard days and I know I’ll be drawn to sugar! Training is no excuse to eat poorly. Eat to train, eat to recover.

When you’re not training, rest. Do as little as possible; sleep whenever you can. Ensuring you have no obligations before camp will make a big difference. Don’t underestimate the impact of mental stress. You are trying to escape the usual routine and create an environment that supports hard training. As a camp progresses you’ll notice increasingly vacant gazes amongst participants. Hard training leaves no energy for thinking.

Train as much as you safely can. You are there to train; if there’s an opportunity to do more work, take it. It’s going to be hard, but you chose to be there. It’s what you wanted! Some of my most memorable Epic Camp moments come from pushing myself further and surviving. A week of relentless hard work that pays back over the rest of the year.

When the camp stops, training stops. Most mistakes are made in the week following a camp. You’re still on a high, it’s easy to keep going. Delaying recovery will lead to breaking point. My first Epic Camp showed me how hard it is to manage the gains. I returned home allowing myself a few days rest; then it was back into training, a final push for Ironman Switzerland. This did not work. Fatigue continued to grow and a ten day taper was insufficient. I was flat on race day.

Train big, rest big. I now allow an entire week. I’m active, but sessions are comically light. I lose some of the fitness gained, but in the process freshen up; after seven days I begin to see the light. Don’t test your new fitness until you feel fully recovered. It may seem like you’re throwing away the hours of hard work, but without adequate rest you won’t see the benefits. Big training takes time to sink in.

I’m a firm believer that a good routine and consistency is the most important part of any training program. Completing progressive workouts over a period of months is the foundation of Ironman fitness. A well scheduled week of hard training can fit into this program. Routine is good, but so are new challenges; pushing ourselves helps raise the bar. But the harder you train the more important recovery becomes.

• Tweet
• 5 Comments

A long run, bike and swim are all staples of a triathlete’s schedule. But what constitutes long? How far should an athlete go? Obviously it’s dependent on the goal event: an Ironman triathlete needs more than a sprint specialist. Focussing on long distance racers, how much time should be invested in a single session?

You may have been told you need to cover a certain mileage before race day. You must ride 112 miles or run a marathon. Is that really essential? I understand arguments about the confidence gained by covering the distance, but are you insufficiently trained if you’ve not ridden more than one hundred miles in training? And I’m not suggesting one hundred miles is essential; there’s no magic number.

We should be cautious focussing on specific distance goals for long sessions. We need to develop our endurance fitness, to build the length of time we can sustain aerobic activity. There’s no special distance that produces the fitness for an Ironman. If you never ride more than fifty miles then it will be a challenge, but covering 112 doesn’t guarantee success.

Long sessions train the body during periods of fatigue and reduced glycogen. Strong stresses that develop fitness and drive adaptations for sustained aerobic activity. From the cellular level up the body becomes better able to fuel and sustain activity over time. You finish a marathon because long runs have caused these changes, not because you ran 26.2 miles before.

Recovery is what should determine your longest sessions. You need to train long, but how well you can train overall matters. An athlete training for his first Ironman posed the original question. Is there any point running for more than 2.5 hours in training? Ironman veterans were telling him he needed to run for three, but he knew that would heavily fatigue him; the following day’s training would suffer.

I’ve run for three hours and subsequent training has suffered. I’ve run for 2.5 hours and the following days were fine. So I rarely run more than 2.5 hours because I know that it sets me back. That extra half hour on my feet may induce more adaptations for aerobic endurance, but being able to train well the next day is better still. Marginal gains from thirty minutes too far are lost in subsequent sessions.

With recovery in mind the limitations on distance vary across the disciplines. Swimming is low impact, recovery time relatively short. An Ironman athlete can cover race distance at least once in training without significant consequence. Stronger swimmers should reach that target regularly, but at least one 3.8km swim is a worthwhile confidence boost. As long as you can train well with a long swim in the program give it a go.

I progress my athlete’s long rides up to around six hours, if they have that time. For some this will be close to or over the 112 miles, but for all it’s a significant distance. The physiological adaptations from six hours of riding are sufficient for Ironman racing. For most the gains of going on to cover 112 miles won’t warrant the time.

I specifically prefer more rides in the four hour range. There’s an opportunity to work harder and practice race pacing or feeding without huge fatigue. The bulk of my longer rides fall between three and four hours, most of it at a solid pace. The longest rides are more occasional and I wouldn’t push them until I was confident of fitness.

Running is the area of biggest concern. Not surprising given the larger fatigue impact and bigger injury risk. It is rare for athletes I coach to run beyond 2.5 hours; those that do, do so rarely. If an athlete can run for three hours, maintaining quality and follow it with good sessions I’ll let them occasionally go that far. If they fade strongly, they aren’t ready for the distance; if they struggle in the coming days, it isn’t an effective way to train them.

There are no strict rules. No minimums or maximums. Going further will produce greater training stress, but has to be balanced with recovery. When recovery is impaired and subsequent sessions affected you need to consider the value of that distance. It’s not wrong to go longer, but it’s not essential either; don’t be tied to specific mileage goals. You do not need to complete an Ironman in training to race it.

• Tweet
• 2 Comments

Training with power is increasingly common; half my athletes own power meters. As a coach the raw training data combined with an athlete’s impression can tell me a lot. They are not a cheap training aid. If you commit the money you want to get the most from the investment. The learning curve is steep, but make the effort and the results are worthwhile.

A variety of systems are available, most are interoperable through ANT+ communication; you can use the same Garmin head unit with a Powertap wheel or Quarq cranks. Consistency is the key feature we’re looking for and all the major models meet that requirement. Being able to reliably compare power data between sessions is vital. The choice comes down to budget. I’d put the emphasis on having power in training, but a setup that lets you use it in races is very useful.

Once you have a power meter getting started is simple.

Step one: ride. That’s it, get on with training. Watch the power as you ride, more importantly record every second. The numbers may seem meaningless, but you’ll appreciate them more in time. Experience of training with power will build context. Higher watts may be better, but it’s about training appropriately. It’s not always about doing the absolute hardest effort you can. A body of power data will help you understand how you ride.

Step two: analyse. Data collection is pointless without analysis. A number of software options exist; I’m a long term WKO user, but Golden Cheetah is freely available and does a good job. There are a plethora of terms to understand so you will need to do some background reading. You could start with a few of my blog posts on these topics, they certainly won’t hurt!

Training Peaks Power 411 is an excellent set of articles that will cover everything you can want to know about analysis and training with power. Training and Racing with a Power Meter is the standard reference though more focussed at cyclists than triathletes. Invest time early to understand the terms and how to make the most of the tool you’ve purchased. It’s more than an expensive bike computer.

And you can always ask. I can’t guarantee detailed answers, but I will reply.

Dig through the data, relate it to how you felt during the ride. What was the power like at your lowest point? Did performance drop off over time? How does that relate to nutrition? How do you ride climbs? Do you ease off as you crest a hill, dropping from high power to low? Every ride is different, but look for patterns. Over time you may identify areas of weakness or ways you can improve your riding. Experiment and find what helps you raise your performance.

Step three: test. I’ve discussed Functional Threshold Power (FTP) – the best average power for an all out hour effort – in previous blogs. A standardised means to measure performance and to track training. From a threshold power we can define training zones, not dissimilar to heart rate training in approach. But where heart rate is slow to respond and variable, power is simply what happens at the pedals.

Riding all out for an hour will identify your FTP, a local 25 mile TT would do the job. Finding the motivation to do this on your own can be a challenge so my athletes often use an ‘easier‘ test to approximate threshold. Ninety-five percent of the average power for two 20 minute efforts separated by 2 minutes of easier riding. It’s an estimation, but if we are consistent in testing it gives a basis for comparison.

Step four: ride more. With any tool you still have to ride to become a better cyclist. RPE remains my main guide to training, but I am always aware of and often motivated by my power. How I use it varies with the type of ride. An interval session is about hitting the numbers: power dictates performance. A workout of three 15 minute efforts at FTP will have me work my hardest to ride at that wattage.

Longer rides and tempo sessions are more flexible. I know my power, but feel predominates. I do not limit myself to particular zones if I feel stronger (or weaker); I ride the best I can for the duration. If I fade or struggle as a consequence that’s a separate matter. I need to analyse the ride, look for patterns and try to find potential causes. Power can be a motivator on longer rides, but it’s most useful in understanding performance.

Power won’t revolutionise you’re training. Work still has to be done. The ability to measure performance with precision and consistency allows close monitoring of progress. It takes time and effort to get the most from power, but the results are worthwhile. I follow patterns, see signs of improvements and understand how to get more from my cycle training. I still have to ride. Sometimes hard; sometimes long.

• Tweet
• 4 Comments