Training Tip Tuesday #1- How to Negotiate the End of a Long Season

I'm starting a new series this week titled "Training Tip Tuesday." It is sponsored by Cobb Cycling and will air every week on... you guessed it- Tuesday. I'll be offering tips and perspectives that I've learned over 10+ years of racing and coaching. If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to post them in the comments section or email me at- thetrilife@gmail.com. I'm sure I'll run out of material in no time and be desperately seeking input for something to write about. If you disagree with something I write please feel free to discuss the topic with me. I by no means think I know everything and welcome the opportunity to learn more from others who may be more knowledgeable than I. All that being said, welcome to Training Tip Tuesday #1!

The triathlon season is starting to wind down. Vegas is done and Kona is just around the corner. After that there’s just a few races left on the WTC North American circuit. One of which is the Austin 70.3 that many athletes here in Texas (myself included) will be competing in. These last few weeks of the season can be difficult to navigate because we feel like we should be continuing to hammer out epic 6 hour rides on Saturday with a 3 hour run the next day to put some more “money in the bank,” “Hay in the barn,” or whatever popular colloquialism you prefer. The problem is, most of us have had a long season already and you may be wondering why you’re struggling with motivation and don’t seem to have that “pop” you did earlier in the year. What I’m going to suggest may blow you’re mind a bit but hear me out- you’re better off resting at this point in the season and focusing on some key, quality sessions then continuing to pound out the miles. (You may be better off doing that year round but we’ll discuss that some other time). There I said it.

Now, if you’ve been injured or sick and missed a good point part of the summer you may in fact need to keep putting some miles in and training hard. If you’re like me though and kicked things off at Galveston 70.3 way back in April (seems like ages ago doesn’t it) and have kept it up all year then you may want to consider backing off and just letting your body rest. Often we forget what it feels like to be sharp because we’re continually training and always trying to increase our training load to gain more fitness. At the end of a long year though sometimes the best thing you can do is back off a little and let your body freshen up.

I found this out last year by accident. It had been a long season (like they all are), I’d graduated college, gotten married, started coaching myself and it was my first year as a pro! I had trained hard since November the year before and by the time September and October rolled around I was so exhausted from working 60+ hours a week and trying to train that I kept bailing on the long sessions I had planned. I resorted to 17min runs in the parking lot when I had a few minutes between swim lessons and a quick 10min strength session with some plyo’s and core work. I was discouraged and convinced that I was ridiculously out of shape because of how tired I was nearly every day. I was extremely surprised however to find myself racing quite well on weekends. I was shocked but pleased to see myself pr’ing swim and run splits and taking Strava KOM’s from the local riding group in Austin.

Hmmm... guess I need to get back up to Austin and reclaim some former glory.

As I reflected on the season and what led me to race so well despite feeling out of shape I realized that my crazy schedule was actually a blessing in disguise. Because I didn’t have the time to train a lot of volume I was forced to focus on short, high intensity workouts. 30 second overspeed efforts on the treadmill, 6 x 800m repeats I could knock out in 45min, an 1:20 group ride going as hard as I could. These workouts were exactly what I needed this time of year and because I wasn’t worn down by tons of volume I could rev my engine and push myself very, very hard when I needed to. I even had a good race at my first half Ironman ever at the end of October. I blew up a little on the run which might have been fitness, might have been biking too hard or nutrition or inexperience or the hills or… any number of things.

My point is that we forget what it’s like to be truly rested and race ready. We have a whole season of gaining fitness behind us and what we might need most isn’t another 5 hour bike ride (how many is that this year now?) I did a quick search and found this study that showed NO decreased in VO2max, Lactate Threshold or 25km time trialing performance in trained cyclists who substituted short, high intensity training sessions for their normal endurance training for 4 weeks- http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol2/iss2/12/ If you are feeling flat and struggling to find that fitness and form you had 4 months ago then consider switching your focus from “push through and add more volume” to “back off and increase intensity.” You just might find yourself setting a pr or out touching the French for a gold medal… 

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Racin'

After my midseason break, June, July and August were dedicated to getting back in shape and preparing for a fall season of racing. My original goal was to race a bunch in April and May this year. I think I was a little intimated by the 70.3 distance though and overcooked myself in training. It's a fine line between being really, really fit and being really, really tired and I just missed my footing and went over the edge in May. That's a post for another day however.

Between being really unmotivated for a lot of April and May and then taking a couple weeks almost completely off I was pretty unfit by the time I started training regularly again. It was slow going the first few weeks but I was determined not to get ahead of myself and just let the training come to me. June and July was actually kind of fun because I could track my improvements every week as I slowly regained my form. By the end of August I was ready to stop training and starting RACING.

I kicked things off at the Trifest for MS in Bentonville, Arkansas. This year we were racing a double sprint format of swim/bike/run/swim/bike/run. The total added up to an Olympic distance but with 5 transitions. We'd done a similar format last year and so I knew the 2nd swim and run were going to be really tough. I paced the first round pretty evenly and then tried to push it a little harder the 2nd round. Nick Waninger, was the only other male pro there and he beat me by a good 4 minutes. I felt pretty solid but lacked the ability to really push the pace hard. My plan all along had been to build with each race I did this fall and Trifest was a perfect way to kickstart the next 7 weeks of racing.

I have now reached the part of the season I was really looking forward to but the one that is sometimes the hardest to negotiate correctly. From September 1st to October 27th I have 7 races on the calendar. The work is done and I'm not going to get much gain from training myself into the ground. It is time to start resting and letting the body freshen up so that I can really rev the engine when it comes time to hurt. I think a lot of the time we get so wrapped up in just training that we forget the whole goal of training is to RACE. I love racing and so if lying around and only doing short swims, bikes and runs are going to help me race faster then by all means I'm in!

September 14th and 15th was a double race weekend. On Saturday I raced the Rose City Sprint Triathlon  where I placed 3rd behind Barrett Brandon of Fort Worth and Robbie Wade of San Antonio (local training partner and good buddy). Barrett is an excellent swimmer and absolutely dusted Robbie and I by over a minute on the 650m swim. We worked together on the bike but only pulled 20sec or so back on Barrett. Starting the 3 mile run I had a slight gap on Robbie and absolutely went for it. I ran the first mile as hard as I could then blew up slightly while Robbie didn't let up and kept after Barrett. Barrett was running strong though and Robbie could only get within 10 seconds of him. All 3 of us broke the existing course record.

As soon as we hopped off the podium, Robbie and I hightailed it out to Possum Kingdom Lake for the Trifecta Triathlon the next day. This is a top notch event put on by Cadence Sports, in what I'd argue is the prettiest lake in Texas. Decide for yourself-

This race had a pro field of 6 guys and so I knew it would be a good fight to get on the podium. Brent Poulsen got off to a fast start in the swim and put 2min on Robbie, Mark Hillers and I. I need to work on my "suckitupandhurtmore" pain face in the swim... 

because I came out of the water 12sec behind Robbie and (other) Mark and had to sprint my butt through transition and the first 3 miles of the bike to catch up to them. I've been swimming quite well in training and was disappointed at being 4th out of the water when I knew I should have been 2nd. Those first 3 miles on the bike going all out might have cost me a bit later because after putting 30sec into (other) Mark before the turn around I faded a little the second half and he caught me and got off the bike about 10sec ahead of me. I had a quick T2 and started the run just in front of (other) Mark. Last year at Trifecta we were supposed to run on some trails during the race but rains turned them to mud so we were re-routed. This year though we got the full trail experience. 3.5 miles of twisting, turning, up and down, rocks and roots. It was incredibly hard but also a lot of fun. I was focusing so hard on trying to drop Mark (not myself) and also not falling on my face that I forgot my lungs had crept from their normal location in my chest cavity up into my mouth. It was exactly as I'd imagine an Xterra to be and others who have done one confirmed this. Brent and Robbie were up the road and I ran as hard as I could through the trail section to try and gap Mark. (As a sidenot- it always sounds weird referring to someone else who has my same name). Once on the road my legs felt absolutely atrocious but I kept the pressure on in case he was lurking close behind. I held my spot and was able to walk away with another podium spot to cap off the weekend.

Only a week to recover before Galveston 5150 and I didn't do much other than sleep a lot and have some severe allergy problems. I'm not sure what triggered it, maybe the storm system that was blowing in, but all of a sudden on Wednesday I was sneezing a ton and woke up Thursday with a headache and ridiculously congested. I backed off my training even more know that rest was the key and just kept it to one light workout a day in hopes that I'd bounce back for Galveston. 

I drove down Friday night and should have brought my canoe to get there. What should have been a 3 1/2 trip turned in to 5 hours because of torrential downpours and Texas drivers on oily roads. At the pro meeting on Saturday we were told that the swim might be canceled because the winds were too severe and only supposed to get worse over night. Another guy from Detroit, Brooks Cowan, was staying with me and when we got to race site on Sunday morning we heard the confirmation that the swim was indeed canceled. Even though the swim isn't my strongest suit I was a little disappointed to not race a triathlon and not get another chance to test myself and my pain face. The race was now turned into a 40k bike with a 10k run in a time trial start format. The lined the 13 of us up and started us every 30sec. I was number 7 so I had guys to chase and a few guys chasing me.  It was a tailwind all the way out to the turnaround and I was flying! Definitely a lot of fun seeing your average at 30mph after 12 miles of riding. Unfortunately that 24min trip out turned into 34min back. I tried to stay aero and just keep pushing the best I could. I ended up with a decent bike split of 58min but can see there's still some work to do to get up with the lead guys riding 55-56min. My run has been coming along well and so I hit the run hard. James Burns caught me around mile 2 and kept going to the fastest split of the day. I wasn't losing much time to him until my quad started cramping going into the 2nd lap. I had to back off a little and run steady for the next 2 miles to make sure I didn't completely seize up. I picked it up again the last mile and was pleased to come home in 8th place with a pr run for me. 

I get a weekend off now and then will be hitting it out at the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon in Dallas, Tx on October 6th. The season is already almost over and I feel like I'm just getting started but... oh well. I want to say a huge, huge thank you to Cobb Cycling, Fluid Nutrition, Superfeet, Zoggs USA and SockGuy for their continued support. I only use products that I think are good and that I actually believe in so I mean it wholeheartedly when I say that, in my opinion, these companies are the best at what they do.

Stay tuned for more updates to come and a new "Training Tip Tuesday" series I'll be starting next week.