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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