Training Tip Tuesday #3- Define "Offseason" (And Why It's Important)

As a precursor to what will follow in the rest of this post I'd like to say that most of us generally consider the offseason to be the time around the holidays in October/November/December when Christmas cheer and many delectable drinks and desserts are abundant. If you're the kind of athlete that trains pretty consistently year round from January until whenever your last race is in October then yes, this time of year is and NEEDS to be your offseason.

IF however, your someone that took a fairly extended break earlier in the year because of work commitments, injury, lack of motivation, or you were too busy building a backyard spaceship-

Then you've already had your offseason. It's perfectly fine to keep training through the winter if you had an extended summer of not training. The offseason doesn't have to be the same time of year for everyone but it's important that it occurs at some point. Many people have 2-4 offseasons unplanned offseasons throughout the year as they take a break between races or focus on other areas of life and that's perfectly ok. It can be intentional or completely unintentional. The important thing is that you come out of it rested, recharged and ready for more tri fever.

I thought about trying to come up with my own clever and unique definition for the word, "offseason." Unfortunately, I'm not very clever even if somewhat unique, and so I decided to stick with what's tried and true and rely on old Merriam for his (her?) explanation-

Offseason- "a time of suspended or reduced activity; especially :  the time during which an athlete is not training or competing."

Pretty succinct I'd say. No racing or training is what constitutes the groundwork for a fulfilling offseason. The importance of this time of year cannot be underestimated. Bernard Lagat, (Never heard of him? 2-time Olympic medalist in the 1500, 5 time world champion, American record holder in the 1500, 3000 and 5000. Yeah, the guy is fast.)

 takes 5 weeks off every year. I repeat- Bernard Lagat takes 5 weeks off every year. 5 weeks of absolutely zero activity other than running up and down the sidelines at soccer games for his kids. 

In the era we live in where less is no longer more but more is more it can be very difficult for driven triathletes to take some down town. Will you lose fitness? More certainly you will- Article about losing fitness, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We don't see Lagat freaking out about his VO2max dropping by a few points. No, we just see him enjoying some down time then getting back to kicking butt the next year after he gets back in shape. It's impossible to maintain a high level of fitness year round so don't try!

As triathletes we are always looking for a new goal, deciding what weaknesses to work on in this offseason, selecting races for next year (heck, a lot of us are already REGISTERED for races next year since they sell out so fast). The point is that we have a hard time really taking a step back and forgetting about triathlon for awhile. We jump from triathlon season, to marathon season, to technique focus back to tri season. It's just too much and the overall quality and focus of the regular season will suffer as a result.

I'm just as guilty. I still have one race left this year but I've already started thinking about how I'm going to do better NEXT year, and train even HARDER and go even FASTER. I have to reign myself in and stay in the moment. I used to be petrified of the offseason. I just couldn't stand the work I wasn't doing to get better. But I was always shocked at how amazing I felt when I started training again in January after an extended Christmas break. I had boundless energy while training, I wasn't dog tired (yet) and my body wasn't worn down by a long season. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good and feeling good felt good!

Especially if your last race wasn't exactly what you hoped it would be it can be hard to let it go and still take a break. You want to get back to work immediately so that you never have a poor result like that again and can rectify the problems that caused such a terrible race. Don't do it. Resist the urge. Turn your back and run, no- walk slowly- in the other direction. Your body and mind will thank you.

Training Tip Tuesday #2: Approach the Line With Confidence

The irony of me writing this advice after the worst race I’ve had in quite some time is not lost on me. However, the rational still stands true- we have to approach the starting line confident that we will give everything we have to give that day and come out with a good result.  The last big race of the year can be very foreboding. It’s the accumulation of many, many weeks and months of preparation. On the other side of this relatively small snapshot in time is the offseason. A bleak period with long, dark, cold nights, no training or immediate race in sight and only the final memories of our last race of the year and what experience that brought us. That’s a scary thought and especially if our “A” race has us lining up against some of the best in the world it’s not a very comforting one.

Here are a couple tips I’ve found to be very helpful when facing a big race:

11)   Treat it like just another race. By this point in the season you’ve probably raced at least once or twice already. Some of us may have competed 10 or more times while maybe others have only done a few local races. Nonetheless, you’ve been through the routine, you’ve lost your bike in transition, you’ve waited in those long porta-pottie lines, maybe you’ve even forgotten something absolutely crucial like bike shoes (or insoles- true story, I did that last year), goggles or a water bottle. In summary- this ain’t your first rodeo. If you think of the big race just like any other race you’ve done- that is, maybe you don’t think about it too much, then there’s no reason to get worked up about it and you won’t have to combat those energy draining nerves.

22)   Look back over your training log from the year. Hopefully you keep some sort of record of the training you do throughout the year. If not well… I’ll address that in a different post. If you do have a log then get it out and start flipping through the year you’ve had. You’ve come many, many miles since the start of this season. You’ve probably had way more early mornings than you wanted and suffered a lot more in sessions than you originally planned to. Sure, there are some blank days in there and times you completely bombed the workout but let your eyes gloss over those and key in on the successful days you’ve had. Look at how you’ve knocked out some really good days of training even when you were tired. Recognize the strength you’ve shown grinding through sessions and sometimes even smashing them despite being fatigued. Draw on all of that for confidence and know that the hard work just doesn’t go away. You can execute on race day just like you’ve executed in countless training sessions.

33)   Know that all you can do is do your best. As cliché as it sounds to just “do your best,” it really stands true when it comes to racing. Pre-race anxiety comes because we are comparing ourselves to our competition or a time standard. If you remove all expectation of performance and just determine to give your best effort on the day then there is no need to be anxious. You KNOW you can push yourself hard because you’ve done it in training. You know what pain is, you know adversity, none of those things are new and you’ve triumphed already countless times in your daily training and life. A race is just another chance to give the best effort you’re capable of and push yourself as hard as you can.

44)   Be grateful for the opportunity to race. The physical talents we have are a blessing and the ability to do a triathlon should not be taken for granted. Many people race for a cause or after having overcome cancer or another disease. What a great reminder of how blessed we are to be fit and well enough to compete.

55)   Celebrate. Racing is a chance to express the hard work you’ve done. Treat the race as a celebration of your health, your fitness and the journey you’ve had along the way. We spend most of our time on that journey and racing is just a chance to commemorate all the good (and miserable) times we’ve had along the way.

So good luck with whatever races you have left this year. Relish the opportunities you’re given. Seize the day and have fun!!

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. 

Never Give In

One of the great things about coaching is that observing my athletes in training and racing can provide an outlook and give me reminders that I often neglect or forget. A few weeks ago I had an "aha" moment of sorts, if you'd like to call it that. Actually, it wasn't a new realization, it was a lesson I had learned before but it was one I needed to hear again. 


I had two athletes racing in two separate races. Both of those races were important to them for different reasons. Jeremy was racing the USAT Age Group Sprint National Championsips in hopes of qualifying for Worlds next year. Horacio was racing the Degray lake sprint triathlon to try and earn some much needed points for to vault him atop the regional rankings. Both of them have had some ups and down this year. Poor luck with races being canceled, missed training, busy schedules, kids, dogs, school, work, a lot of changes for both them. (As a side note: I've also learned by watching myself and my athletes that you cannot separate the personal life from triathlon and pretend they don't affect each other. They do. They are inseparably related and you MUST treat them as such.)


All that was behind us now and both of these guys had the right mindset going into their races. Both were focused on the task at hand and ready to give it their all. Both of their raced didn't play out as expected. 


For Jeremy it started when it didn't start. His wave was delayed for nearly 2 hours while officials looked for a swimmer who had taken his chip off and not notified the volunteers. Finally they were allowed to start and it was game on. A mediocre swim, mediocre bike and mediocre run led to a mediocre result and a missed opportunity to go to worlds.


For Horacio it was a missed turn on the bike, going off course then getting back on. Coming off the bike and being told he had 1:45 to the leader. If this was Ironman then 1:45 wouldn't be anything to worry about but we're talking about a 3.4 mile run. After a brief moment of despair, Horacio put his head down and ran as hard as he could, caught the guy, dropped him and cruised in for the overall win.


Talking to these guys after their races I could hear the disappointment in Jeremy's voice and the excitement in Horacio's. Having to deal with highs and lows is another part of a coaches job and dealing with the lows definitely isn't fun. There's just no words that can take away that bitter taste you get when you know you didn't perform your best when you really needed to.


As I reflected a bit on that weekend I realized something. THE RESULT DOESN'T MATTER. That's right, the placing doesn't matter. You're going to have crap days. Bad races happen. Good races also happen. The important thing is that you never, EVER give up. In training, in life, in racing that principle holds true. You put your head down and you work. Why? Because you never know what's going to happen. You never know if if the guy in front of you is going to blow up. Crazy things happen in racing just like in life. I was immensely proud of both Horacio and Jeremy after that weekend because both of them kept fighting even when the odds were stacked against them. Sometimes the toughest things is to keep fighting when you think you're going to lose. But you never know... sometimes things come around and you come out on top. Just don't give up.

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."