This is a picture from a few weeks ago when my friend Josh came into town. He had never seen the mountains before and kept commenting how everything looked fake. Josh developed a little altitude sickness as well, but I don't think that will stop him from taking another trip out to the sunshine city.On the training front, I just put down a balanced week with another 20k+ training week. All the swimming has been done outside. If you look closely at the pic above you can see white marks around my eyes from my goggles. I'm going to start being more careful out in the sun. Being tan in February is a bit too early for my liking. I want to make sure I don't have leather skin in 10 years.
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I seem to notice myself getting annoyed when coaches and athletes start talking training protocols and use professionals and elite age-group athletes as examples. Yes, most of these athletes are probably training, but these folks are the minority at an Ironman. Notice, I used the word training because I think that is one of the most important qualities that most elite age-groupers and professionals have in common. They all will not take the same approach, but they will all be doing the work that they feel is required to be successful.
Most coaches will not be working with this sort of athlete and will be coaching/advising one of the other 2,000+ athletes that make up the majority of the starting list.
As coaches and athletes, we tend to get obsessed with the “ideal” protocol that will lead to success. However, like most, we turn to the elites for answers. There is nothing wrong with this, but a lot of elites don't face the same challenges of the majority. I can go compare and contrast the two for you, but I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself.
There is constantly talk about what is the best way to get speedy over the Ironman distance. The one method that seems to strike the biggest cord with me is the athlete and coach that feel they need to go out and rip every workout because you have to get fast before you can go long.
I think this bothers me because in a way, I think these folks are trying to take shortcuts or show biased to their strengths or preferences while training.
At first, I was very defensive about these sorts of ideas. In previous blog posts, I've made comments such as, “If I were to pull you aside during your IM marathon. I can guarantee that you wouldn’t tell me you wish you had done more speed work."
I’ve begun thinking about the word “fast” and think it is a poor choice of a word. When I think of fast, I think of 30 minute 10k’s and such. Instead, I think that you should think of it in the terms of individual effort or intensity rather than speed.
I’ve always viewed training philosophies in two different categories. To be vague, moderate volume, intensity based and high volume, endurance based.
Endurance Based--An athlete needs to build superior endurance, strength, and durability to have the ability to cover the Ironman distance. They need to be able to complete the distance before the worry about how fast they cover the distance.
Intensity Based--An athlete needs short intense efforts in attempt to increase their functional threshold HR and power. This athlete supplements aerobic volume for intensity most likely do to time constraints in attempt to make up for lack of time by adding harder sessions.
I feel I could provide valid points to argue both styles of training.
If I were to think of an ideal situation, it would look something like this...
Find a swimmer kid, and have them join the track and cross country team. They would run the 800m in middle school, the mile in high school, 5k and 10k in college while continuing to swim train. This may not be exactly how it would work, but you get my point.
So what do we do with the 35-40 year old weekend warrior that has decided that they want to race an Ironman in one year’s time?
This individual isn’t going to have the 10-15 years of athlete development that would make things “ideal”. They may also have all sorts of other limitations, such as biomechanical , work, family, location, etc.
This is where you can think the two philosophies tend to collide. One coach may have this athlete using the endurance based protocols where the athlete focuses on having the ability to cover the distance no matter how long or slow they may train. The other coach may take this athlete and say, “Hey, you have to be fast before you go long”.
Again, this is where I think the word “fast” is used incorrectly.
If using the intensity based protocol, the athlete should first do a series of shorter test to determine their current training zones. This could be done by field testing or physiological testing in a lab. This is where the word “fast” gets replaced by the word effort/intensity. I would like to see an athlete be able to hold a given effort over a certain duration before increasing the distance.
For example, if we determine that an athlete has a functional threshold heart rate of 180 bpm, but they can’t hold that effort for a 5k, then we need to decrease the distance until the athlete has built enough fitness to achieve this. It doesn’t matter how “fast” this athlete run’s the distance. The only thing that matters is if they are able to maintain a certain effort or intensity over that distance. As the distance increases the effort the athlete would be required to hold will obviously decrease within the acceptable ranges for the given distance.
What if this athlete never gets to the point where they are going to be able to hold a certain effort for their long run or ride? This is where balanced training comes in and a combination of the two protocols should be used. I would not focus solely on long endurance training or effort/intensity based training, but a combination of the two.
I really tend to shy away from saying this protocol is superior to the other and once again I’m sticking to this method. As I continue to learn there are many ways to be successful, more than I just mentioned. Even by vaguely describing two different strategies, there are several different ways to explain those as well.
The only thing I can say with confidence, is that it’s a long season. Be strong when it counts and take the necessary steps to show up to your race healthy, fit and rested.
Doing something is better than nothing. Consistently training, whether “ideal” or not will make you better than sitting on your computer searching for answers.
Mat
Most coaches will not be working with this sort of athlete and will be coaching/advising one of the other 2,000+ athletes that make up the majority of the starting list.
As coaches and athletes, we tend to get obsessed with the “ideal” protocol that will lead to success. However, like most, we turn to the elites for answers. There is nothing wrong with this, but a lot of elites don't face the same challenges of the majority. I can go compare and contrast the two for you, but I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself.
There is constantly talk about what is the best way to get speedy over the Ironman distance. The one method that seems to strike the biggest cord with me is the athlete and coach that feel they need to go out and rip every workout because you have to get fast before you can go long.
I think this bothers me because in a way, I think these folks are trying to take shortcuts or show biased to their strengths or preferences while training.
At first, I was very defensive about these sorts of ideas. In previous blog posts, I've made comments such as, “If I were to pull you aside during your IM marathon. I can guarantee that you wouldn’t tell me you wish you had done more speed work."
I’ve begun thinking about the word “fast” and think it is a poor choice of a word. When I think of fast, I think of 30 minute 10k’s and such. Instead, I think that you should think of it in the terms of individual effort or intensity rather than speed.
I’ve always viewed training philosophies in two different categories. To be vague, moderate volume, intensity based and high volume, endurance based.
Endurance Based--An athlete needs to build superior endurance, strength, and durability to have the ability to cover the Ironman distance. They need to be able to complete the distance before the worry about how fast they cover the distance.
Intensity Based--An athlete needs short intense efforts in attempt to increase their functional threshold HR and power. This athlete supplements aerobic volume for intensity most likely do to time constraints in attempt to make up for lack of time by adding harder sessions.
I feel I could provide valid points to argue both styles of training.
If I were to think of an ideal situation, it would look something like this...
Find a swimmer kid, and have them join the track and cross country team. They would run the 800m in middle school, the mile in high school, 5k and 10k in college while continuing to swim train. This may not be exactly how it would work, but you get my point.
So what do we do with the 35-40 year old weekend warrior that has decided that they want to race an Ironman in one year’s time?
This individual isn’t going to have the 10-15 years of athlete development that would make things “ideal”. They may also have all sorts of other limitations, such as biomechanical , work, family, location, etc.
This is where you can think the two philosophies tend to collide. One coach may have this athlete using the endurance based protocols where the athlete focuses on having the ability to cover the distance no matter how long or slow they may train. The other coach may take this athlete and say, “Hey, you have to be fast before you go long”.
Again, this is where I think the word “fast” is used incorrectly.
If using the intensity based protocol, the athlete should first do a series of shorter test to determine their current training zones. This could be done by field testing or physiological testing in a lab. This is where the word “fast” gets replaced by the word effort/intensity. I would like to see an athlete be able to hold a given effort over a certain duration before increasing the distance.
For example, if we determine that an athlete has a functional threshold heart rate of 180 bpm, but they can’t hold that effort for a 5k, then we need to decrease the distance until the athlete has built enough fitness to achieve this. It doesn’t matter how “fast” this athlete run’s the distance. The only thing that matters is if they are able to maintain a certain effort or intensity over that distance. As the distance increases the effort the athlete would be required to hold will obviously decrease within the acceptable ranges for the given distance.
What if this athlete never gets to the point where they are going to be able to hold a certain effort for their long run or ride? This is where balanced training comes in and a combination of the two protocols should be used. I would not focus solely on long endurance training or effort/intensity based training, but a combination of the two.
I really tend to shy away from saying this protocol is superior to the other and once again I’m sticking to this method. As I continue to learn there are many ways to be successful, more than I just mentioned. Even by vaguely describing two different strategies, there are several different ways to explain those as well.
The only thing I can say with confidence, is that it’s a long season. Be strong when it counts and take the necessary steps to show up to your race healthy, fit and rested.
Doing something is better than nothing. Consistently training, whether “ideal” or not will make you better than sitting on your computer searching for answers.
Mat
