Alain has explained his approach to Ironman training here before, so now it's my turn to explain a little my philosophy and approach to this whole duel thing. I'll give two versions.
The short version:
The long version:
In my development as an athlete I come from a different background than Alain. I wasn't very good at sports when I was young and never really competed. Over the years I've dabbled many different things, from snowboarding to kite surfing, rowing, mountain biking, and tennis but always as a keen amateur without thinking I had the capacity to do well in competition. My triathlon passion came about mostly by chance when I decided to sign up for the club to go swimming rather than join a gym. The goals were pretty modest at the time: finish an Olympic distance tri in under 3 hours.
A common theme across the sports, though, is that once I get interested I like to immerse myself in the experience and understand really what's going on. Pair this with a love of technical gimmicks and toys and you can see why I'm all about sports science, articles, power meters, and testing ;-). With that info out of the way something about my approach - finally!
It's not by chance that I ended up with Alan Couzens as my coach: he has an amazing amount of knowledge and experience in physiology, coaching, and long distance events. I count myself lucky that he had a slot for me on his roster and I now get coached next to athletes who have done sub 9h Ironman races or came 2nd in the Ultraman world's. I actually learned about him when I asked a question about pacing a half Ironman when I prepared for Rapperswil in 2010.
I honestly don't think that I have a very special talent. But working with Alan has shown me that you don't need that if you want to be at a level to qualify for Kona. The ultimate limiter to progression is how well and consistently you can train for a long period. The body takes a long time to adapt.
This realization has given me comfort and has made me relax about the progress I make. The last two years I worked very hard, trying to get to my goals quickly. That was a mistake in that I was overstretched and often so exhausted I couldn't even sleep anymore. We have now switched the balance to more volume and consistency in the workouts but I train less intensely. As a result I am less exhausted and when I am exhausted I want to sleep, rather than being over-revved.
In practical terms it means that I am going from a training year of about 650 hours to about 800 hours - more than 20% increase, but the decreased intensity makes up for some of the difference. This is a lot of training and the challenge becomes one of logistics - making work, life, and training fit is not easy when you want to hit 20 hours per week often. This approach does not mean that I only do endurance training without quality - but the focus has shifted somewhat to lower intensities. We had seen that my short numbers were stronger than my long numbers, so we are focusing on building that endurance and durability.
Another important change has been the addition of strength training. I am still pretty weak compared to some of the muscle powerhouses, but the slew of squats, lunges, and core stability exercises seems to have helped in preventing injuries.
Before Mallorca I was wondering what this longer and slower training had done to a distance that you can race quite hard. PBs on the swim and bike reconfirmed that improvements are still coming, only the run was a bit slower, but I felt I was limited by the heat.
The last thing I focus on a lot is race execution. I like to have a good plan for how to race, especially on Ironman. It's easy to go out too hard or to mess up your day because you are not feeding yourself well. So before the race I try to have a very good idea of how hard I want to go on the bike (in watts), what food I want to take on when, and how hard I want to run. These are usually upper limits to slow me down if I am tempted to go out too hard because the legs are fresh and I am rested.
As a consultant I need to boil it down to a set of simple bullet points:
LaGrande
The short version:
The long version:
In my development as an athlete I come from a different background than Alain. I wasn't very good at sports when I was young and never really competed. Over the years I've dabbled many different things, from snowboarding to kite surfing, rowing, mountain biking, and tennis but always as a keen amateur without thinking I had the capacity to do well in competition. My triathlon passion came about mostly by chance when I decided to sign up for the club to go swimming rather than join a gym. The goals were pretty modest at the time: finish an Olympic distance tri in under 3 hours.
A common theme across the sports, though, is that once I get interested I like to immerse myself in the experience and understand really what's going on. Pair this with a love of technical gimmicks and toys and you can see why I'm all about sports science, articles, power meters, and testing ;-). With that info out of the way something about my approach - finally!
It's not by chance that I ended up with Alan Couzens as my coach: he has an amazing amount of knowledge and experience in physiology, coaching, and long distance events. I count myself lucky that he had a slot for me on his roster and I now get coached next to athletes who have done sub 9h Ironman races or came 2nd in the Ultraman world's. I actually learned about him when I asked a question about pacing a half Ironman when I prepared for Rapperswil in 2010.
I honestly don't think that I have a very special talent. But working with Alan has shown me that you don't need that if you want to be at a level to qualify for Kona. The ultimate limiter to progression is how well and consistently you can train for a long period. The body takes a long time to adapt.
This realization has given me comfort and has made me relax about the progress I make. The last two years I worked very hard, trying to get to my goals quickly. That was a mistake in that I was overstretched and often so exhausted I couldn't even sleep anymore. We have now switched the balance to more volume and consistency in the workouts but I train less intensely. As a result I am less exhausted and when I am exhausted I want to sleep, rather than being over-revved.
In practical terms it means that I am going from a training year of about 650 hours to about 800 hours - more than 20% increase, but the decreased intensity makes up for some of the difference. This is a lot of training and the challenge becomes one of logistics - making work, life, and training fit is not easy when you want to hit 20 hours per week often. This approach does not mean that I only do endurance training without quality - but the focus has shifted somewhat to lower intensities. We had seen that my short numbers were stronger than my long numbers, so we are focusing on building that endurance and durability.
Another important change has been the addition of strength training. I am still pretty weak compared to some of the muscle powerhouses, but the slew of squats, lunges, and core stability exercises seems to have helped in preventing injuries.
Before Mallorca I was wondering what this longer and slower training had done to a distance that you can race quite hard. PBs on the swim and bike reconfirmed that improvements are still coming, only the run was a bit slower, but I felt I was limited by the heat.
The last thing I focus on a lot is race execution. I like to have a good plan for how to race, especially on Ironman. It's easy to go out too hard or to mess up your day because you are not feeding yourself well. So before the race I try to have a very good idea of how hard I want to go on the bike (in watts), what food I want to take on when, and how hard I want to run. These are usually upper limits to slow me down if I am tempted to go out too hard because the legs are fresh and I am rested.
As a consultant I need to boil it down to a set of simple bullet points:
- Train consistently - do training you can absorb and keep at it
- Be patient - take pride in the work, the results will come
- Easy on the intensity - it breaks me down, so dose it well
- Execute your race - have a strategy, but stay flexible
LaGrande
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