The Custom Coach Speaks

This year has been a long strange trip. It started like most years gearing up in the off season, by laying out my upcoming goals and based off those designing a training program. I made one mistake I did not design it based on past history I was going to try something new…I got greedy!

Coming of my most successful season in Triathlon, Ironman in particular, I was a little lost. I had reached all the goals that I had set for my self and was not sure where to go next. I qualified for the Kona twice in the same year and had set a P.R. in every phase of my racing. Maybe that should have been my goal? Just try to hold tight, but like every type A maniac I thought I should improve.

I set in my mind that I would have a breakthrough in my Cycling and running…wait a minute didn’t I just do that? Oh well logic need not apply. I decided that in order to go faster I would need more speed…that makes sense doesn’t it? So what better way to layer on speed? Look at someone fast and emulate them. Wow some times my thought process is so clean focused! Hmmm who to copy? Nick of course! The similarities are obvious I’m 42 he is 32…I’m an age grouper, he’s a Pro…I’m short and stocky, he’s tall and thin. Perfect, I’ll just do what he does. That should work right?

Fast forward 6 months, by June I was smoked! I had successfully shut down my immune system and could barley get out of bed. What went wrong? After 3 weeks rest and another 3 weeks at very low heart rates I think I have the answer. I’m a 42 year old short stocky age grouper! I was lacks in building my base and progressed right into intensity. Once I was overdone I did not back off but rather tried to push through. Part of progressing as an athlete is identifying who you are. Everyone’s response to training (stress) is different. That means what works for you may not work for me and vise versa.

What I learned;

As I age, recovery is harder to come by. I don’t bounce back as fast. This means that I must be very diligent to lay down a large base. The better optimized my base the better my ability to absorb training. Once my base is in place I need to pick my spots for intensity, basically I have to place intensity into my schedule with recovery surrounding the hard days. I can’t just through training at the wall and see what sticks. Methodical scheduling is what I do for others but for some reason I like being the Crash Test Dummy! Actually I think what happened this year is; after 4years of planning every detail I just got lazy with my own schedule. I wanted a break for myself.

The Good;

Not all is negative, I learned a lot about myself and I think going forward there is a lot of value in trying new things. By doing speed work on both the bike and run I was able to move my lactic Threshold (LT) 5 beats on both. My LT is the highest it has been in years. Speed is definitely a component I need in my work but it is something that will take much planning. For example; I do not come from a running background so the traditional interval progression at times is too aggressive for me. In the future I will try to double the length of my initial phase so that I have plenty of time to adapt i.e. do 200m repeats for a few weeks before increasing distance or reducing rest.

Where I’m at;

I’m 8 weeks out from Kona and not at the place I wanted to be but not in a bad place either. After years of training, I am fit if not at my fittest. I have taken a midseason break and I feel healthy. I am on a bit of a tight rope in respect to my training, I have decide to base big all the way to mid September this should get me close to where I want to be but it has some risks. The amount of volume I will be carrying can leave me stale and the chances to over reach are high but I feel at this point it is my best option. Ideally I would do this phase in the spring and that would allow for more focused work now but that will have to be next year. I had a fitness test last Saturday and faired better than expected. I rode the Blue Ridge Brutal and place 11th over all not bad considering I’m about 6lbs over race weight. That means both my power and endurance is good. I was also able to run 10 miles the following day with out much residual fatigue. These things combined give me a much needed boost in confidence.

Now let’s see if I can just stay the course to October and Kona.