Key thoughts for Half Distance Racing
It seems as though 70.3 has become the hottest distance in triathlon these days. You get all the pomp and circumstance of the full distance at IM branded events, but get the benefit of half your weekends back without the 6 hour rides and marathon run training. There are still local (non-IM-branded) half-distance races, often at considerable discounts from branded races. Following are some thoughts from my long experience coaching athletes at this distance, as well as my own experience racing them.
1. Respect the distance.
If you are stepping up from short-course racing, halves seem like an easy choice. Though the bike and run are a little more than doubled, the swim is only 400m longer than an Olympic and the overall race is generally still a portion of day (rather than the all-day full). In general, if you are well-trained and experienced at the Olympic distance, it's not too big of a pull to set your sights on a half.
**Worried about the step up in swim distance, even though it's only a bit longer than Oly? Many branded 70.3 races feature current-assisted swims. You may actually be in the water for a shorter time at a downriver 70.3 swim than you would be for an Oly in a reservoir. If the swim is a barrier for you, this may be a very good way to introduce yourself to longer-distance racing.
While half distance is truly "raceable" for a lot of athletes, your result on the day comes down to pacing and related tactics. If you push too hard early, you're going to pay for it later. I see this most commonly with inexperienced athletes overbiking and then cracking on the run. In short course if you don't pace right, you're jogging in the last couple of kilometers. At half distance, you're going to be walking the last 10k (or 10 miles...). And unlike at full-distance races, there's not much chance of resetting, refueling, and saving your day. When the wheels come off at a half, they're off. If you're getting ready for your first (or one of your first) half-distance races, be conservative on course.
2. Have a plan and trust your training
Most people who have the desire could probably get through a short-course race on good looks and youth (if you still have that going for you...else on past glory). You're going to need more than that to excel at a half. Follow a training plan that doesn't require you to "cram" for your key event. Many athletes can typically be well-prepared to step up from short-course to half in 16-24 weeks, depending on the athlete and goal. Your plan should not just include appropriate builds in volume/distance for the longer bike and run, it needs to put a focus on fueling and hydration while training. A bottle on the bike and a gel on the run (a decent short-course fueling for many) is not going to do the trick. Practice as you will race--not just in terms of HR/power/RPE, but also how you will be eating and drinking at that output over time. Calories and electrolytes are keys to the day, not afterthoughts. Finally, your raceday plan should include decision points throughout the day. For example, "If I fell like X, at point Y, I'll decrease/hold/increase, effort to Z."
3. Don't set time goals
I get it...sub-5 or sub-6 or some other arbitrary number is what you're shooting for. To hit your number, you need to come out of the water in so many minutes and have a bike split of so many hours. This kind of thinking is what ruins races! Your finish time is determined by a big variety of factors--a tiny, tiny fraction of which is how fast you want to go. Instead, set process goals based on inputs--what you directly control. If your training shows that you can hold certain power over 56 miles and come off with great running legs, then ride those watts. You'll know what HR/power/RPE you can hold from your training runs (and brick days). Focus on being disciplined (not aspirational) to those metrics, especially early in the run when you're feeling fresh. If you're chasing a specific time and come off the bike a few minutes off because of currents during the swim or winds on the bike, you're prone to over-run early to try to stay "on goal" but your preparation and fitness have not changed. This is a recipe for disaster.
4. Have fun
I like to say that triathletes are just pain managers. There's a certain amount of pain associated with racing. In shorter races, the pain is more intense, but doesn't last as long. In longer racing, the pain is more dull, but goes on and on. At long course distances, you have time and ability to think during the races--you'll be out there for four to seven or more hours. Make a point to focus yourself on the positives. Race day is a celebration of your fitness and determination.
5. Redefine success
It's common in short-course racing to feel as though you "left it all out there" as you come across the line on a PR (or otherwise great) day. At long course, you'll fell like you left time on the course on a great day. Why? See my comment in item 1 about the wheels coming off. It's tougher to get the pacing right over longer distances. So what tends to happen is that on a bad day, you're walking at the end of the run. But on a good day, you'll cross the line and immediately think about where you should have gone harder. For this reason, it seems like athletes are more often disappointed with good performances at this distance than at any other. This can take away from the success of the day--and it's unnecessary. Go in knowing that it takes time to perfect racing 70.3 and you're unlikely to get it exactly right on your first (or any given) try.
Coach Mike’s Summertime Anytime Smoothie
This is a quick and easy smoothie to put together - it's big enough to share or to drink 1/2 and put the other half away until later in the day. It's packed with protein and flavor. This is one of my 'go-to' smoothies when I'm on the go.
This smoothie is packed with protein and is a great way to cool off or to get some pep in your step in the morning.
Here’s all you need:
2 bananas
3 TBSP of chia seeds
2 cups of 2% milk
2 TBSP of peanut butter
1 ½ servings of chocolate whey protein
1 cup of ice
Mix in a blender or Bullet and enjoy!
*You can substitute almond milk and almond butter for 2% milk and peanut butter, respectively.
This recipe will have close to 70g of protein and you can split it up or share it. Enjoy!
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While the temps are rising across the landscape and as triathletes ramp up their training as they prep for their biggest events of the year, we have the same conversations behind the curtain at D3: Even though we prescribe a lot of Z2 for our athletes, when the rubber hits the road, and the road heats up, it may be time to shift your approach.
Before we dive into how and why we think this shift is important, let’s first discuss why training by heart rate is a far superior way to train for most of us for the better part of the year. When you have ideal conditions indoors on your treadmill or even outside in cool settings you can rely on your heart rate to give you great information as to what’s going on with your body. When we talk about using HR for measuring effort, we talk about using a chest strap and not a wrist strap. Wrist strap technology has gotten better over the years, but it’s still not as accurate as a chest strap in our experience. A chest strap remains the gold standard for measuring heart rate.
We won’t completely dive into everything as we’ve written enough on the subject already (Zone 1 and Zone 2 Explained link here) - but most of your training is going to be in the Zone 1 and Zone 2 range. This means 70-90% of total training time for most of us. The newer you are to the sport, the more Zone 1 and 2 you’ll need in your program. For example, if you are coming from a non-endurance sport - and you haven’t run a 5k, much less a half marathon, you’ll want to build up your endurance and lean into the Zone 2 work. The more ‘easy’ (Zone 2) work you can do, the bigger the capillary bed you’ll build and the better you’ll be at delivering oxygen to your muscles and carrying lactate away from your muscles as you fatigue. We’ve seen lots of short course PRs come from “long and low” training - (long sessions at a low heart rate). If you want to learn more about Zone 2 training, one of our latest podcasts covers the subject pretty well. Listen to D3 Coaches Mike and Jim discuss the topic here.
Building that nice and robust aerobic base will only help you create a bigger engine and allow you to train and race at faster paces over time. There’s nothing like years of aerobic work to build that engine and see how much you can improve year over year. We see this with our athletes time and again and our experience says that patience in building this base is a key skill set.
Now, many of you may say, “I don’t use heart rate and I’ve always trained by pace” and that’s fine too! Although we have written about that as well here. I still think you will run into trouble when it heats up and you can’t deliver the same amount of oxygen to your muscles because your body is trying to cool itself, and therefore your pace will be hard to maintain at the same effort or you will push too hard to maintain that effort. You can run into some problems if you get dehydrated, such as have heat stroke. So it’s smart to know your limits in the heat.
And on that note, let’s back up a minute. Your skin is the biggest organism of your body. Therefore, when it gets hot, your skin will send a signal to your brain that your skin needs cooling. Your sweat glands will then be activated and it will send water to the surface of your skin, in the form of sweat. Water then evaporates on the skin and cools the body, but only when you are in a dry climate. When it’s humid, evaporation will slow. This is all in direct conflict with your muscles asking for more oxygen as it's trying to maintain a certain pace. Your heart rate will rise and you may be running ‘easy’ but as your pace drops and your heart rate rises, your body is giving you a different signal: This is getting harder to maintain. If your body temp gets too high and your heart rate rises too much, you can get heat exhaustion, as we mentioned above.
There is another option to running by heart rate and pace and that’s running by RPE or Rate of Perceived Exertion. As you learn to use all your running metrics: heart rate, pace, and RPE, you learn how they all give you different information but hopefully lead you to the right pace, heart rate, and/or effort depending on the environmental conditions. Using a subjective measure is a skill set you learn over time while using RPE. From here you can figure out how hard you are working physically and if it’s sustainable. We like to use a 1-10 RPE scale to align effort with paces.
RPE 1-4 - usually very light
RPE 5 - very moderate or a low Zone 1
RPE 6 - Easy, all day effort - Zone 2 - can hold a conversation
RPE 7 - Tempo, sustainable for a while and you can still talk in sentences
RPE 8 - Threshold effort, short, one-word answers
RPE 9 - Very hard effort - VO2 - lasting 5-6 minutes
RPE 10 - all out effort only last a few seconds
Here are some thoughts on using RPE in your training and racing:
1. Be honest with your RPE. It’s easy to say ‘It’s easy’, but you need to think about it and be honest with yourself. Is your breathing really where it should be? Can you hold that effort for the desired time, be it 2 hours for a half marathon or 40 minutes for a 10k?
2. Make sure you have tested RPE in training. Trying to use RPE only in racing will probably lead to a result that is less than what you want.
3. Post race - align HR, Pace and RPE and see what trends you can find. Do the paces and HR align with what you are seeing in training at the same temps?
4. Most important, from D3 Coach Dave Sheanin, “RPE has to reflect how you are feeling dispassionately. It’s not aspirational. If you lie to yourself, you’re sunk.” This goes back to number one above, but it’s so important we had to say it again.
Above all else, when the temps are high and heart rate seems to be out of range, start working some RPE into your training so on race day, you are dialed in and can have a great race, no matter the weather!
