I have been accused often of being a bit overly obsessive about race planning, but my obsession is your gain. This article addresses the swim portion of a race, as the swim is something I always plan out carefully for races of all distances. There are more variables in the swim than any of the other two sports of triathlon; water temperature, the very close proximity of the competition, currents, wind and waves (frequency, type, height). Plus, navigation. There is no lane line, at least in most open water events in lakes or oceans (Lake Placid IM is the only exception I know of with its underwater wire used by the local rowing club to attach buoys).
It is always best to get a general plan together before you travel to the race venue. However, at least in the swim portion you may have to make final decisions after you get to the race site and can look at the swim course and ask questions about it, especially currents on race morning. At a minimum I hope this will help you make up a list of questions for the race organizers a day or two before the race and arrive there with all the gear you need for every eventuality.
Following are four things that I consider as I build out my strategic plan for the swim portion of any race.
Water Temperature: You should know what the water temperature is likely to be before departure but don’t rely on the race website. Google the race swim venue with the words water temperature. The fastest way to swim is in a full sleeve wetsuit so if there is any possibility that at the last minute the water will be cool enough to allow a wet suit, bring it. Booties and Neoprene hats are not specifically banned in the swim but may be by the race director, bring them if you think you will need them and ask the day before (the water temps need to be in the 60’s or lower to allow these). Be sure to practice with them as well (as you should also do that with a wetsuit) no new things race day.
Close Proximity of Other Athletes: There is always a way to avoid the crush at the start. For starts in the water, start at the back or off to one side. If you are in a rolling start, going down a ramp or narrow cones on a beach, you can still start at the back. AKA near last in the water, or immediately swim off to one side so you don’t get run over. Don’t start at the back or side if you are a strong swimmer who is trying to place well, get used to mixing swimming and contact sports. You can work on that with friends even in the pool. I will come back to start position topic when talking about currents.
Navigation: If the race is in a lake, with no rivers flowing through it like our Boulder Res., the planning comes down to navigation and can be done in the days before the race at the race venue. You should have done some testing in your pool and or open water to determine if you usually swim straight, or off to the left or right (you are most likely to do only one of these). How much you drift determines how often you site (more about that below). Race directors I think are starting to use more buoys at their events. If this is the case navigation gets easier. If they are close together you can get away with just sighting on the next buoy. If they are spread out there is one skill to learn and use from the world of sailing, following a range.
A range in the world of sailing are two big buoys and/or land-based poles that when lined up mean you are in the middle of a channel. The rear pole is higher than the closer pole. If you drift off to the right the closer pole is off to the left and visa versa. If the seas are calm and you can see the next two buoys you have a range in front of you. Or when you check out the venue if you see a hill, tower or anything tall on land away from the shore that lines up with the buoys, or a landmark on the shoreline you can use, you have a range to work with. In Boulder, in early morning the sun often lines up with the first leg of the swim (not for Ironman Boulder) so it becomes your 'range marker' (the sun is so far away that the light hitting you is a bit like a laser and you can tell if you are right or left of the direct line to the sun).
See the photo for more detail on this tip.
Currents and water surprises: A lot more planning is needed to avoid any nasty surprises in oceans and rivers or a lake with a big river flowing through it. Figuring out where to start is step one in all cases. Some race directors provide a real map of the swim venue, so you can look at the precise layout of the land and water near the start. Google Earth can help if the race venue is not shown in a real map. Things to look for is how wide is the start, meaning if you want to stay out of the traffic jam can you do that and what’s the best side. Google Earth in the Satellite view will even show you if there are rocks near the start that would limit how wide you can start. If there is a current crossing the first leg there may be a big advantage starting on the upstream side of the course and with a bit of luck not too many people will have figured that out.
If the race is in the ocean or river mouth getting your hands on a current chart for the area is very helpful, available on the NOAA web site. Don’t forget that even some distance up river you will have changing currents (anyone who did the NY City Ironman will know about that), when close to the ocean can have tidal currents, meaning the river current changes direction when the tide is rising and falling. If you don’t want to dig into the weeds of reading a chart ask the race director or visit a local dive or fishing shop for advice.
You may think you can’t do anything about currents but that is not true. For example, currents in rivers are typically strongest mid-channel. But the current close to shore may be reversed in what is called an eddy. If a bit of land sticks out into the river there is a very good chance of an eddy downstream. If there is a sandbar out somewhere in the middle of a river, the current will be slower on top of it and close to it.
Oceans have currents as well without the presence of nearby rivers, Kona is a good example. Kona is an example of where there is not much you can or should do about the current as it typically either is pushing you on the first long leg and slowing you down on the return. There is one point where a small change in tactics could save you a minute or two. As you approach the pier coming back there is sometimes a strong cross current. Staying on the buoy line as it bends right to get you around the corner of the pier is important. The currents in Kona vary with the strength of the wind and direction of waves. But knowing it exists can be helpful for your mental health when you climb up the steps to the pier and discover it was a slow swim, for you.
Knowing the direction of the current for each leg can help you navigate better. For example, if the current is directly on your nose for the first leg then you just have to put up with it, unless you can swim closer to shore. Then let’s say the course makes a right-angle turn, now the current is sweeping you either left or right. If you know this, you can make a guess at how much you have to swim off to one side to counteract the current. You should be able to calculate that offset if you fly or sail or remember your HS geometry, but making guess works when you round the buoy and adjustment made as you see what happens.
One trick, if you can, is to go for a swim the day before within 15min+/- of the race start. Get out to a buoy, hopefully, they have put them out, or it could be anything anchored to the bottom, and take a look at what the water is doing around that object. If there is a current of any significance you will see it and if you stop swimming for a minute you will see how fast and what direction it is flowing. When in the race you might also be able to see the ripples around the race buoys giving you direction and some idea of speed.
The Eagleman 70.3 is a race I have done many times. Unless the race morning is at slack tide there is always some significant current. Below is a picture of what will be happening race day this year. The is almost slack tide so the current is weak. The red line is how I would swim the course. It is possible this year that the flow is reversed behind the point so swimming closer to shore might be an advantage. Getting out the day before would be well worth it for this race.
My best example of how I put the above to good use was in the last IM Cozumel in 2012 where the swim was not point to point as it is today. The first leg started at the end of a long pier, 100+ yards, where the current was running against us at 1-2mph, you could clearly see it boiling around the wood pilings. I was traveling with Endurance Sports Travel and at our pre-race meeting with Ken Glah he told us to start on the beach end of the pier. That was already my plan, but it was nice to have it confirmed and for those that followed his advice a game changer, not many did.
Taking off from the rocks with about a dozen others (and the remaining 2,000+ athletes out at the end of the pier), I arrived at the first turning buoy to discover the current was so strong that the buoy anchor had dragged about 25 yards (water is crystal clear). I flew down the second long leg, due south, with the current behind us, every buoy had dragged its anchor. But many other athletes were flying faster past me, meaning I had beat much stronger swimmers to the first buoy. The third leg was back into the current. If you drew a line from the buoy to the exit, the heading was about 45 degrees Northeast. The current was coming south at 180 degrees. In other words, we were swimming upstream and across the current. The current was flowing faster than I could swim. I headed almost east (90 degrees) the current dragging me away from the finish, but I was getting closer to shore. Almost on the rocks, I turned north to the exit. I still was fighting a current, but it was much weaker, and I was moving. The water is beautifully clear down in Cozumel and there was lots to watch as I slowly got to the exit. I finished the swim about 10 min. slower than expected but over 20 min. ahead of my closest competition. 120 swimmers had to be rescued and 20-30 more did not make the cut-off. The conditions were unusual, and IM changed the course after that year. However, it happens especially with new events.
It is worth noting that the new course in Cozumel, point to point finishing at the same place you see in the picture still deserves some thought. When I did it in 2014, I stayed too close to shore at the start and had no current for the first 1/3 of the swim. Heading out to the outside of all the swimmers would, I think, have been the better choice. Also, the last turning buoy is now just off the end of the south side of the pier. If you could understand dolphin speak you would probably hear some critical comments about your form as you swam down the pier to the exit.
Sighting: I mentioned sighting before. If you don’t swim in a straight line, most don’t, you are going to have to do some sighting. The more you drift the more you must sight, if there is any current crossing your path you must sight more often, if it is rough you must sight more often. So, learning to sight well is very important. Don’t wait to practice it until race day, it can be done in the pool. My method, a bit different from other coaches, is to start to sight as you reach the point when your head is rotated fully to take your breath. At that point instead of rotating the head back under water, start to bring the lower goggle out of the water and keep both out as you lift your head and look straight forward. Using this method in flat water you can often just get one eye a little bit more out of the water to confirm, or not, if you are on track. If you are, get you head back down into a normal breathe cycle, if not, you can continue to lift your head as above. This method also has the advantage of shedding a bit more water off the goggles as you swing your head around to look forward.
Some of you will think I am a bit obsessive about swim race planning, but I love free speed, and with these tips, you are sure to gain some too!
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If you are looking for information about how to write a comprehensive race plan that covers all aspects of the race, review my friend and D3 Mental Skills Performance Coach Will Murray's article, How to Write a Race Plan in 7 Steps.
Coach Simon Butterworth is a USAT Certified Coach and recognizes that in the big picture attitude more than age makes the difference in many aspects of this sport. There are times in triathlon that to see improvements you need to slow down and spend some time working on your technique – which requires a great deal of discipline. So does having a coach and following the plan written for you. The best coach in the world can only be of help if you’re ready and willing to do the work.
Far too often, athletes set their race goals and define their race-day execution based off of fantasy. That fantasy might violate the time-space continuum, as in: I did [insert race] in [insert time] back in [insert today’s date minus 3 or 5 or 10 years], so I’m going to beat that time. Or the fantasy might exist in some parallel universe, as in: I’ve been doing my long rides at [some number of] watts so I’m going to bike at [number plus 10 or 20 or 40] watts on race day. Or the fantasy might ignore reality, as in: I ran a [insert road race distance] at [insert time] so I’m going to run [time minus 2 or 5 or 10 minutes] in my tri.
I’m not saying you can’t beat your younger self, or bike faster on race day, or run stronger in your upcoming tri, just that you need to have a basis in the training you’re doing today in order to back up those goals. Which, of course, begs the question: what basis am I supposed to use to set my race goals?
While triathlon doesn’t have race-pace benchmarks that are nearly as straightforward and precise as Yasso 800s are for the marathon, we can rely on benchmark workouts, race simulations, and threshold multipliers to set race-day effort and pacing goals.
Race simulations are a fabulous way to test out your race-day effort and pacing targets to see if they are too aggressive, too conservative, or just right. The following guidelines can be used to structure your race simulation:
Distance
A metric version of your race distance can serve as a solid race simulation distance. So an Olympic-distance triathlon - 1 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, and a 6.2 mile run - becomes (with some rounding) a 1k swim, 25k (15 mile) bike, and a 6k (3.5 mile) run. A half-distance triathlon becomes a 1.2k swim, 35 mile bike, and an 8 mile run. An exception is made for a full-distance race simulation in order to limit the run duration; that simulation would be a 2.4k swim, 70 mile bike, and a 90 minute run.
Structure
You’ll complete the swim as a single, long continuous block of swimming. The first half of the distance will serve as your warm up. Then, build to your target race pace during the next 25% of your swim. Hold that target pace during the final 25% of your swim.
After a quick transition, you’ll be on the bike. Spend 10 to 20 minutes at the lower end of Zone 2 / at your “easy endurance” effort level before starting your bike intervals if you’re doing a sprint- or Olympic-distance race simulation, 30 to 60 minutes if you’re doing a half- or full-distance race simulation. You can then begin your race-effort intervals, as follows:
Time the intervals such that you have up to 5 minutes of Zone 2 / endurance effort following the final interval for sprint- or Olympic-distance race simulations, up to 15 mines of Zone 2 / endurance effort for half- and full-distance race simulations.
After another quick transition, you’ll start your run. The first third of your run will be executed at your endurance pace. The second third of your run is executed at a pace that is half-way between your endurance pace and your target race pace. The final third of your run is executed at your target race pace.
A couple of notes about bike and run interval targets: First, if you haven’t ever executed your target pace/effort level in training for durations similar to the race simulation interval durations, they are not the correct race-day targets. You must prove your targets in training before they actually become targets. Second, if you are unable to maintain your targets in the race simulation, it’s time to re-evaluate those targets. Keep in mind that missed run targets in the simulation can be due to overly aggressive bike targets just as much as overly aggressive run targets, so take a hard look at both.
Final pointer: don’t get overzealous and try to complete the entire simulation at your race-day targets. You won’t be fully rested and fully tapered, you won’t have the same on-course support, and you don’t have the luxury of a full recovery afterward. Stick to the plan.
Timing
I like to schedule race simulations four weeks out from your goal race, at the end of a recovery week. I use the race simulation as the sole long workout for the weekend, so you’re rewarded for the big day of training with a bonus rest day. You’re welcome!
If you have the lead time, you can do a “metric-metric” version of the race simulation - 75-80% of the metric version, or about half the total race distance - eight weeks out from your goal race. I structure this simulation as an all-endurance / Zone 2 day, allowing you to get a feel for the upcoming race simulation day.
Final Note
The race simulation day isn’t just for testing out your race-day effort and pacing targets. It’s also a great time to practice your transitions, fueling and hydration strategies, the gear you plan to use on race day, etcetera. Remember: nothing new on race day!
The three D’s of D3 (Determination, Desire and Discipline) are all integral for success in triathlon. However, all to often on race day, many athletes seem to forget or ignore discipline. The discipline required to properly pace their race.
Having a proper pacing strategy is essential to performing your best on race day. If you go out too slowly, you will leave time on the table, and if you start too quickly, you will experience negative physiological effects during the race. In longer races, a fast start will cause you to burn through your energy reserves much too quickly. This phenomenon of over pacing early is quite easy to do. Early in the race, your heart rate hasn’t reached its peak and blood flow to the legs hasn’t maxed out. Combining these conditions with being tapered and rested for a race can result in you feeling really good at the start of the event. It is because you feel so good that you MUST have incredible discipline to start out at your planned pace.
Often in triathlon over pacing manifests itself when an athlete goes too hard on the bike and their run suffers. The best overall time generally requires a “compromise” among all three sports. Going too hard in any one sport will cause potentially large decreases in the other.
In order to avoid pacing mistakes on race day there are several tips that you can employ both before and on race day.
If you want to have a successful race season and perform to your true fitness potential, plan a pacing strategy and stick to it. Focus on the discipline required to be as strong at the end of the event as you are at the start.
You don’t have to be a military veteran or first responder to be exposed to trauma. Many athletes have endured traumatic experiences in training, in racing and in life that impair their ability to train and race and enjoy multisport to their full potential.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is more common than we think. As many as 8 million adults in the US have PTSD (Sidran Institute, 2018). The diagnostic symptoms of PTSD are recurrent nightmares, flashbacks and rapidly rising negative emotions triggered by memories of the traumatic event.
Some athletes avoid certain situations because of the negative emotions that those situations can trigger. One athlete got seriously crawled over in his first open water swim; after that, he dreaded the swim leg, and even though a very strong swimmer, he started in the back of his wave to avoid any contact. That led him to slower swim times that his pool pace would predict and also had him suffering from acute pre-race nerves.
Another athlete had a bike crash on a windy day, waking up in a roadside ditch with the bike’s rear stays crushed and the back wheel potato-chipped. She does not remember the event, but on any even vaguely windy day would not ride her bike outside.
Fortunately, a technique called the Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories Protocol (RTM) has been achieving remarkably high rates of complete cure. I’ve been fortunate to be part of a clinical research team testing RTM on military veterans and first responders. Working through the Mind Research Center in Albuquerque, NM, our team has treated more than 160 clients in several research studies. The research study design began with qualifying subjects scoring above threshold in PTSD tests (PCL 5), followed by a brain scan to detect areas high brain activity. Then, after three RTM administrations of 60-90 minutes each over one week, another brain scan.
In the sample population, we have seen between 90 and 96% of patients enjoying a complete cure, determined by brain imaging, PCL 5 test scores and reporting of elimination of nightmares, flashbacks and rapidly ascending negative emotions around trigger events. The results publication is now in review (Lewin, J. in prep).
The RTM protocol uses re-imagining of the traumatic event in the client’s own mind, in a safe, comfortable environment that avoids having the client re-experience the trauma. The client sees the event from a distant, dissociated vantage, which helps the brain alter the structure of the memory, while not eliminating it (Gray, R. and F. Bourke, 2015). The client can remember the event without having it trigger unpleasant symptoms. Just as you can remember brushing your teeth or putting on your shoes this morning, the client’s traumatic members become just another memory.
In 1984, researcher Steve Andreas of Boulder, CO, used an early version of this technique to relieve a woman of her phobia of bees, which she acquired after falling into a wasp nest and being stung “hundreds of times.” Twenty-five years after that single treatment, Steve interviewed the client on video, to see if the cure had lasted over time. The four-minute follow up video is worth watching. We now know that RTM is effective, is fast, is comfortable and non-traumatizing, and produces lasting relief.
The next step of our research team is to train clinicians to administer the RTM protocol. We held our first training course in September, 2018, with 32 clinicians. We plan to train 10,000 clinicians in the next three years, and presently have a proposal before the US Army to train 3000 Army clinicians.
I have administered the RTM protocol with veterans who served in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as athletes with swim and bike traumas and traumas in other walks of life. I have seen remarkable, rapid improvements in their quality of life. One of the Vietnam veterans had suffered the very same nightmare every night for 50 years (literally), waking in terror at 1:30 every single night. The day after our first treatment, I asked him how he slept last night. He said, “Fine, until my wife woke me up. Why? When I didn’t climb the walls at 1:30 in the morning she shook me awake because she thought I was dead.”
If you have suffered trauma, with its memories causing you nightmares, flashbacks or avoidance behavior, you don’t have to suffer these symptoms any longer. Even if you don’t compare your trauma to that of military veterans, if it interferes with your ability to lead the life you want, RTM may help. In most cases, one RTM session produces the desired result and lets you get back to your life.
For more information about PTSD or RTM, contact me directly (Will@willmurraycompany.com) and we will get all your questions answered.
Will Murray is D3’s go-to Mental Skills Performance Coach. He is a USAT Certified Coach and holds a Practitioner’s Certificate and more than 100 hours of advanced training in Neuro-Lingustic Programming. He brings a large tool kit with specific techniques that are fast, effective, easy and durable to help athletes make useful changes in their lives – right away. Because these techniques are designed to be testable immediately, working together, we can ensure you get the gains you want in three sessions or fewer.
References
Andreas, S. (2009). Fast Phobia Cure 25-year follow up. Boulder, CO: Real People Press. Retrieved from youTube
Gray, R. and Bourke, F. (2012). Remediation of intrusive symptoms of PTSD in fewer than five sessions: A 30-person pre-pilot study of the RTM Protocol. Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health. 1 (2) 2015.
Lewine, J. (2018). Quantitative EEG Markers of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Baseline Observations and Impact of the Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM) Treatment Protocol. In prep.
Sidran Institute. (2018) Retrieved from Sidran
It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to Team D3 athlete Dana Willett.
Her coach, Jim Hallberg, expressed with pride and excitement, that Oceanside 70.3 2019 was Dana’s best race in many years and that there was an important sequence of events in Dana’s training that helped to make that happen. Her final result was 6:11 for 18th place in her age group (50-54). She ran a 1:59 on the run and the metrics of her race were nearly perfect!
Throughout 2018 work and family were tugging Dana in multiple directions. When that finally shifted and she was able to release some pressure, the race results started to show up toward the end of the 2018 season. She also participated in the Solvang Training Camp to develop her fitness and confidence. The camp was timed perfectly for Oceanside. Albeit it was taxing, that hard work translated to race day.
Coach Jim recognizes resilience as one of Dana’s strengths and appreciates the communication they have in their coach-athlete relationship. She trusts the process. Way to go, Dana, you embody all of D3: Desire, Determination, and Discipline!
As spring approaches, I hope many of you are able to get outside rather than being stuck on a trainer or treadmill. As this happens training loads often increase, and therefore, so does your nutrition intake. Some people make the mistake of thinking that calories are calories and if you burn a lot of them, then you can eat whatever you want. That is quite the opposite. As we put our bodies under more and more stress, we need to compensate that with more and more antioxidants. This doesn’t mean you can’t have that large cookie at the end of the ride, but make sure to continue nutrient timing your meals well, choose nutrient dense foods most of the time, and stay hydrated. We will talk more about each goal in detail.
Pre Workout
For nutrient timing, set the stage for your next workout by choosing foods that will sustain your energy longer, typically a combination of carbs, protein and fat are best. The ratio of each of these macronutrients may vary person to person, some people do better on more protein and fat and others need the higher amount of carbohydrate.
Here are some examples:
During Workouts:
It’s important to get enough electrolytes and hydration (even more important than enough calories). You only really need something for workouts longer than 60-90 minutes. In really hot weather the need for electrolytes goes up, but initially starting with a good sports drink will provide proper osmolarity for better hydration.
Here are some examples:
POST Workout Nutrition:
If you are doing a hard and long workout, ideally you will have a good amount of easy to digest carbohydrate with some protein ad MCT oil is a good oil to add that won’t slow down absorption like other fats post workout. For regular workouts, eating your next meal should be sufficient.
Nutrient Density
As mentioned in the first paragraph, including nutrient dense foods is even more important as training increases. If time is an issue, keep frozen veggies on hand, throw greens into smoothies, eat salads on a regular basis, make soups with lots of vegetables. Choose fruits over processed carbohydrates. By doing these things, your body will recover that much faster, leaving you that much faster!
Megan Dopp is Team D3’s go to nutritionist for with over 14 years of experience in the nutrition field. She has adapted to all of its changes with research and education. She is passionate about learning what is best for each person and focuses on finding the root cause of problems.
Her knowledge and experience are great assets to include in your quest toward reaching your goals. Her services through D3 can be found here.
Spring is on the horizon which means race season is just around the corner! As you grind out the final weeks of winter it is time to do a little housekeeping to ensure your race gear and equipment are in good working order. Here are six practical things you can do prior to your first race:
Race on!
Coach Brad Seng is a USAT Level II Certified Coach and if you’re looking to reach new heights in your training and racing, he can help you get there with a consistent, progressive training regime built specifically around your goals and objectives. Brad incorporates the psychological aspects of this sport – alongside appropriate swim, bike and run workouts. With that combination firmly in place you’ll find yourself capable of some pretty amazing things!
D3 Multisport is proud to release the video series, “The Triathlon Minute”.
Flip turns for triathletes are a controversial topic. But D3 Head Coach Mike Ricci has several reasons why you should get in the pool and act like a swimmer and how that translates to race day for triathletes.
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As a coach who works with a lot of triathletes remotely, I am generally pretty happy when my athletes join coached masters groups or otherwise engage with a local swim coach who can keep an eye on technique. While remote video analysis is a powerful tool, it’s generally beneficial to have a skilled coach on deck providing regular and immediate feedback throughout a workout.
I have great love for the best swim coaches and, in general, believe that as triathletes we should look to the best practices and techniques from each of the individual sports to help guide our technical training. In addition to being certified by USAT, I’m also a USA Swimming certified coach and keep up with the articles and research in the swimming world.
With that said, I present here the most common advice I hear from swim coaches that I don’t believe leads triathletes in the right direction. In some cases, I don’t think it’s good advice at all. But as a caveat (before I piss off a lot of great swim coaches), in many cases, the advice may be indicated for a swimmer who is in the pool every day, often twice, dedicating complete workouts (or even full weeks) to technique development while accumulating 20k or 40k or 60k every week and getting immediate feedback every day--all in the quest for dropping seconds or even tenths of seconds in pool races that typically last 20 seconds to a few minutes.
For age-group triathletes, who typically swim 2 to 4 times a week and are training to race in open water for 10 to 60+ minutes before getting on the bike and then going for a run, “swimming like a swimmer” isn’t always the best advice.
Advice to watch for:
1. Maximize Distance per Stroke (reduce your stroke count). This seems to be in the bible of high school and masters coaches. Just about every swimmer I’ve ever worked with has told me that their coach had them working on this at one point or another. And it can be good advice at the right time of development--it is definitely valuable up to a certain point. But after analyzing hundreds and hundreds of individual triathlete’s techniques, I very commonly advise triathletes to increase their stroke count--and not to maximize distance per stroke.
Calculating swimming speed is a simple formula: Stroke Rate x Distance per Stroke (DPS). If you make your DPS really, really big, your stroke rate will most likely drop significantly. Think about the extreme--really maximizing your distance per stroke--you’d practically be swimming a full catchup stroke with lots of gliding. Sure, you might get across a 25 yard pool in 8 or 9 or 10 strokes with the help of a nice strong kick (not a hallmark of most triathletes) but your stroke rate would be very low and you’d be swimming slowly.
There’s no magic number of strokes that any individual athlete should take to get across the pool--it varies by athlete. Don’t arbitrarily shoot for 12 or 15 strokes (or some rule-of-thumb number). Instead, experiment with your stroke count and length to find the combination that makes you fastest.
2. Recover with a High Elbow. In textbook swimming style, your arm will exit the water with a high elbow and during recovery, your hand will swing underneath your elbow, moving forward along the line of a pendulum. This keeps you aligned and encourages rotation. You’ve probably come across plenty of fingertip and thumb drag drills to work on this high elbow recovery. It makes for a great-looking stroke and is quite efficient for many swimmers, including triathletes. But it’s not ideal for everyone. In my experience, it can lead many triathletes to be very narrow at entry, causing them to have to over-rotate or begin their catch by pressing their hands outward (laterally, across then away from your body). This lateral overhead movement contributes to shoulder injuries.
Note also that triathletes race in open water, where having a bit of width to your recovery helps create a clear channel for sighting and carves out a little space next to you so that when you go to take a breath, there won’t be another swimmer in your face.
In general, I don’t worry about the “shape” of a triathlete’s recovery unless it’s causing problems elsewhere in the stroke. For most triathletes, it’s best to aim for an entry point where the inside of your thumbs are aligned with the outside of your shoulders and your hand/forearm doesn’t cross in front of your head. If you enter that way, how you get there probably doesn’t matter much.
3. Rotate More. Rotation, in and of itself, does nothing to move you forward in the water. Don’t believe me? The next time you go to the pool, spend a moment just floating and try to rotate--do you move forward? Rotation helps put your arms in the right position to execute a strong pull (using your lats). If you are wide at entry, you don’t need much rotation in order to pull with your back. If you’re narrow at entry, you’ll need to rotate more in order to recruit the right muscles for a powerful pull. So rotation, like everything else on this list, is really dependent to the swimmer’s overall technique. It’s not a “rule” that everyone should rotate X degrees. Of course, if your mouth doesn’t clear the surface of the water when you go to take a breath, you need to rotate more (regardless of the width of your stroke at the front).
Always focus rotation on your hips--don’t worry so much about your shoulders. For most swimmers I’ve worked with, as long as hip rotation is appropriate, shoulder rotation will be good. As you work toward the finish of your stroke, think about “snapping” your hips open to the other side rather than gently rolling your hips through the stroke. This is made much easier on race day in a wetsuit that floats you higher in the water (and many have “roll bars” to assist with hip rotation). But don’t worry about achieving a specific degree of rotation.
4. Finish Your Stroke. This advice ties into the idea of maximizing distance per stroke. In open water, with a churned up surface (from environmental conditions and all of the other swimmers “in your lane”), currents, wind, etc., having a nice long stroke isn’t often the best choice. Shorter, choppier strokes can often be faster. Extending your arm as far back as you can at the end of your stroke is made harder by your wetsuit (even with the awesome advances in wetsuit tech in recent years). And the last part of that arm extension for a long finish is driven by the tricep--a small muscle that you’re asking to do a big job (moving your body forward). In most cases, you’ll be faster if you don’t try to maximize length at the back of your stroke. Make sure your hand passes your hip, but it doesn’t need to press all the way down to mid-thigh. This will (gasp!) decrease your distance per stroke and (gasp!) increase the number of strokes it will take you to get across the pool, but it will also make you faster in open water.
5. Breathe Every 3 Strokes. Bilateral breathing is a fantastic skill and, ideally, every triathlete will become equally comfortable breathing to either side. But most triathletes (and pure swimmers) have a preferred side to breathe on and breathing to that side more often is likely faster. Sometimes in open water, conditions or traffic around you will necessitate breathing on your non-preferred side. Being able to do that effectively is important. But you don’t have to breathe in a 3-3-3-3 (classic bilateral) pattern. You can breathe 3-2-2-3-2-2, or 2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2, or 3-2-3-3-2-2-4-3-2-2 (no pattern at all). In general, my advice is to breathe when you need a breath--like you do when cycling or running. When your face is in the water, exhale. When you’re ready to breathe, breathe. Timing will be mostly determined by how hard you’re working. When you’re going hard, like in a sprint race, you may need to breathe every stroke cycle (2-2-2-2-2) in order to get enough oxygen to survive the pace. Midway through an Ironman swim, you might be relaxed and efficient enough to take longer gaps between breaths--perhaps breathing every 4 strokes. It is totally dependent to the conditions you find yourself in at any given moment. So develop some flexibility to your breathing patterns--there’s not magic in a 3-3-3-3 pattern. When you want to practice off-side breathing, just breathe to that side--you don’t have to follow a specific pattern.
And one final note on breathing. I haven’t seen any evidence that hypoxic swim sets (holding your breath) create any physiological benefit. Further, at the extreme, the results can be life-threatening. In no circumstances would I ever assign or participate in a “see how far you can swim without taking a breath” set (such as trying to swim a length without taking a breath). There are well-documented risks to this sort of practice. Always refuse to participate.
So what should you be working on? The most common opportunities I see are in improving body position, developing a strong catch with an early vertical forearm, and developing a rhythmic and propulsive kick (even if you don’t kick hard). Stay tuned for a future article.
Coach Dave Sheanin knows that you can’t win a triathlon in the swim (but you can definitely lose one). He’d rather his athletes spend time perfecting technique before adding volume. Practice not until they “get it right” but rather, until they “can’t get it wrong”. Dave is a certified USA Triathlon, USA Swimming, and Training Peaks coach.
We want to do it all, and we want to do it well. But finding time to fit everything into a day including a productive training regimen can generate some unnecessary stress but with these 10 tips, you will not only manage your available training time, but you will yield high gains and be able to better manage the other priorities in your life.
1. Train when no one can see you. Yep, train invisible. Get up early, even at the crack of dawn, get on the trainer, get in the pool, lift weights, run on the treadmill, or whatever it is, and get it done. Be back home or at work early and you’ll look like a superstar. On top of that, you don’t have to worry about getting out of work every day wondering if you’ll be able to get your workout in.
2. Double up your short workouts. I love to see athletes do a short hard trainer session – complete in 45 minutes and go right into a short quick brick run. Same for swimming and weights – for the swim, get in, bang out 10x100 and then get some strength training in.
3. If you can sneak a long run in during the week, do it! This frees up time on the weekend for other priorities (your family, partner, or spouse).
4. If you can’t get a long run in during the week, yet you are feeling pressure at home for your time on the weekend, alternate the long bike and long run on every other weekend. This gives you one weekend morning to sleep in and be present for other priorities.
5. If you can’t hit the weight room, then a set of body weight exercises can do the trick. Try the following: 10 burpees, 20 squats on the minute for as long as you can do it. If it takes you 40 seconds to get the burpees and squats in, then you have 20 seconds of rest.
6. If you are traveling and can’t find a gym or treadmill to get your run in, use the staircase as that provides a lot of opportunities to simulate running and you will get your HR up which will yield an effective high-intensity workout.
7. Put a dash (or more) of intensity in your workouts each day. This could mean 10x 50 fast in the pool, 12x30” all out on the bike trainer or 6x30” strides while running. Keeping your body tuned into speed allows you to get back after it and into race mode much easier.
8. Eat clean and don’t waste calories! If you like dessert, that’s fine, but have it on a day where you get in a high-intensity workout. And have it at lunch vs. at dinner where it will sit in your gut overnight and really do nothing but become extra weight down the road.
9. Sleep is essential! And if you don’t sleep enough, then you’ll get up tired, have a less than stellar workout, feel bad about it, eat badly and then the cycle repeats again the next day. Good sleep yields good decisions.
10. Set weekly goals and turn them into monthly and annual goals. All this working out is fun, but you need to have goals no matter if you’re a “Let’s have FUN” kind of triathlete or a “Let’s get on the PODIUM” triathlete. Goals lead you down the road to where you want to go. Write them down, tell them to your best friend, and stick with it.
Mike Ricci is the owner and head coach of D3 Multisport. He is a former U.S. Marine with a penchant for helping athletes maximize their training time with focused and effective workouts. He is a USAT Level III (one of only 16) Certified Coach, has been honored as the USAT Coach of the Year and thrives on helping athletes who never give up, have big goals no matter how fast they are, are moving from short course to long and who have time constraints and need to balance their love of triathlon with the rest of their priorities.
Get clear on how best to use Zone 1, 2, 3 & 4 for training variability from Coach Jim Hallberg in this week's Triathlon Minute training tip video.
This is your alarm clock, the off-season is ending!
From Thanksgiving through the New Year, many of us are in the “off-season” and with that comes a license to eat, drink and not train as much. While I am a BIG fan of the off-season, I do know many athletes who overdo it and are now facing the beginning of their season feeling very far from race fitness and their ideal race weight. Sound familiar? Here is the good news, you are not alone.
As you transition your routines and body back into training it’s important to be reminded about what not to do:
You get the point. Remember it is January and you likely have months until your first race and even longer until your A race. So think about the little, yet productive, things you can do that will help you advance toward your big goal at the end of the summer.
Here is what I recommend to reboot and get a fresh start:
I leave you with. Yes, you overdid it! No, the world is not ending.
Happy 2019!
Mantras have become popular with triathletes, but as simple as they are, mantras can be a help or a hindrance. To get your mantras to be as effective as they can be, there are a few simple ideas that can really help you. A mantra is a simple, brief phrase that you repeat over and over to help you. Let's make sure it does.
Some athletes make a distinction between a mantra (a sacred phrase repeated often) and an affirmation (a saying intended to produce a positive mental state).
With the help of many D3 Multisport athletes who completed a survey about mantras and affirmations, I have come to three conclusions aimed at making positive self-talk more useful.
Not all mantras are created equal. There are:
Mantras About Your Performance
“I’m going to win.” Much has been written about the difference between outcome goals and process goals. An outcome goal might be: “I’m going to win my age group and qualify for USAT national championships.” A process goal might be: “I will execute all parts of my race plan.” Processes are largely within your control, while outcomes are not always so. You can’t control who in your age group shows up on race day, or if you have a flat tire. You just have to adjust to those things.
Mantras that are outside of your control do not create harmony in your inner mind. Mantras and affirmations work with your unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind has an excellent—no, very excellent—crap detector. And it takes things you say very, very literally. So, when your mantra is “I will win,” instead of focusing on what you tell it, your unconscious mind starts to detect and evaluate and chatter back:
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hold on, wait just a minute sister, you didn’t exactly win this race last year and the same athletes who beat you last year are racing today and you haven’t felt very rested recently and I noticed your power-to-weight ratio hasn’t exactly been soaring since you gained that three pounds and what about that sore left calf and you are one year older but some young and fast athletes have snuck their noses under your age group tent and….”
You get the picture. Instead of producing a soothing, productive mantra, you have triggered your unconscious to engage its excellent (no, very excellent) crap detector to set up some very uncomfortable internal dialog. You can use process goals, however, to help your mind focus on what you are doing at that minute, with your unconscious mind in full congruence. “I’m going to execute my race plan” can become, right at that moment, a mantra about your present performance.
Here are some examples supplied by D3 Multisport athletes:
Mantras About Your Identity
Some mantras are about the athlete as a human being. Mantras about identity can be especially strong and durable as they go to core beliefs about self-concept. Athletes (and people, too) work very hard to maintain their self-concept and do not easily perform otherwise.
More examples from D3 athletes:
Mantras About Your Capability
Mantras about what you can do can be very powerful. They often have context and rationale, which contribute to having them be based in the truth, or at least enough logic for your unconscious mind to go along with them.
D3 athletes again:
Sometimes the mantra is someone else’s voice and words. For example:
State Your Mantra in the Affirmative
Why affirmative? One athlete’s mantra is "Don’t get dropped." Take a second to try that one on for size: repeat it a few times.
Now try the affirmative version, something like “Hang, hang, hang with that group.” Or “Keep up, keep strong.”
Run those, or similar ones of your own choosing, a few times.
Now compare to “Don’t get dropped.”
Which version is more useful? For most athletes, the affirmative version is more powerful. In order to process “Don’t get dropped” your unconscious mind first must construct an internal image of getting dropped, then try to imagine what “don’t get dropped” looks and feels and sounds like, then figure out how not to do that thing that it just imagined, and, well, that’s a lot of processing. Since your brain already uses 30% of your total glucose budget, having it have to think hard while you are racing hard is a bit of a waste of energy. Make it easy on your unconscious and state your mantra in the affirmative.
3 Point Checklist for an Effective Mantra
When constructing or selecting your mantra:
Thanks to all the D3 athletes who helped with this research.
Practice, enjoy and befriend your mantra.
Onward (one of my mantras).
Will Murray is Team D3's go-to specialist for mental skills training. He is a USA Triathlon Certified Coach holding a Practitioner’s certificate and more than 100 hours of advanced training in Neuro-Lingustic Programming. He works with beginners to Olympians helping them use their heads to do more than just hold their hats!
Zwift / TrainerRoad Primer
Did you just get a smart trainer?* Are you excited to check out the wonderful world of indoor training apps, but not sure where to start? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
*Don’t have a smart trainer? TrainerRoad is still an option! It will calculate virtual power using your speed sensor.
What are indoor training apps?
Great question. They are apps (downloadable programs for your laptop, apps for your tablet and/or phone or AppleTV) that make intervals rides and/or endurance rides easier to execute and higher quality overall. The programs interface with your devices - smart trainer, power meter, cadence meter, and heart rate monitor - to collect all that data in a single place. More importantly, the app will put your trainer in erg mode during your workouts, telling your trainer where to set the resistance so that you always hit the target power and never have to shift gears.
There are a wide range of indoor training apps out there, but I’m going to focus on two of the more popular options: TrainerRoad and Zwift.
What is TrainerRoad?
I would describe TrainerRoad as a structured workout app. Whether you need to do an endurance ride - and stick to that endurance zone - or race-pace training or high-end intervals, TrainerRoad has a workout that fits the bill. Their software allows you to execute the workout in erg mode, and provides some nice coaching instruction within many of their workouts.
What is Zwift?
Zwift is a virtual world - or these days, five virtual worlds - where you can simulate riding your bike as if you were, in fact, outdoors. Zwift uses erg mode to adjust your trainer resistance relative to the grade of the virtual road on which you are riding, so you are going uphill and downhill and shifting gears just like you would outdoors. In addition, Zwift has a workout mode that allows you to execute structured workouts in erg mode.
Which should I use?
Another great question. Answer: it depends.
TrainerRoad has an incredible library of workouts and a wide range of high quality cycling training plans, but importing TrainingPeaks structured workouts designed by your coach into TrainerRoad is a little bit of a process. Because of this, I recommend using TrainerRoad if (a) you plan to choose your own workouts or follow a TrainerRoad plan, or (b) your coach assigns workouts from TrainerRoad’s workout library. (More on using TrainerRoad below.)
While I don’t love Zwift’s workouts the way I love TrainerRoad’s, I do love that my TrainingPeaks structured workouts get auto-imported into their platform. I also love that when weather or time constraints force me indoors for my endurance / long rides (or I just choose to stay indoors cuz, well, I love my trainer), I can ride in Zwift’s virtual worlds and the app controls my smart trainer in a way that simulates the varying terrain of the world in which I’m riding. So, if you’re looking for an all-in-one indoor training solution, Zwift is the way to go. (More on using Zwift below.)
First Steps for both Zwift and TrainerRoad
The first steps in using TrainerRoad, Zwift, or really any indoor training app are the same:
1. Create an account - typically done on the app provider’s website. Within the account, it’s of critical importance that you set your FTP (functional threshold power), and that you set it accurately. (More on determine your FTP here [link to Mike’s article on testing].)
2. Download the software/app to your laptop/tablet/phone/AppleTV - typically done from the app provider’s website or the app store on your device.
3. Open the app, login, and pair your devices. More detail on this in the app-specific sections below.
Using Zwift
First: which devices should you pair? Here are my guidelines based on your set of devices:
1. Smart trainer, no power meter: Excellent. Click on the box labeled “Controllable” and pair your trainer here; it should also show up in the “Power Source” box. If you have a cadence sensor, click the box labeled “Cadence” and pair it here.
2. Smart trainer + power meter. Perfect. Two options with your specific set up:
(a) You can use the power meter as your power source and use the smart trainer to control resistance. Under this setup, the power readings will come from your power meter, which can result in a less smooth and accurate erg mode, e.g., your power will bounce around a bit during intervals, and will generally average out to the interval’s power target but it could be off by a percent or so. This approach is best when your FTP is based on a threshold test using your power meter.
To go with this setup, click “Controllable” and pair your trainer. Then click “Power Source” and pair your power meter. Finally, click “Cadence” and pair either your power meter or a cadence sensor.
(b) You can use the trainer and your power source. Under this setup, the power readings will come from your trainer, which will likely be 2-5% lower than the power readings from your power meter but will provide a smoother and more accurate erg mode, e.g., you will hit all power targets pretty much perfectly. If you choose this approach, make sure your FTP is set as your trainer FTP versus your power meter FTP to account for the difference.
To go with this setup, click “Controllable” and pair your trainer; it should automatically pair to “Power Source” as well. Then click “Cadence” and pair either your power meter or a cadence sensor.
3. Optional: click the box labeled “Heart Rate” and pair your HR monitor here. This allows you to collect all the data in a single location and it all upload it to TrainingPeaks in a single data file.
Once all your devices are paired, which you’ll do/confirm each time you log into the Zwift app, you’ll move to their ride selection screen. This is a big fork in the Zwift road: are you going to do a structured workout, or are you looking to simulate an outdoor ride in their virtual world? The former involves specific intervals and power targets that your trainer will automatically walk you through, and the latter allows you self-dictate your effort level and shift gears as the virtual terrain changes.
If You Are Simulating an Outdoor Ride
If you want to simulate an outdoor ride indoors (ideal for long and/or endurance rides), your Ride Type should say “Just Ride” - do not click “Select Workout.” You do, though, want to select your route - clicking on the drop-down box will pull up a list of routes, which I recommend you scour closely! Routes vary widely in terms of distance and relative elevation gain, so do some quick math and see if you’re picking a flat route, a big climb, or something in between.
After starting, you’ll know that you're in “Just Ride” mode because you'll feel the grade of the road changing with the course, and you'll need to shift gears to maintain your target effort level - just like outside! Your watts will go up when you hit climbs, and will drop on downhills. So, yes, you won't always be spot-on with the watt target - but you wouldn't be spot-on outside, either. Your goal, just like it would be outdoors, is for your overall effort level to match that listed within the workout.
Quick tip: the biggest mistake I see is when athletes execute their endurance days as a structured workout. If you see a big, long endurance-level block in a structured workout, do this as an “outdoor ride.” The only exception to this rule is if you have a recovery day on the calendar and want to ensure that you don’t overdo it - then pulling up the ride as a structured workout is appropriate.
If You Are Doing a Structured Workout
If you have a structured workout shown on your TrainingPeaks calendar, you can execute this in erg mode, or Workout Mode, within Zwift. In Workout Mode, your trainer will control your resistance to match the the prescribed targets for each interval.
Before starting a ride in workout mode, make sure that your TrainingPeaks account is linked to Zwift:
1. Log into Zwift, navigate to your Profile, and view your Connections. (Or just click this link.)
2. Click "Connect" under the TrainingPeaks heading and give Zwift permission to access your TrainingPeaks account.
Once your TrainingPeaks account is linked to Zwift, Zwift will automatically pull that day's structured workout into its list of workout options. To executed a structured workout in Zwift's Workout Mode:
1. Click "Select Workout" for Ride Type (you can ignore the Route option).
2. Find the "Training Peaks Custom Workouts" category (typically all the way at the bottom) and select the workout shown (it will only show workouts for the day you are riding, so if you are rescheduling your week be sure to move the workout to today's date!).
3. When you select the workout, your FTP is shown in the lower right-hand corner. Take a glance, because here's your chance to update your FTP if the number in Zwift is not correct.
4. Click "Workout" to start your ride. You'll know that you're in Workout Mode because while riding, the Zwift app will show the workout intervals on the left, the main information window will show progress relative to the interval, and a rolling 10-minute graph of your power output will be at the bottom of the screen.
If you want to do a structured workout, but don’t have one shown on your TrainingPeaks calendar to auto-import, you have two options: browse their list of structured workouts and pick one that looks good, or select “Custom Workouts” and create one of your own.
Quick tip: to allow your smart trainer to hit the lower end (warm up/cool down/recovery) power targets, it’s best to have your gearing set very, very easy: little ring up front, 2nd or 3rd easiest gear on the cassette. Your trainer can ramp up the resistance to significant levels for those upper end power targets, but it can only go so low before losing contact with your tire.
Using TrainerRoad
First: which devices should you pair? Here are my guidelines based on your set of devices:
1. Standard trainer + speed sensor: No smart trainer? No problem. Pair your speed sensor. Ideally, this will also provide you cadence.
2. Smart trainer, no power meter: Excellent. Pair the smart trainer. If you have a cadence sensor, pair this too.
2. Smart trainer + power meter. Perfect. Pair them both; two options with your specific set up:
(a) You can use the power meter as your power source and use the smart trainer to control resistance (this is the default setup if you pair both and don’t indicate otherwise). Under this setup, the power readings will come from your power meter, which can result in a less smooth and accurate erg mode, e.g., your power will bounce around a bit during intervals, and will generally average out to the interval’s power target but it could be off by a percent or so. This approach is best when your FTP is based on a threshold test using your power meter.
(b) You can indicate in the power meter’s device settings to use the device for cadence only. Under this setup, the power readings will come from your trainer, which will likely be 2-5% lower than the power readings from your power meter but will provide a smoother and more accurate erg mode, e.g., you will hit all power targets pretty much perfectly. If you choose this approach, make sure your FTP is set as your trainer FTP versus your power meter FTP to account for the difference.
4. Optional: pair your HR monitor, so you collect all the data in a single location and it all uploads to TrainingPeaks in a single data file.
Now that you’re officially ready to go, it’s time to work out! In TrainerRoad, the biggest hurdle can be selecting a workout. Here’s how I approach it:
1. If my coach has assigned a specific TrainerRoad workout, I just search for the workout name and I’m on my way.
2. If I have a workout guideline (and endurance ride, or anaerobic intervals, for example) I use the filter option to list workouts that hit my target zone and are of the appropriate duration and select a workout that meets the guidelines.
3. If I have a structured workout provided in TrainingPeaks, I can import that using TrainerRoad’s Workout Creator:
(a) In TrainingPeaks, open the workout, click on the blue down arrow in the upper right corner of the structure workout, download and save the workout file.
(b) If you haven’t already, download TrainerRoad’s Workout Builder (Mac and PC only, no device app available) here.
(c) Open the Workout Creator, and click and drag the workout file into the left-hand column list of workouts.
4. If I’m totally aimless, without any direction given from a coach or training plan, I select a workout from their Sweet Spot Base training plans - all of which are solid workouts that (typically) won’t kill you.
Once you’ve selected a workout, all that’s left to do is pedal. If you have a smart trainer paired, TrainerRoad will adjust resistance automatically to follow the intervals shown in the workout. If you’re on a standard trainer, you’ll want to watch your power output and adjust gears as appropriate to hit the intervals shown.
Two final tips:
1. Many of the pre-built TrainerRoad workouts have “coaching,” instructions and conversations that pop up during the workouts. Overall their “coaching” is of high quality, and their drills in many endurance workouts are very beneficial for pretty much anyone.
2. To allow your smart trainer to hit the lower end (warm up/cool down/recovery) power targets, it’s best to have your gearing set very, very easy: little ring up front, 2nd or 3rd easiest gear on the cassette. Your trainer can ramp up the resistance to significant levels for those upper-end power targets, but it can only go so low before losing contact with your tire.
How to Connect Everything to TrainingPeaks
New to TrainingPeaks? Wondering how to get your watch and other training apps to magically communicate with your schedule, because if you work out and don’t have data - did it really even happen??? Everything you need to know is right here.
1. What to Connect - and How
You’re going to want to connect all your primary data sources to TrainingPeaks: your watch, your bike computer, your trainer software, anything that you use to start-stop-save your workouts.
Because there are too many products and manufacturers to go through the steps to connect each device individually, I’m going to send you to the TrainingPeaks Help Center article on compatible devices, which will send you to precise instructions for connecting each of your devices.
If you use an indoor trainer app such as Zwift or TrainerRoad, you can easily sync those workouts by connecting your two accounts. In Zwift, you’ll go to my.zwift.com/profile/connections to do this, and for TrainerRoad you’ll go to Account Profile -> Ride Sync. In both cases you’ll need to enter your TrainingPeaks username and password to allow the app to upload your workouts.
2. When to Connect
Devices that operate on your wrist or on your bike without constant Internet connection will need to be manually synced (via Cellular, WiFi, or USB cable) upon completion of the workout - typically this is not much more than the push of a button. Apps that operate from your phone, tablet, laptop, etc typically will auto-sync once the workout has saved.
3. Pushing Structured Workouts to Your Devices
If your coach or training plan provides structured workouts (workouts with blue graphs showing varying effort levels), you can export the workout steps to most Garmins, the Wahoo ELEMNT or BOLT, and most indoor training apps. Garmin will find today’s structure workout via the TrainingPeaks Connect IQ app. Wahoo syncs structure workouts using the Wahoo ELEMNT Companion app. Further information about importing structured workouts into Zwift and TrainerRoad can be found here [add link to Zwift / TrainerRoad Primer].
4. Anything Else?
Just because your workouts will automatically upload to TrainingPeaks doesn’t absolve you from looking at the data! You should always review your workouts after completion, to confirm that you did the prescribed workout and to see how your execution lines up with the workout description. Also, you should always add a post-workout comment for your coach!
Deciphering TrainingPeaks Data
For Premium account holders, Training Peaks provides an incredible amount of data on your workouts and training trends - an almost (or actually) overwhelming amount. Rest assured, I am paying attention to this so you don’t have to! But if you’re interested, some clarification on many of the acronyms and what they represent can be found below.
TSS
Where? TSS is found within each workout in the summary data, alongside duration/distance/etc. Your daily TSS is also shown as red dots on the Performance Management Chart (PMC) on your Dashboard.
A Training Stress Score (TSS) is auto-calculated for every workout that has pace, power, or heart rate data along with corresponding training thresholds and zones for that sport and data type. (TSS is calculated using power zones; rTSS is calculated using run pace zones; sTSS is calculated using swim pace zones; hrTSS is calculated using heart rate zones.)
Good news for you: it’s my job to make sure you have training thresholds and zones for each sport. And I’m always happy to share those with you - just ask! - or you can review them in your TrainingPeaks user settings.
If you’re a data geek and want the know the mathematical formula, it boils down to: IF^2 X hours X 100, where IF is the calculated intensity factor for the workout. (Note that an IF of 1.00 means that the intensity factor of your workout was at threshold; an IF of 0.65-0.70 is typically considered an endurance-level bike, 0.70-0.75 is an endurance-level run).
If you’d prefer to ignore the math, conceptually the TSS calculation represents how stressful the workout was on your body, and combines both duration and intensity in determining that value. Keep in mind that short, intense intervals with easy recoveries can result in the same TSS as a steady-state endurance workout of the same duration; hard intervals aren’t always harder than endurance work, what make the TSS increase is how much time you spend above your endurance zone.
As a rule of thumb, a one-hour bike at 0.70IF (endurance level effort) will yield a TSS of 50. A one-hour bike at your endurance effort level will yield a TSS of 55-60. And one hour in the pool typically yields a TSS of 60 - assuming it’s a workout, which is rarely done at endurance effort level.
CTL
Where? In the app, your current CTL is the blue “Fitness” number at the top of your home screen; additionally, your daily CTL is represented by the blue shaded line on the Overall Fitness chart (found by going to Feed -> Charts). On the web, the end-of-week CTL value is shown in blue at the top of the summary data for each week; additionally, your daily CTL is shown as the blue shaded line in the Performance Management Chart (PMC) on your Dashboard.
Your Chronic Training Load (CTL) represents your fitness on any given day, and is calculated as a weighted rolling average of your daily TSS over that day plus 41 prior days - 6 weeks total. The more recent days’ TSS’s carry a higher weight; the TSS’s from several weeks ago carry a lower weight.
Referring above to the typical TSS scores for one hour workouts, a CTL in the 50s means that your fitness level represents the equivalent of about one endurance hour of training on a daily basis, on average. For 70.3-level training, it’s typically to see your CTL peak in the 80s or 90s, and for 140.6-level training you’ll often see your CTL peak well over 100.
You can also anticipate that your CTL will drop during taper. That’s okay! The slight (typically less than 10%) drop in CTL is more than offset by a greater decrease in fatigue.
Ramp Rate
Where? Multiple Ramp Rate charts can be found in the app (Feed -> Charts, scroll till you see Fitness Report) and on your Home page on the web.
Your Ramp Rate indicates the growth rate of your CTL. Each Ramp Rate chart shows a different time period and indicates the corresponding Ramp Rate. Most relevant is your 7-day Ramp Rate: a Ramp Rate of five to eight shows strong growth in fitness. Ramp Rates above eight for a sustained period of time can be a warning sign for overtraining.
ATL
Where? In the app, your current ATL is the pink “Fatigue” number at the top of your home screen; additionally, your daily ATL is represented by the pink shaded line on the Overall Fitness chart (found by going to Feed -> Charts). On the web, the end-of-week ATL value is shown in pink at the top of the summary data for each week; additionally, your daily ATL is shown as the pink shaded line in the Performance Management Chart (PMC) on your Dashboard.
Your Acute Training Load (ATL) represents your fatigue on any given day, and typically varies more dramatically than your CTL. The ATL calculation is based on a 7-day rolling average of your TSS (versus 42 days for your CTL) and is therefore more sensitive to recent training loads and variations.
TSB
Where? In the app, your current TSB is the yellow “Form” number at the top of your home screen; additionally, your daily TSB is represented by the yellow shaded line on the Overall Fitness chart (found by going to Feed -> Charts). On the web, the end-of-week TSB value is shown in yellow at the top of the summary data for each week; additionally, your daily TSB is shown as the yellow shaded line in the Performance Management Chart (PMC) on your Dashboard.
Your Training Stress Balance (TSB) represents your form: your “freshness,” or race readiness. It is calculated by subtracting your ATL from your CTL.
It is very common - in fact, typical - for your TSB to go negative as you start training for your race, and to remain there for the vast majority of your training. How negative? A TSB that ranges from -10 to -30 is considered the optimal training zone. Dipping below that for a day or to during your biggest training weeks is not unusual.
Ideally, your TSB will not go positive until just a few days before race day. On race day itself, we’d like to see a TSB anywhere between +5 and +25, depending on the athlete and the race duration and priority.
Keep in mind that data does vary from athlete to athlete; the above numbers are typical but may not be directly relevant to your data trends.
Having come to the U.S. from Europe over 50 years ago, going “home” to race has a growing special attraction for me. I hope these short race descriptions that I find interesting will spark some hops across the pond.
At the D3 Christmas Party this year just as I was getting to leave, I had a great chat with Team D3 athlete Jason Surface and his wife about Ironman Wales. It confirmed what I had discovered this summer, races are different in Europe. You already know about this if you have ever watched Le Tour de France. One word explains it, SPECTATORS! AKA Fans, rabid fans at that. It changes the whole dynamic of racing.
My experience this year with real crowds was Challenge Roth. This race it’s the largest Ironman distance race in the world when counting spectators and participants. Over 250,000 watch the race and there are over 5,000 participants (including relay teams). And, no, the comma is not in the wrong place. If you spread that crowd out over the 140 miles of the course that’s one person every yard. But they do tend to congregate in the hot spots, like Solar Hill in this picture. Hopefully, this has got your interest for a destination race in Europe. Personally, my next one is Ironman Ireland in Cork. I learned it's full already with 2,500 athletes.
Just to be fair with the rest of the world and the USA, there are plenty of great places to race. And if driving is an option, that eliminates one of the ugly things about going outside the U.S., air travel.
DESTINATION RACES TO CONSIDER
I seem to have picked out some tough races from the many options in Europe. The reason is that the ones I picked are also some of the most spectacular. There are some 'easy' ones, but to be honest, there really is no such thing as an easy triathlon. The hilly ones are just slower. And if you are going to take a long trip you might as well go to someplace special.
Roth (140.6) - Early July
I do have to start with Roth. As mentioned, there are over 250,000 watching the race these days. Everything about the race is spectacular. The swim in a canal that makes it possible to get from the North Sea to the Black Sea by boat is closed Sunday morning for the race, kind of like closing the Mississippi to barge traffic just to allow 3,000-4,000 people to go for a swim. The bike takes you through a magic farmland and small villages with beer gardens full of screaming fans. The run starts in Roth, heads into a forest that at other times might seem like something out of the stories of the Brothers Grimm but during the race is overflowing with more fans, along the banks of the canal with medics on patrol in boats, and back into Roth past several beer gardens, all full of fans. The swim is flat, the bike hilly but more a constant up and down than big long hard hills and the run is not flat but again no killer hills. And it is fast, all the Iron distance race records are held in Roth. Here is a video of this year’s race. My AG started in that first wave with the Pros.
Wales (140.6) - September
I had to pick this second after my conversation with Jason and also from feedback from another D3 athlete, Mark Cooke. From the video it looks like Roth, and Jason and Christine did say that the spectator support was amazing. Unlike Roth, this is not a fast course and not for the faint of heart. The bike and run courses are hilly. Specifically, the bike is very hilly with 6000+ feet of climbing. The swim is in the ocean, with water temps around 60 and the ocean can get rough. But, how can you not get inspired? This is the country of the legend of King Arthur, the birthplace of St. Patrick (if my history is right) and the place from where the English launched their first invasion of Ireland (I know that is correct, I'm Irish).
IronMan Cork (140.6) - Late June
It is full in 2019, but could definitely be worth going to watch this year. The largest contingent of athletes is coming from North America. Like Wales, the water is cold and potentially rough. Looking out on the swim course the next big land mass to your south is Antarctica. The bike is not as extreme as Cork, a bit over 3,000ft. That’s a lot in Ireland where the highest mountain is 3,400, about. The run is dead flat, 4 times through the town of Youghal. Here is the promo video for the race. If you want to see what Youghal looked like when I got thrown out of the local hotel’s restaurant when I was 7 (complained about the food) stream a copy of Moby Dick with Gregory Peck on your TV or take a look at this video. Youghal has lots of history including being the home of the infamous Water Raleigh who introduced tobacco to Europe.
Challenge Davos (70.3) - Middle July
The name should explain it all. Davos is a major ski resort in Switzerland, translated, that’s 1,770 meters of climbing (for Boulder residents that’s a climb up to Ward). Hard? Yes, but you will enjoy every minute of the spectacular views. The run will be a relief from the hills but not the views. The swim in July should be comfortably warm for North Americans. Here is an animated video of the course.
Time Alpe d’Huez (140.2km) - Early August
Staying in the Alps, this one is unique. It will certainly appeal to Tour de France fans. The swim is comfortable in wetsuit waters at about 2,500 ft. The course climbs to about 6,000 ft on the bike, for a total elevation gain of 10,500 ft. Then run is at 6,000. No question a tough race but the location is spectacular, check this out. Have a Fondue feast when you finish.
IronMan Lanzarote (140.6) - May
I am getting the really tough races out of the way first. This one is Kona in Europe, well actually off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic, but part of Spain. It comes complete with volcanoes like Kona except you go up the ones here. There are 5 major bike climbs for a total of 8,200 ft of climbing, but the run course is dead flat. The water is surprisingly cool, but comfortable in a wetsuit. It's 64-66 degrees, with the warm tropical sun on your back. It is spectacular in the same way that the Big Island is spectacular but with an added twist. When you look down from the top of some of the climbs (watch this video) you can see where you swam, and the people look like ants.
IronMan Copenhagen (140.6) - Mid August
If you want a big city race this is a good one, and it gets you out into the picturesque countryside on the bike. It's not as flat as you might think, a bit over 3,000 ft of gain on the bike. The run is only just over 300 ft of gain and never more than 40 ft about sea level. This city is a biking capital so you will feel right at home training before and even going for a fun ride after. Here is what this race looks like.
IronMan France (140.6) - End of June
A bit like Lanzarote, IM France has a flat swim, the water is warmer and a flat run. The bike is the attention getter. The race has a fabled history that goes back to the days of Mark Allen and Dave Scott. Mark dominated this race (long before it became an Ironman) winning 10 times. Slowtwitch interviewed Mark about the race when it did become an Ironman in 2017. Here is along video covering the race. If you want to see one of the major, and very old resorts of Europe, coming here to race is a great excuse.
Some other thoughts:
If going to some places other than Europe is your thing check out this Bucket List from Active. It does include a couple of my favorites. My list above is obviously far from a complete list of races in Europe. If big city races are an attraction, Frankfurt and Hamburg Ironman events should be looked at. London hosts an Olympic distance event that would make for an interesting diversion on a tour of England.
One of the things that makes European races special is the condition of many of the roads. I think the billiard smooth roads of Challenge Roth is one of the reasons it is so fast. Think of the video you have probably seen of the Tour, only when you get up into the high points of the climbs in the Alps and Pyrenees do the roads get really rough (and some of the Irish roads apparently).
The reason for the spectator support is, I think, because the Europeans still enjoy going out for a picnic. When I think about this, I always think of a photo taken during Stage 1 of the 1998 TdF in Ireland. It was pissing rain and blowing like stink. There was a wonderful shot of a large group of lad’s sitting on a stone wall leaning into the wind and rain, pints of the Dark Stuff in their hands and the Peloton flashing past. We do get some great support at races in the US but we are not quite that crazy. Besides, we would get arrested here if we carried around large glasses of Guinness on a race course.
Simon Butterworth recognizes that in the big picture attitude over age can make the difference in many aspects of this sport. There are times in triathlon that to see improvements you need to slow down and spend some time working on your technique – which requires a great deal of discipline. So does having a coach and following the plan written for you. The best coach in the world can only be of help if you’re ready and willing to do the work. Simon is a USAT Certified Coach, USMS Swim Coach and Training Peaks Certified Coach.
Matt and started working with D3 Coach Dave Sheanin a little over a year ago and Dave shared that Matt has made huge gains as a triathlete during that time. He came in with a goal to go sub-5 at a 70.3 (he had been flirting with that 5 hour mark but never got himself under) and then do his first full-distance race this season.
Training went very well through the spring and he toed the line at 70.3 Texas in the spring. At about the halfway point on the run, he was on track for a 4:50 or 4:55 day when he had a major back issue that caused him to have to drop out of the race. We got that issue quickly diagnosed and resolved and he came back 5 weeks later to smash 70.3 Gulf Coast in 4:42, qualifying for the World Championships in South Africa in September. That trip was more of a reward/vacation but he turned in another sub-5 day on a blazing 1:31 run split. We then turned our eyes toward IM Florida in the fall.
Matt trained diligently and made huge gains following the plan, and then Hurricane Michael blew through as we were starting taper and Matt decided to switch to IM Cozumel rather than race the new/modified Florida course. So that gave us an extra couple of weeks and Matt made the most of it, leading to an 11:26 IM rookie debut, despite injuring his foot right at the swim start when he didn't understand the "no bucear" ("no diving") instruction that was announced in Spanish.
What you can see from this summary, and what I appreciate most about working with Matt, is his ability to adapt and adjust as needed. Training progression never happens in a straight line and the best coach/athlete relationships are able to navigate the curves. I can't wait for Matt's second IM next season where I expect he'll be sub-11 and then we can start making longer-term plans for continued improvement at the distance and maybe someday, a big race out in the middle of the Pacific some October!
Enjoy his Q&A below.
1) What was the motivation behind your setting a goal for a sub 5 hour 70.3?
Self-coached, I took myself from a 5:27ish in my 70.3 debut down to a 5:12ish. I languished in a comfort zone, got acclimated to the idea I was a 2:00/swimmer, 19.5mph cyclist, and 7:30/mi. runner, and had a long break from triathlon for an ongoing knee injury. When I finally came back from the injury (basically starting triathlon from scratch), I arbitrarily set a sub-5 goal because it seemed like a good reach and the next natural benchmark. My last race before I joined D3, I went 5:00:40. But sub-5 really isn't the end. Now that I have a 4:42 under my belt, I want to dive into the 4:30s next. I enjoy the process of identifying what I think are my limits, achieving them, stepping into deeper and uncomfortable waters, and then finding out I was wrong all along about what my limits are. Continually setting goals and re-defining my limits is why I find triathlon so rewarding.
Also in part, I have a buddy who is also D3-coached (shout-out Taylor Brinkman!) who is always driving me to get better. We both started in the mid-5s at the beginning of 2017. I took the time down to 5:00:40, he matched and got a 5:01. I took the time down to 4:42, he matched and got a 4:43. So now I obviously need to take the time down even more. Can't be letting him have a time so close to mine... #d3rivalry
2) Describe the situation as you realized you were on target to achieve the goal but had to pull out because of an injury.
I was pretty upset. At Ironman Texas 70.3 I paced very evenly on the swim and had a great bike ride. Based on what I knew I could run, I projected that I'd come in right at 4:50-52. But I began experiencing electric/shock-like pain in my lower back at around mile 4-5, which got progressively worse through about mile 9, where I ultimately pulled out. The pain had just become too debilitating and was affecting my gait and posture (I could feel myself beginning to lean severely to the left). It was a very difficult decision to DNF, and that decision stuck with me for a long while after I walked off the race course. I kept second-guessing my decision and eventually decided to sign up for Ironman Gulf Coast 70.3, which was only four weeks after my failed attempt in Galveston.
3) Please share your thoughts on qualifying for the 70.3 World Championships.
In Florida, I had a great day. I had what was at the time a PR swim, a PR 2:23 bike ride, and started my half marathon knowing I only needed to run something like an 8:30 minute per mile average to achieve my sub-5 goal. I held around a 7:20 average for the half marathon . . . I just didn't want the wheels to fall off, and it was hot out. I finished in 4:42 and not only went sub-5 but went 8-10 minutes faster than what I was projecting I'd finish Ironman Texas 70.3 in. Lauren (my wife) and I decided to go to the award ceremony just for kicks. I wasn't in the top 2 so a slot wasn't a guarantee, but we figured it could be fun and that there may be some possibility of getting a slot. The first slot was promptly scooped up, but somehow the second slot rolled down to me. It was an exciting experience getting to go out to the World Championships and compete with tons of amazing athletes. Plus the safaris . . . animal reserves . . . etc. Those weren't shabby either. It was a great trip for Lauren and I.
4) You had to make a choice between IM Florida with a modified course or shifting toward IM Cozumel. Why did you decide IM Cozumel?
Honest answer? Because my wife, who is my amazing and biggest supporter, and who knew she would be out there for 10+ hours watching my first full Ironman, wanted to watch me from a beach with a margarita in her hand, not from the modified Ironman Florida course in Haines City.
5) This was your first Ironman ... in 10 words or less, please describe it!
A first-timer's haiku:
Swim then bike then runThought it was a good ideaOuch that really hurt
6) What is one of your favorite (or not-so-favorite) Coach Dave workouts?
Whenever he throws me challenging interval workouts on the track or trainer. Anything that pushes me out of my comfort zone and makes me go harder, push more watts, run faster, or go longer than I think I can.
7) Coach Dave recognizes that you are able to adapt and adjust. Speak to how you learned those skills (as not everyone can) and how that flexibility helped you navigate your training.
I have a very demanding full-time job that is constantly forcing me to move things around, plan and time my day to a 't', etc. By nature we have to adapt and adjust, or else we will never train. Dave gives me great workouts and a great structure that I then may make several adjustments to (shifting workouts around where needed). I try to always visualize what the whole week will look like in totality and am always actively planning outside the boundaries of TrainingPeaks to make sure I get everything in, have good spacing between each type of workout, etc. That's probably the biggest thing. The plan on TP isn't just something I log in and read . . . it is a plan I am constantly internalizing and integrating into all the other obligations I have that week.
One way to get the same results, race in and race out, season in and season out, is to continue doing the same thing. While this may be great if you have the perfect race every time, more often than not, there is definite room for improvement. After each race, and then at the end of each season, every athlete should take stock of the things that they did well and the things that they can improve upon.
Post-Race Analysis
After every race write down on a 3x5 index card three things you did well and would like to repeat and three things that didn’t go smoothly and you would like to improve upon. Important things to focus on might include:
When you are done with your index card, make a second copy. One goes into your race bag for you to review before the next race. Use the second copy to discuss a plan with your coach to address the things you would like to improve upon. It is not enough to just “think” about these items. You want a plan to help you address any issues during your next training block.
Post-Season Analysis
Similarly, to how you approach post-race analysis, you want to conduct a post-season analysis also. You want to do this reflection while it is still fresh in your mind. It is during this process that you can take notes for next season. If you have a coach it will help the coach tailor your plan to address any weakness and emphasize your strengths from last season.
Important points to consider and make note of might include:
This type of analysis dovetails nicely with setting your next season goals. It allows you to put a framework in place with which to build a plan to achieve success next season.
Many triathletes spend hours training and thinking about training. Spend the little extra time to take stock after your races and your season and you may well see big improvements in the future. As Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.”
USAT and USATF Certified Coach Bill Ledden views consistency as one of the most important variables in determining success. Doing the hard work of committing to a training plan and communicating regularly with your coach reduces the likelihood of injury, accelerates progress and keeps you motivated. Only by pushing your limits and hitting key targeted workouts, will you make your goals a reality!
When the snow shovel comes out of the shed and fines its winter home on the hook next to the front door, it can mean only one thing “it’s the off-season.” For many of us, it’s time to recharge and recuperate from a long racing season were rest and recovery are essential components of a yearly training plan. However, before you head to the couch, there are a couple of items that need to be taken care of.
The time you take to formulate training goals and construct a yearly racing calendar will pay dividends as the season progresses. So, enjoy the time off, spring is right around the corner.Coach George has a passion for knowledge and believes it’s the key to maximizing your potential. I keep abreast of the latest scientific studies, always trying to find more efficient and validated means of coaching my athletes. Knowledge in the form of communication is just as important. George is a USAT Certified Coach, and holds a number of credentials to ensure your race day success.
