Internal Mono(b)log

Some count 7, others 4, yesterday talking to a buddy, I came up with 9 distinct disciplines of long course triathlon training: Swim, Bike, Run (the obvious 3), Nutrition (everyone includes this), Rest/Recovery, Work/Life Balance, Stretching and Cross-training, Mental Preparedness and Education.  You may agree or disagree with my categories but lets walk through them.

Swim, Bike and Run: won’t spend any time here.  We all know that you need to train to perform.  2 pieces of sage advice that I’ve heard around these: Train your weakest sport, race your strongest (obvious, but so many people avoid their weak sport and train their strenght, what’s that!?) and The definition of crazy is repeating the same actions expecting different results (you have to mix up your training or you’ll plateau – again obvious, but frequently overlooked).

Nutrition: A great deal has been written on nutrition.  I’ll follow later in this series with my personal nutrition practices and beliefs.  Too much to say here for an article on “many disciplines”.  Stay tuned.

Rest/Recovery: I never used to “get” rest/recovery days.  I thought “I’m not tired.  I’m ready to go!  Why am I sitting around?!  This is dumb!”  Well through this last cycle of training I started to not only understand, but to look forward to rest days.  The program I’ve been working on with my coach Ian McLean (owner of imfit.ca) has had me doing power and tempo work on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and longer duration endurance workouts on Saturday and Sunday.  Providing a rest day on Monday and Friday.  With the intensity of these last few build cycles, those rest days were welcome.  In fact, even after the single rest days I could still feel some fatigue from the previous workouts.  I can only imagine how poor my performance would be without the rest!

Work/Life Balance: I’m not a pro triathlete, I wish I was.  I’m not independently wealthy, a lottery winner, or a trust-fund kid (if anyone would like to provide me ongoing financial aide without any repayment obligation, I’m all ears: go!).  I have a spouse,  job, a house and mortgage, pets, bills, renovations to do, etc. etc. etc.   It’s important to make sure that you, as an age grouper, are fitting your training into your life, not fitting your life into your training.  As training ramps up close to a race this may invert, but take care to restore the balance after the event.  You may have to play catchup at work or at home to make up for your distractions as you got closer to the big day.  Make sure you keep an eye on that balance.  For me, I typically try to do my training very early while Kim sleeps, or when she’s at work, leaving us quality time together.

Stretching and Cross-training: Maybe this should be 2 disciplines, unsure.  I’ve found 2 things as I train and race: the muscles I use get tight, the muscles I don’t use get weak.  This is the perfect equation for muscle imbalance injuries!  Think about it – just think about your arms: you swim, bike and run.  Swim, pulling on the water/pulling yourself through the water – key word here “pulling”. Bike, arms largely unused, but if anything you’re pulling on the bars – again “pull”. Run, your arms are counterweights and typically just gently locked in a position and swinging from the shoulders – not pulling, but still fatiguing the “pull muscles” to keep your arm bent for hours at at time.  Ever get elbow pain or forearm pain near the elbow?  For me, this indicates that I’ve not been cross-training the contrary-muscles enough to keep balance in the joint.  The same is true for run muscles, swim muscles and never overlook the benefits of a strengthened core (everything from below your pectoral muscles to your butt). Stretching, for me, is about releasing that contrary, constant, imbalanced strain: as you strengthen muscles will tend to shorten, you need to keep them stretched and long, while building that strength.  Stretching is a necessary part of any conditioning program where you need to preserve functional movement.  I’ve lately been doing Active Release Technique Therapy with Dr Tyler Linn at The Performance Health Center twice a week and have noticed great improvements in flexibility and recovery.

Mental Preparedness: Perhaps also mental toughness.  Here I refer to a few things: having a mental game plan for “the day”: how will I handle “situation x” when things aren’t going perfectly; but also, mental toughness to get out in the rain, snow, sun, heat, etc.  to go out when you’re tired and not “feeling it”.  Chrissie Wellington and others have written a great deal on this. The toughness to have the discipline to keep to your plan, to race your plan, to keep your food log, to stick to your training program, to not lie to yourself.   This can be a hard one for some people (myself included at times). Our ability to rationalize is incredible, as we get older (like older that 5) we can do this pretty effectively, especially to ourselves.  Personally, I find “black and white rules” work super well for me.

And finally Education: you are a laboratory of 1.  What works for me may not (likely won’t) work for you. My nutrition choices may not be yours.  My running gait and style may work for me, but not you.  My training program may work for me, but not for you.  There may be new research released that indicates a better approach to some other discipline, you can educate yourself and choose to try it or not.  All I’m saying here is that there is no 1 true and only way.  Your approach and needs will change over time.  Staying up to date with new products, research, training approaches, etc. gives you options.  You may choose to incorporate or experiment with the new to see if it works (better) for you, or just put it aside because you’re happy with your current approach.  It’s just good to have the choice.  There are so many great resources available to athletes now from youtube, podcasts and blogs, online coaches, magazines, etc. There’s really no excuse.

As I said earlier, your mileage may vary with these groupings.  They make sense to me 🙂