Posted on Jan 25, 2012 under fitness, Geek Out! | Comments are off
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 🙂
I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. The build quality of this unit is extremely high. It’s clear that TRX spent a good amount of thought to ensure they were building a strong, durable and safe piece of training equipment. The system also comes with a workout book that contains exercises and workout/conditioning programs.
I’ve only done the 1st 4 workouts in the series, but I can tell you for a 30-45 minute workout, you really feel it. Many of the exercises force the use of small stabilizing muscles and a lot of core strength. Strengthen the core and you get stronger everywhere.
Yes it’s a bit spendy, but it’s portable, well thought out and durable. I think it’s good value for the money and definitely a nice cross training aide for triathletes who spend a lot of time swimming, biking and running, but little time strengthening other muscles to avoid injury or become just generally stronger. Compared to so many other tools that triathletes spend money on, it’s pretty cheap. Compared to a gym membership, it’s very inexpensive.
Posted on Dec 19, 2011 under Factoids, fitness | Comments are off
This is a great video analysis showing the benefits of engaging the hamstrings as part of running technique. Turn-over drills make more sense to me now. Definitely something I’m going to start keeping in the forefront of my mind as I run.
Posted on Jul 28, 2011 under Factoids, fitness | Comments are off
Do you read the Sweat Science blog? If you don’t you may want to. Great articles over there all the time. Here are a couple of recent ones worth a read.
I drove up to Gravenhurst on Friday 1/2 planning to camp in the back of the pickup, 1/2 hoping to find a motel on the cheap to rest my head. I got lucky! Most of Gravenhurst was sold out, but I managed to find a closet-of-a-room in a small motel across from the Howard Johnson’s for cheap. This room was *small*. With me, my gear, and bike in the room I had to walk on the bed to get to the door. Small! But… there were no bugs, no dew falling in the room and the bed was comfortable and clean, so I won 🙂
After checking in and unloading, I pre-drove the bike route. Not as good as pre-riding, but I wanted to save my legs for Saturday and was still feeling my century from last weekend a bit. Driving the course a few things struck me: the course was beautiful(!) so much nature and scenery, but the road was not terrific; however, the MSC staff had already been down the course (probably multiple times) with road marking paint, highlighting potholes and other road hazards (Great work folks!!! Thank you!), the course was nice and roller-y and generally felt more downhill on the way out and more uphill on the return path and that a great deal of the course was heavily treed (no wind, shade, but possibly also hot and humid).
I decided that based on the sheltered nature of the course, unless I woke up to a gale, I’d run my tri-spoke front and disc rear. My disc had a pretty aggressive cassette on it (11-21), so I quickly switched it over to a more hill-centric cassette (11-25), gave the bike a quick once over. Put some fuel down my hatch and went to bed.
Race Prep
Woke Saturday morning at 1am and ate a banana and went back to sleep til 5 when my alarm went off. Ate some blueberries and yogurt, packed the car and headed off to the race site. In the morning I was sipping a blend of hornet-juice, carbo-pro, EFS drink and EFS pre-race. I missed my morning coffee ritual and I believe that set me up for some problems later in the day (more on that below).
Pre-race checkin was flawless as I’ve come to expect with the MSC events. Quick and clean. Got my bike racked, my transition area setup, last minute checks done and did some stretching and some pre-race meditation.
Race Start and the Swim
The race start for Gravenhurst is modeled after the Escape from Alcatraz race, where the start is offshore and you’re ferried there by one of the steamships at the Gravenhurst wharf. I used the time on the steamer to continue my pre-race meditation, to focus on my heart-rate and breathing and to try to stay on the of the pre-race adrenalin rush.
Arriving at the start in the steamer we all exited the boat and spent a few minutes in the water at the start line. I positioned myself middle-middle and waited for the ship’s horn as our start. HOOOT! And we’re away. My meditation and focus pre-race seemed to be working well. I kept telling myself: “swim your race”, “don’t cross over”, “breathe”, “relax”. It was great! I didn’t get my panic attack 30 seconds into the race from starting out waaay to fast as I have in the 2 previous races. Clearly, I’m starting to get a bit of control over my swim-race psychology.
Now, in hindsight my swim time wasn’t stellar 2:18/100m (according to my watch, which I started just as I started swimming and finished a few seconds out of the water my pace was 2:10/100, which I’m happier about) is pretty slow and I can do/have done better, but I was so focused on pacing and holding myself back that I didn’t open the throttle too much at all. So the pendulum swung the other way a bit too far – rather than having a panic attack because I was going hell-for-leather, I was sitting back in a comfy chair drinking a mint-julep. Next time, I’ll strike for a more center-line chord 🙂
T1 and Bike
Coming out of the swim, and into T1 all was flowing well. My T1 time was good, tho I need to remember some PAM or chub-rub or something to try to help get my wetsuit off a little faster. Out onto the bike course all was pretty good. I mount my bike, shoes already in pedals, elastic bands holding the shoes in the right places and off I go. All is pretty good until…
I went to put my left foot into my shoe to discover that I hadn’t opened the velcro closure, so I’m riding up a slow grade, one foot in a shoe, the other trying to figure out it’s way into a closed shoe. Then trying, nearly in vain, to open the velcro. Then opening it so far that I pull the strap right out of the closing loop. Eventually, I give up and stop. Fix the shoe, get my foot in it and pedal away, muttering not-repeatable obscenities at myself. It kinda reminded me of Macca here:
Other than blowing probably 2-3 minutes wrestling with my shoes (yes I won’t be doing that again), the bike course went really well. My cassette choice from the day before was good, the bike was performing well, I was hydrating and fueling ok (more on this later). Generally felt really good on the bike, though I wasn’t passing nearly as many people as in previous races, so this told me that the field here was definitely stronger (perhaps not surprising given the number of Canadian national team members in attendance and the number of elites 🙂 ).
At 25km into the 40k bike I pulled the pin on an EFS Holy Handgrenade to help pump me up for the climb back into T2 and for the following 10k run. Damn that’s good stuff. Tastes like hell, but does it work. Definitely encourages hydration!
My pre-drive was right – the trip back definitely felt like more climbing than descending. Still no crazy hills, nothing that had me needing to get out of the saddle and throw the bike around to get up. Just gear down and keep spinning. Did have a few 650+watt spikes, but not many and nothing sustained to burn out the legs.
T2 and Run
My Bike through T2 was pretty clean. T2 transition for me is usually pretty simple. If I were comfortable running without socks I could probably shave another 30 seconds, but don’t know that I want to risk my feet for 30 seconds… Off into the run my legs were ledden.. need to do more brick workouts to get these puppies working better after spinning. About 1k into the run I developed the desire super urgent need to pee. I tried to ignore it, but there was no ignoring it. Off to the side of the road… aaaaaah… ok there goes 45 seconds… maybe a minute… starting running again… GI cramping. Hrm.. is this a nutrition problem or a coffee ritual problem…” just keep running, the cramp will go away”, I tell myself. Every water station I took on water and doused myself. It was hot! Really hot! Cramps turned into runners gas. I started feeling bad for anyone behind me, and hoping that the gas remained gas and didn’t try to become solid (it stayed gas, fortunately, but the cramps didn’t go). Picked up the pace in the last couple of km, more in the last km, sprinting in the last 300m.
Post Race
Immediately post race, while superheated and crampy, I found the milk booth where they were giving out free chocolate milk. I slammed one back and grabbed another to sip. Almost immediately finishing the 2nd container it hit my crampy, super-hot stomach and I felt like I was going to loose it. I felt faint, nauseous and like I was going to vomit. I dunked my hat and a towel in some icewater and put them on to try to cool off. Stuck my hands in some icewater, found some shade and sat. And sat… and sat… Eventually after over an hour, I start to regain normalcy. Still crampy but less so.
After the race I had to do another hour training run. I grabbed my fuelbelt and some water and headed out. Damn it was HOT… it was probably 1pm at this point and the sun was just beating you down. Even with my litre of water in the fuelbelt I was dehydrated. On the way out I stopped at a garden centre and had a shower in their hose, then stopped at a home hardware to use their washroom and cooled off in their sink. On the way back also stopped at the garden centre for another quick cool off.
Nutrition Review
My pre-race sipping drink seemed to set me up well for the swim. 250 calories and a bunch of “go go” juice.
On the bike I had the EFS Handgrenade, water in the speedfil, and 2 waterbottles with hornet-juice, efs and 2 scoops of carbo-pro (360cal/bottle), also had a flask of hammergel espresso. I only consumed the handgrenade, 60% of 1 of the waterbottles of fuel, a small sip of the hammergel (not even 1 serving), and not nearly enough water.
On the run, I had a flask of EFS liquid shot that I had a couple of small sips of and was only taking water from the aide stations
What would I change? On the bike, I was carrying far too much fuel for the duration of the race, and not consuming enough of all that I did carry. Why take the weight if you’re not going to consume it?! I also carried bike tools, co2 and a spare tubular, but had no intention of changing a flat at the side of the road, so again, carrying extra weight for no good reason.
The big problem for me was the cramping during the run. At 4pm, when my body finally had some coffee in it and it went to the washroom, the cramping finally stopped… I had the feeling that this was probably the root cause for most of the day, but couldn’t convince my body that it was time to go anytime prior to 4 after the double espresso I had before my drive home kicked in. Why didn’t I have coffee in the morning? I dunno.. it’s not like there wasn’t a 24h Tim’s a block from my motel?
Lesson: don’t change anything on race day! It doesn’t seem to matter how many times you drill it in to your head, something innocuous always seems to “get you” 🙂
In Closing
Many thanks to the MSC staff and volunteers and all the contracted personel (police, ambulance, photographers, time takers, massage, Hero Burgers, etc.) for making the day so thoroughly enjoyable! You all ROCK!
A few weeks ago I was very fortunate to receive an evaluation RCX5 from Polar to review for the readers of my blog. I’d hoped to get the complete configuration, that included the watch, hrm, gps, foot pod, and bike cadence and speed sensors; however, unfortunately, there are no gps units to be found. 🙁 That being said, Polar did ship me all the other parts of the kit for evaluation. Pretty awesome!
First Impressions
My current training watch is the Timex Ironman Global Trainer. I generally like the Timex, but it’s not without it’s problems: it’s huge, needs constant charging, and the HRM transmitter is not compatible with the powermeter cpu on my bike. When I unpacked the RCX5 I was immediately struck by how much smaller it is than my timex.
Timex Global Trainer vs RCX5 Size Comparison
The polar is small and stylish enough that you could just wear it as a day to day watch. This makes sense as the GPS functionality that’s built into the Timex is a separate piece of equipment with the RCX5.
Swim
The evaluation kit arrived at my office on a Friday afternoon a few weeks ago. Lately Fridays have been my open water swim day. This Friday was not an exception and I was eager to take the RCX5 into the water. Not having hrm data from my swim sessions, I find very annoying. (Yes I’m a data monkey, I know it. As a triathlete, I also know I’m not alone in my hunger for performance data and desires to use that data to improve.) I was definitely watching the clock to get out of the office and to the beach to give the RCX5 a test in some open water, with a wetsuit on. Happy to report: the RCX5 worked flawlessly in the water. It collected heart-rate data through my entire 1.5hr swim.
Data Upload/PolarPersonalTrainer.com
Later, when I got home, I installed the Polar Websync software, uploaded the workout to Polar’s site and exported the data so that I could upload it to TrainingPeaks.com. The watch sync is done wirelessly to a USB dongle, this is pretty nice. My desk and livingroom chair areas are scattered with cables from various devices. Wireless (and not infrared) is definitely a big improvement that Polar has brought forward with the RCX5. Polar’s website is pretty nice, it allows you to do some pretty good detailed analysis of the workout.
I’ve been training and capturing my training data to trainingpeaks.com for far too long to even think about moving (and Polar’s site is really about workout/training analysis, and doesn’t have the nutrition tracking and other features that trainingpeaks has). At this time there is no sync of data between Polar’s website and Trainingpeaks.com. You have to manually export and upload your workout data to trainingpeaks.com. I’m told that many have asked for this integration and that it’s high on Polar’s priority list. The export and manual upload isn’t difficult, it’s just an extra step that would be nice to have automatic. Syncing workouts to dailyburn would also be a plus 🙂
Run
Saturday is long-run day, so I strapped up the RCX5 foot pod, wore my Timex and the polar (and 2 hrm straps) and went for a 3 hr run. Once again, the RCX5 operated flawlessly. Even without calibration the foot pod measured my distance to within about 2km of that the Timex reported. Without the GPS module the RCX5, of course, didn’t capture my route data, but unfortunately, the run also highlighted something about the RCX5 that is a bit of a short-fall for me: the RCX5, even with the GPS module, does not capture altitude changes. This may not matter to some, but I frequently look back at workout logs and to not have the piece of data that explains that my HR and speed were doing odd things because I was climbing some heartbreak hill, is a definite gap.
Bike
Sunday was long ride day. On my bike I normally train with a power meter. Just having speed cadence and HR is definitely a step back for me, but I strapped up the sensors on my bike and we took it for a spin.
Unfailingly the RCX5 did it’s job. It captured and reported the data flawlessly. Also of note, the dual mode hrm strap works with my power meter, so I only had to wear 1 hrm strap to get both cpu’s receiving heart-rate telemetry.
Other Features
One of the features that I didn’t spend a lot of time with on the RCX5 is the Zone Optimizer. I go for regular VO2Max testing and so have a much more accurate view of my HR zones than the Zone Optimizer could offer, yet as a test I did take it out for a run to see what it’d tell me. The zone optimizer measures your HR and activity as you are guided through some warmup steps. Based on how your body reacts to the warmups it sets a heart rate zone profile for you. In the small test I did it was surprisingly accurate. Certainly close enough for the average, not completely hung up on data, recreational athlete. I believe that the zone optimizer also takes past workout history data into account, so in theory, the more one used it, the more accurate it’d become.
I really love the customizable displays on the RCX5. Each sport has up to 6 workout displays that you can customize to display the data you most want to see at any given time. This is pretty slick and a smart use of a modern individually addressable lcd pixel display. My 2 favorite additions to the display were 2 graphs. One that shows graphically which HR zone you’re currently in and another graph that shows, for the workout, the distribution of your heart rate data broken down by zone.
Race Day
On July 16th I raced in the Gravenhurst Olympic Distance Triathlon (and then did a 10k training run afterwards). I decided to wear the RCX5 for the race as a final test. As before swim, bike and run data were captured without fail. Transitioning between 1 event and another is not quite as clean as the Global Trainer in it’s multisport mode and the RCX5 doesn’t capture transition timing (at least not obviously to me), but the RCX5 certainly was not at all cumbersome in this regard, it just required perhaps a few seconds more focus than the Timex (a happy compromise to get HRM data in the water and only wear 1 HRM strap on the bike I may add).
My Wish List
My wish list for the RCX5, all things that can be worked around without a lot of fuss btw:
Multiple HR zone profiles: it’d be nice to be able to share an expensive piece of equipment like this between myself an my wife or, in my case, knowing that my HR zones are different between the 3 different sports being able to have HR zones tied to sport profiles would be AMAZING. No device on the market today has this feature and probably very few athletes would care, but I do 🙂
Data sync between Polar’s website and TrainingPeaks, DailyMile, etc.
Final Thoughts
In summary, I think the RCX5 is a pretty great piece of technology. Unfortunately, I couldn’t test it with the GPS module, but I believe that with the GPS module and google maps, you could address the lack of altitude change capture by comparing your workout data to elevation change data from the mapping source. The RCX5’s modern technology, modular approach and flawless functionality make it a strong contender in the multi-sport space.
Thanks to Polar for the opportunity to evaluate this leading edge piece of gear!
Sprint triathlon #2 in the bag. Very happy with my results. We had probably near perfect weather for racing: mostly overcast, a little cool, variable breezes/light winds.
Place
Name
City
Bib#
Time
Category
55
Rick YAZWINSKI
Toronto
ON
CAN
123
1:49:41.4
M40-44
Category
Place
Gender
Place
750m
SWIM
Cat Ovr Time /100m
RunUp
30 km
BIKE
Cat Ovr Time km/h
7.5 km
RUN
Cat Ovr Time /km
Tr1
Tr2
6/23
12 123 17:33 2:21
0:50
2 21 50:02 36.0
13 111 37:51 5:03
2:01
1:27
Swim
MSC did a time-trial start on the swim, which eliminated the washing-machine start and I really liked it. Great idea. Once again, started too hot: pacing too fast, not breathing properly = panting, slowing down, breast stroke (grrr!) Once past this, I find my stroke and tempo and the swim just flows past as the water flows past me. Some of this is pure psychology of the race, some is inexperience and some is not being used to swimming w. other people/passing/etc. I’ll nail these down over time and the Toronto Triathlon Club OW swim sessions may help with this too. I started in position 123 (bib number) and finished in position 123. So while I passed people in the swim, based on my time, I just held my spot. Ok, I guess, but getting past the poor starts will help me move that ranking up.
Bike
Destroyed the course on the bike. Average speed of 36km/h, average power of 220W and peak of 572W. I was passed 3 times on the bike course and lost count of the number of prey that I consumed. 2nd of age-group on the bike, 21st of 249 overall. Very happy with this.
1/2 way through the bike course the route did a 180 reversal. I knew this from the pre-ride and from studying the route map. I planned ahead to take on nutrition at this forced-slowdown. The nutrition I took in was an “EFS Bomb” (1/2 flask of EFS Shot, 1/2 scoop of EFS Pre-race, remainder water). The EFS bomb provides aminos, electrolytes, 200 calories of energy, caffeine and a few other stimulants. I felt this kick in after about 15 minutes, it had me pumped for the last 25% of the bike and completely prepped to start the run.
Run
Felt good coming off the bike into the run. Pulled my initial pace back pretty hard to find my legs and had a little gastro cramping. Just ignored the cramps and they passed pretty quickly. After about 1 km, picked up to about a 6 min/km pace. At 4km, picked up to about a 5 min/km pace and for the last 1.5km gave it everything I had left (about a 4min/km pace). Finished 13/23 in age group (mid pack, meh) and 111/249 overall (again mid-pack and again meh). More bricks, more speed run work.
Met and spoke with John Salt of MSC. Super-nice guy! Very concerned with making sure the athletes are safe and have a good day, very open to suggestions and thoughts. So glad to have met him and look forward to many future events with MSC.
Many thanks to John, the MSC staff and all the amazing volunteers for making the day so much fun.
Posted on Jun 23, 2011 under fitness, Raves | Comments are off
I just got word from Polar that they’re going to ship me an evaluation unit of the RCX5 for a blog review. I’m very excited. I like my Timex Global Trainer, but find that the GPS isn’t super and regret that the HRM doesn’t work in the water.
Just a teaser, but wanted to let you know a review will be forthcoming. I’ll let you know when the unit arrives!
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