One of the things that I like to do as a coach is test out little theories I have on myself before I inflict them on my athletes. So, this fall I conducted a little experiment and the results confirmed those from the last time I conducted a similar test back in '94.
First a little background .... at the end of the '93 season, I decided to stop racing in the men's elite division as 1) I wasn't happy with my performances 2) I was getting burned out 3) I'd stopped enjoying racing 4) I was finding it difficult to dedicate the time to the sport .... and so on.
So, I made the decision that in 1994 I would focus on running with a goal to bring my marathon time below 2:40. This shouldn't have been beyond the realm of possibility: I was running sub-7s on my long runs; my easy runs were at 6:30 pace and my hard runs started getting hard when I went faster than about 5:40. I'd been introduced to Dave Moorcroft (the former 5,000m world record holder) and he'd given me a "oh-my-God-I'm-gonna-die-if-I do-another-rep" interval set of 4 x 1 mile in 5 minutes with 1 mile "jog" recoveries in 7:30 ..... don't try this with a full stomach! Looking back at my training log for 1993, I was averaging 12-15,000 meters a week in the pool, 100-120 miles on the bike and about 30 miles of running. I'd typically run 3 or 4 times per week. Mondays were the hard day: intervals like the 4 x 1 mile set or a 6-7 mile hard run with guys who were a lot faster than me. On Wednesday I ran long: 11-15 miles and on Saturday I did a tempo (or sustained run as we used to call it then) which was another 6 miler. I'd also throw in a fourth run of 8-10 miles at a steady pace if one of my bike sessions got rained off (a not infrequent occurrence in Britain!)
So in 1994, I more or less gave up swimming and biking and increased my running mileage dramatically: a 50+ mile week became the norm and I managed to log a few 70 mile weeks in the Spring of 1994.
So what were the results?
Firstly, I got injured. Particularly, when I did high mileage weeks. Nothing serious but, I was always getting little aches and pains and twinges that would force me into additional rest days.
Secondly, and most importantly, I didn't really improve as a runner. I tested myself at the Rutland mini-marathon which is a 16.5 mile event and I only improved my time by 4 minutes over the previous year. Now, OK, this is 15 seconds a mile quicker which is nothing to be ashamed of but, and it's a big but, the previous year was the first time that I'd run the event and I wasn't familiar with the course. All I knew was that the course was hilly and that there were a couple of long nasty hills. This meant that the first year I ran pretty conservatively, I knew that the last big hill was at 12 miles so I didn't really start to pour on the effort until the last four miles. In 1994, I knew the course and was able to ration my effort a lot better .... my feeling is that 3 minutes or my 4 minute improvement came from pacing the race better, rather than being a better runner!
This fall I decided to repeat the experiment with a view to competing at the cross- country Nationals and having come off of decent triathlon season. In the tri- season, I'd run around 20 mpw increasing to around 27 mpw for a six-week block before the State Championships. In doing so, I'd also increased my average running pace from just over 9's to around 8:20 by increasing the amount of speed work and running four days a week rather than 3.
Two weeks after the end of the season, I won my AG at the Witch's Hat 5k with a time of 20:29.
I then gave up swimming and cut down biking to my Sunday ride only while ramping up my running mileage to an average of 50 miles per week which, included 6-7 runs rather than the 3-4 that I managed during the tri season.
So what happened?
Well, firstly, I got injured! Again, it's nothing that actually stops me running: I've got a swollen "runner's knee", but I need to ice it and it's quite painful on occasion.
Secondly, once again, I didn't get much faster. I've improved my 5k time to 20:11.
So what's the takeaway from all this? My view is that I've confirmed the findings of the Firman Institute and I'd recommend reading "Run Less, Run Faster". They've done a lot of research that shows that 3 high quality runs per week PLUS cycling and swimming as cross training is better that 6-7 runs per week for most age-group athletes. (NB .... age groupers refers to everyone who a) isn't in the National team or b) doesn't get paid to compete i.e. more or less everybody).
Why is this? The research indicates that most of us don't do enough quality runs because we're too tired to do them properly i.e. our fast days are too slow and our slow days are too fast.
Having now done the experiment twice and got the same result both times, I think I'm ready to incorporate the Firman principles into my own triathlon training plans.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
I'm the State Champion is my Age-Group!!!!
Under normal circumstances I'd be pretty pleased with this. It was my 'A' race for the season and I achieved my goal. Unfortunately, the race wasn't well supported and many of the guys who could have probably beaten me didn't show up.
I think that there are four reasons for this lack of support ....
I realized by the start of the run that there was nobody in my age-group in front of me. Also, although he was only a couple of minutes in front of me at the start of the run, I know Kraig is a much better runner, so there wasn't a chance of winning the master's category overall. I ended up just about running hard enough so that I didn't get overtaken and finished in 13th place overall.
It's a funny feeling when you achieve your goal in your 'A' race but feel disappointed because there was nobody else there to make a race of it.
Maybe, I'll try to peak for Ann Arbor in 2010 as that race seems to attract a higher level of competition although I'm not really a June racer. ..... might do Chicago instead, although it's a lot more expensive and I'd really rather spend the money in-State..
I think that there are four reasons for this lack of support ....
- 3 Disciplines might declare the race to be the State Championships but, so what? It's no more of a qualifier for Nationals than any other USAT- sanctioned event. There are accredited events at regional level but there are no "official" State Championships in any State.
- The event seems to be cursed weather-wise. In 2007, it was 38 degrees on race morning; in 2008 it rained heavily and this year it was 50 degrees and blowing a gale.
- The day of the event was poorly chosen. It clashed with the Chicago Triathlon and with IM Kentucky!
- If we set point #1 aside and we agree that it is desirable to have a State Championship event, shouldn't the race organization treat it as such and make it a bit special? For example, at the prize giving Eric Fernando, Kraig Schmottlach and I were all sitting at the same table. Eric won the race overall, Kraig won the men's masters and I won the men's 45-49. Our prizes were picture frames with a kind of hand-made certificate inside them .... let's say with an intrinsic value of fifty cents. Now some of the prizes in the raffle on the other hand were worth having .... heart monitors, kit bags, Hammer Nutrition products etc.. I don't think any of us really race for prizes but, it would be kinda nice if the award you got for winning was better than the one for getting lucky in the raffle!
I realized by the start of the run that there was nobody in my age-group in front of me. Also, although he was only a couple of minutes in front of me at the start of the run, I know Kraig is a much better runner, so there wasn't a chance of winning the master's category overall. I ended up just about running hard enough so that I didn't get overtaken and finished in 13th place overall.
It's a funny feeling when you achieve your goal in your 'A' race but feel disappointed because there was nobody else there to make a race of it.
Maybe, I'll try to peak for Ann Arbor in 2010 as that race seems to attract a higher level of competition although I'm not really a June racer. ..... might do Chicago instead, although it's a lot more expensive and I'd really rather spend the money in-State..
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Mid-race Crises
One of the things that I do better as a Masters athlete than I did when I was racing Men's Elite is handle things going wrong. Part of this is that I no longer have any expectation of winning a race overall and I'm generally happy to be on the podium in my age-group. So I don't really get nervous before races any more and, when stuff happens, I'm more willing to accept that it just wasn't my day and look forward to the next race.
A good example this season was the Battle of Waterloo: a new event, by a new organizer EST events. As I mentioned before, I really like events that are a bit different and this certainly fits the bill. It's a ten stage run-bike-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-bike-run. Most of the running is cross- country and the only things that I'd have liked more is to have had a few thousand feet of vertical climbing on both the bike and the run ..... although, I do accept that finding big hills in Michigan is kinda hard.
One of the challenges in this race is the fact that you have to take your running shoes with you on the swim so you basically have two choices. You can leave your shoes on or push them down the back of your trisuit in which case you get wet shoes ..... or, you can use a dry bag and come up with some means of attaching it to yourself.
I chose the latter. I have two pairs of racing shoes so my plan was to put one pair in a dry bag and attach it to my bike. I'd then run the first leg of the race in my other pair and that way I wouldn't be fooling around in T1 trying to get my shoes in a bag and so on.
Great plan ... and it worked perfectly. I was in 15th place after the first run and I had the fifth-fastest T1 so I could look forward to my strongest discipline: the bike. The first ten miles were great, I overtook six or seven people and nobody came past me so I was comfortably in the top ten overall.
However ....
Un-noticed by me, the strap that was holding my shoes to my saddle had loosened and, the next thing I knew, my shoe bag slipped and went into my rear wheel. Fortunately, I didn't fall off but I had to stop and sort it out .... wasting about four minutes. Two miles further down the road, it started to happen again so I stopped again and ended up with the shoe bag strapped round my waist. By this time, I'd lost 20 places.
I arrived at T2 and ran down to the beach to start the first swim. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that my dry-bag now had a hole in it which meant that with ten seconds, it was a very, very wet bag. I don't know if any of you have ever done the "bucket" drill in swimming where you tie a empty bucket to you and it acts like a sea-anchor or the mother of all drag suits so you have to work much, much harder such that 100 yards seems a really, really long way. My wet bag had the same effect, turning a 14 minute swim into a 23 minute swim!
Not only did it make me swim slower, it also made me work much harder and I really struggled on the next run leg too.
While I eventually started to get my act together and ended up winning my age group and finishing 26th overall, I probably lost 20-25 minutes one way or another which would have moved me up into the top 10.
If this race had been an "A" race, I'd have been pretty annoyed with myself. As it was, I just had to treat it as a learning experience and as the last hard workout before the State Championships ....which were also disappointing but for an entirely different reason. More next time.....
A good example this season was the Battle of Waterloo: a new event, by a new organizer EST events. As I mentioned before, I really like events that are a bit different and this certainly fits the bill. It's a ten stage run-bike-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-bike-run. Most of the running is cross- country and the only things that I'd have liked more is to have had a few thousand feet of vertical climbing on both the bike and the run ..... although, I do accept that finding big hills in Michigan is kinda hard.
One of the challenges in this race is the fact that you have to take your running shoes with you on the swim so you basically have two choices. You can leave your shoes on or push them down the back of your trisuit in which case you get wet shoes ..... or, you can use a dry bag and come up with some means of attaching it to yourself.
I chose the latter. I have two pairs of racing shoes so my plan was to put one pair in a dry bag and attach it to my bike. I'd then run the first leg of the race in my other pair and that way I wouldn't be fooling around in T1 trying to get my shoes in a bag and so on.
Great plan ... and it worked perfectly. I was in 15th place after the first run and I had the fifth-fastest T1 so I could look forward to my strongest discipline: the bike. The first ten miles were great, I overtook six or seven people and nobody came past me so I was comfortably in the top ten overall.
However ....
Un-noticed by me, the strap that was holding my shoes to my saddle had loosened and, the next thing I knew, my shoe bag slipped and went into my rear wheel. Fortunately, I didn't fall off but I had to stop and sort it out .... wasting about four minutes. Two miles further down the road, it started to happen again so I stopped again and ended up with the shoe bag strapped round my waist. By this time, I'd lost 20 places.
I arrived at T2 and ran down to the beach to start the first swim. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that my dry-bag now had a hole in it which meant that with ten seconds, it was a very, very wet bag. I don't know if any of you have ever done the "bucket" drill in swimming where you tie a empty bucket to you and it acts like a sea-anchor or the mother of all drag suits so you have to work much, much harder such that 100 yards seems a really, really long way. My wet bag had the same effect, turning a 14 minute swim into a 23 minute swim!
Not only did it make me swim slower, it also made me work much harder and I really struggled on the next run leg too.
While I eventually started to get my act together and ended up winning my age group and finishing 26th overall, I probably lost 20-25 minutes one way or another which would have moved me up into the top 10.
If this race had been an "A" race, I'd have been pretty annoyed with myself. As it was, I just had to treat it as a learning experience and as the last hard workout before the State Championships ....which were also disappointing but for an entirely different reason. More next time.....
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Second Half of the Season
.... was OK too .... although the kids all wished that there were more races for them! The sprint distance is too far for the under-13s.
The adults didn't do so well ...... Andy sprained his ankle before the State Championships and Karen got a stress fracture in her foot at the Detroit Half Marathon.
My racing went OK ... I won my age-group at the Battle of Waterloo and at the State Championships and I'll talk a little bit about the things that went right and the things that didn't in my next post.
The adults didn't do so well ...... Andy sprained his ankle before the State Championships and Karen got a stress fracture in her foot at the Detroit Half Marathon.
My racing went OK ... I won my age-group at the Battle of Waterloo and at the State Championships and I'll talk a little bit about the things that went right and the things that didn't in my next post.
Monday, July 6, 2009
First Half of the '09 Season
.... has gone very well for my junior athletes.
All three won their respective age-groups at the Motor City Superkids event and my 13- year old stepped up to the Sprint distance at the Triceratops race last month. I was a little concerned about entering her in this race as she's still got two years to go before she reaches the USAT recommended minimum age of 15 for this distance. I was doubly concerned as it was 97 degrees the day of the race and we had to adapt our strategy to cope with the hot weather.
In the event, she had the third fastest swim overall, put together a decent bike ride averaging over 17.5 mph and managed a 33 minute 5k on a day that was never going to see fast run times.
It's not going too badly for the elderly either ... we've had an athlete qualify for the Boston marathon and even I've managed to get four top-three age group finishes in the five races I've completed so far.
All three won their respective age-groups at the Motor City Superkids event and my 13- year old stepped up to the Sprint distance at the Triceratops race last month. I was a little concerned about entering her in this race as she's still got two years to go before she reaches the USAT recommended minimum age of 15 for this distance. I was doubly concerned as it was 97 degrees the day of the race and we had to adapt our strategy to cope with the hot weather.
In the event, she had the third fastest swim overall, put together a decent bike ride averaging over 17.5 mph and managed a 33 minute 5k on a day that was never going to see fast run times.
It's not going too badly for the elderly either ... we've had an athlete qualify for the Boston marathon and even I've managed to get four top-three age group finishes in the five races I've completed so far.
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