I want to write a book!

I want to write a book that outlines a true method of training that, if followed, will produce a successful ironman triathlon. it is based on sound physiological knowledge, practice, experience and practical theory. It negates the need for a lot of time wasting training that serves only to confuse and tire the athlete and fails to give returns for time spent. The training suggested aims to give maximum benefit for time invested.
    It is my aim to create a program that is beneficial, time saving, focused, and above all successful. I want to give the athlete a firm knowledge base so that at the outset of each training session they know what they are doing, what they are aiming to achieve, and why it is they are doing it. Essentially, the athlete should themselves, in following the advice given, become an expert in their own bodies. They will no longer need to have everything written out for them and planned in advance. They will no longer go out training and wonder what it is they are doing. They will know what is needed and when in order to achieve the results they seek in ironman triathlon.
    It will not be a beginners or idiots guide to ironman triathlon, nor an expert or elite guide. It will be a book that gives to those who are ready absolute and commonsense training advice and methods based on knowledge, theory, and experience.
    Ideally, I would like to practice what it is I preach and go out and produce an ironman performance that proves my opinions, views and theories, but I feel that now is not the time for a number of reasons. But I do have a deep desire to let myself be a demonstration of a better way to do it (an ironman that is). So, in lieu of actions speaking louder than words, it will have to be the words that lead others into action!
     It may seem a bit strange for a blog titled Runners Hub to proclaim a book about Ironman Triathlon, but rest assured that my intentions are truly pure. I view the Ironman triathlon as one f the great running missions the world has to offer. The fact that one needs to first swim and ride makes the arrival of the marathon even sweeter. After 6 hours it is finally time for me to strut the stuff of which I am really made of. That is what an Ironman means to me. So it is totally pertinent for me to write an ironman book, I think.
     So, that is the direction in which I would now like to head, and this will be reflected in this blog. I will post drafts etc and use it as a bit of a sounding board for the book. I hope you find it interesting and fun to read.

The Most Important Ironman Training You Can Do!! Part 2

Before I move on to talk about, explain and possibly justify to you the brick training for an ironman triathlon, I want to go more into our analogy of the fire to further explain the ‘theory’ behind it all.

As your burning and access to the coals becomes more efficient and ‘hotter’, and the more fires you efficiently and properly build and burn, you will find, as in a real fire place, a nice rich bed of coals remains. These coals can then be heated up not long after the fire has been lit. Not only that, the faster burning sticks and thinner logs don’t burn out as fast, and some of their fuel is saved, possibly for later. In actual terms, this is referred to as glycogen sparing. This is important as further on down the road of the race, and as glycogen stores would otherwise be dwindling, the ‘spared’ glycogen can then be used to either fuel a fast burst of speed (such as in a sprint finish, or to help you in that final and often painful final kilometer), or further help the metabolism of stored body fat for energy. This sparing is an important product of training, as the more a sustained release of glycogen you have, the longer and more efficiently you can utilise your stored body fat as your energy source. You may have heard the term ‘fat burns in a carbohydrate flame’. This is what we are referring to here. I don’t totally understand the process, but somewhere in the Krebs Cycle (an important and essential physiological process occurring in the mitochondria whereby ATP (energy) is produced in the presence of oxygen.......... etc etc) carbohydrate, or a product of its metabolism, is a necessary ingredient in the production of energy from fat. You cant use your energy abundant fat if you don’t have any carbohydrate present.

Now is probably a good time for a brief explanation of the aforementioned theories from which I have based this discussion of brick training, but only briefly so as to help readers understand further the discussion intended for this blog article, i.e. brick training for ironman triathlon.

Firstly lets touch on the Central Govenor Theory, primarily proposed and discussed by the famous (and one of my favourite) running authors and exercise scientists Dr. Tim Noakes of South Africa, and further researched by others. A very good site to refer to is Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas’ site, The Science of Sport:

www.sportsscientists.com

Then check out their discussions and research (in conjunction with Noakes) on the central governor. The theory basically postulates, and I quote from The Science of Sport, “ that your ability to pace yourself during exercise is the result of an "anticipatory calculation" that is made by the brain during a race/training session, and whose purpose is to prevent you from causing physiological damage to your body.”

The “anticipatory calculation” is the result of feedback from an unknown number of ‘centres’ monitoring any number of homeostatic variables, and the result of the calculation causes you to either slow down, maintain, or even increase your pace. It is anticipatory in that it is designed to anticipate any danger you may be under as a results of exercising, and to slow you down accordingly.

I support the belief also that there is a conscious element to the practice of the theory, and I have certainly found this in my own experience. You can consciously decide whether or not to slow or speed up from the early messages that are sent to you through bio feedback from your body. And these messages can only be learned through experience (and knowing your heart rate responses). It’s like learning to read early behavioural characteristics of your children before the onset of a tantrum. When the first signs appear,l you can decide, for example, tats it’s a good time for lunch, or it’s the right time to put your baby down for her midday sleepy.

I am also a firm believer in the conscious element going even further. In determining a pacing strategy you can help the Central Governor in it’s “anticipatory calculations” by consciously determining and then telling the Central Governor what the task at hand is.

When I set out on a long brick, I always first imagine that what i am doing is performing the exact task I will be performing come race day. And it is in this process of imagination and visualisation that i ask my Central Governor to adjust it’s pacing strategy accordingly.

When this little transaction and deal making process has been done, It is then my conscious responsibility to maintain the image in my mind of the task at hand, and to listen to the physical signals my Central Governor is sending me as to what I need to do to maintain homeostasis, and keep the Central Governor happy.  My Central Governor then learns what the pacing strategy will be on the day of the race, and I learn what signals to look out for, and together we reach the finish line with a perfectly paced race, and result (according to the level of conditioning my training has taken me to).



I’ve probably missed a whole lot and my explanation is probably full of holes, but I believe enough has been said so that people understand why they do the training they do (to me a big, big gap in the training process). And it is now time to move on to training and the periodisation of such. I also need to cover where swimming fits into the equation.

ironman ‘specialists’ heeded the rule and never ran long off a long ride. Needless to say, they were left wanting in the marathon on race day. They were essentially asking their Central Governor to adjust to a new condition without having already been exposed to it, or in other words the specificity in training was not present.

Another area of training that I believe can contribute to an unacceptable performance on the day of the race is the long group ride. I mean the social type where the only goal is to cover the kilometers, and is done slowly with much chatter and drafting. This type of riding is sometimes the favoured and only long ride of the week, and is inadequate, to say the least. For the purposes of an ironman triathlon, what is really needed is a long ride on your own, preferably followed by a long run. This is what the race requires of us. In doing this the process of determining an effective pacing strategy for your physical conditioning is achieved, as well as pacing yourself to deal with the up coming run.

By way of definition, a long bike ride can be anything from 100k to 150k+, and a long run is anything (for a marathon) from 20k to 35k, and sometimes more. Therefore, when it’s time to get right into your ironman training, these are the numbers we will be looking at. I would define an ironman specific brick workout to be anything from 100/20 (100k ride, with a 20k run off the bike) to 150/35. If you want to do it effectively on race day,  then you have to do the training equivalent of it first. No one can, by definition, disagree with this.

Of course there are some guidelines to ensure your training works. So, lets cover those, in point form.

1 - To ensure that you are not going too hard and to ensure you are training specifically to utilise your fat stores and learning to spare glycogen, wear a heart rate monitor first to guage your efforts. What you set your heart rate upper limit to differs from person to person, but I would definitely point you in the direction of Dr. Phillip Maffetone and his 180 formula for determining a fat burning heart rate zone. Read this article from the man himself to fully understand what the 180 formula is, and how it applies to your training:

 http://philmaffetone.com/180formula.cfm

When you have determined your upper aerobic heart rate, you have an effort bench march from where you can determine your training intensity. While out training, you want to stay at or under this zone, with the understanding that in some circumstances it can’t be helped if you go over the upper number. Just try to stay predominately under the upper reading that corresponds to your aerobic maximum heart rate.

For me, I have determined my upper aerobic heart rate to be 155 bpm (beats per minute), and this is a heart rate that is easy enough to stay under, while at the same time telling me to slow down and relax when going up hills, or pushing it on the flat, in both cycling and running.

2 - Discover a food source (carbohydrate drink, gel, bar or similar)  that works for you, and practice taking in fuel in your training as you would on race day. You need to be able to continue that sustained carbohydrate flame in which your fat will burn. An average athlete (of lets say 70kg or about 150 pounds) needs around 50 grams of carbohydrate per hour. But you need to find out what works best for you. You also need to consider a replacement for the electrolytes you may be losing, so check the labels of the bars and gels you are choosing. Drinks such as Gatorade usually help with this, but again, experiment and find what works best for you.

3 - Drink plenty of water while you are training to the tune of 3 ml per kg of body weight every 15 - 20 minutes. This will help to stave off any dehydration and over heating. Too much water, however, will cause a condition known as hyponatremia which is basically diluting your body of sodium, and is quite dangerous. Sticking with the guidelines and just being sensible about your water intake will help to avoid this.

4 -  Realise that in training specifically through performing long brick workouts, you are improving all the possible homeostatic variables that are considered by your Central Governor in performing its “anticipatory calculation”, and it in turn allows you to go further and faster before it deems it necessary to slow you down. Remember it is also up to you to keep in mind what it is you are trying to achieve (through imagination and visualisation), and then listening to the signals given to you by your central governor. i.e. when to eat, when to drink, when to slow down and when it’s O.K. to speed up, among other things.

5 - Train as close to the conditions you will encounter on the day if you can. This is as easy as studying the description of the bike course you are training for and then trying to simulate it on your local rides as much as you can. If this means finding some long hills because this is what the course is made up of, then find some. Likewise, if you need to train for an undulating course, do that, and if it’s flat, practice riding for long distances on the flat. This last piece of advice is particularly valuable as riding long distances on the flat is quite unique and without the specific training athletes can encounter cramping from continued use of the same muscles.

Well, this has gone on a bit longer than expected, and I still have yet to get to training suggestions. So I will post with the promise that I will cover this soon.

The Most Important Ironman Training You Can Do!!

 I met someone today who told me that they had just signed up for the Bussleton Ironman Triathlon in December. Aaaah, a topic that i absolutely love to talk about! It’s given me impetus to write something about ironman training. And the most important and sometimes least explored topic relevant to ironman training is brick training. This is my take on the most important aspect of training for an ironman.

The documentation of the common brick training workout has been done. For the uninitiated, a ‘brick’ training session is simply and classically a specific triathlon training session where one rides their bike, hops straight of, puts on their running shoes and heads straight out for a run.  Dedicated athletes should have read and basically understood the literiture. The purpose is to add some specificity to our training so that, come race day, we are prepared for the shock of trying to employ running legs to already fatigued riding legs. And ultimately to try and do it faster.

I have known many triathletes, especially ironman ‘specialists’ who have spent hours, days, months training for the big day, and have raced well below their expectations and have been bewildered as to why they have performed, to the best of their expectations, ‘poorly’. To me, it is as plain as day. When I look at their training and even as I train with them, I can see that the ‘specificity’ is just not there.

What they are aiming to achieve in their training is the difference between finishing and finishing to their potential and expectations. Most people who decide to do an ironman are quite capable of training enough to complete their set task, and this in its self is a monumental achievement. But to complete it as fast as you can possibly go according to your abilities is definitely more difficult, but can be simplified when a correct assessment of the task at hand is properly considered. And this is what I love about ironman and endurance training in general; a physical challenge seemingly so difficult can be made simpler with a bit of forethought and understanding. It’s the hallmark of a smart athlete and an excellent coach.

Basically an ironman is an ultra distanced test of endurance with a number of factors that conspire to undo the athlete in their quest. The hardest of these factors (after the sheer distance of the thing) is being able to run the distance of 42km after having already ridden 180km, and swum 3.8k.

An ironman is ‘won’ and ‘lost’ in the marathon and set up in the swim and ride portions, but practicing marathons is not the answer. The only thing that is similar to a standard marathon and an ironman marathon is the distance and the name. As far as I am concerned, the energy supply for a standard marathon and an ironman marathon are totally different, and this is where we need to begin our understanding of ironman training and racing. A standard marathon asks you to utilise and exhaust your stored energy without putting anything else in during the event (more or less). The Marathon in an ironman works on an energy supply ‘cycle’ akin to that of a steam engine, where the coal is shoveled into the furnace and the burning of the coal produces power driven by the steam produced. Think of the engine as your body, the coal as fuel in the form of food and stored fats, and the steam as the ATP that goes to your working muscles to power you forward. The standard marathon differs in that the ‘coal’ is not shoveled in during the event, but has already been stored before the starters gun goes off. Realising this changes the way you view your training and how you train, and where to allocate your time and effort.

We all know that simply training for swimming, cycling, and running independently is not the most effective way to train for a triathlon, and as the event gets longer the requirement for specificity becomes more and more important. And the specificity here is learning to run efficiently off the bike.

It is my belief, based partly on physiological knowledge, partly on experience, and partly on pure theory,  that the muscle fibres responsible for powering you toward the finish line can only be trained to do what you are asking them to do throught specific training. I refer to it as accessing your deep aerobic muscle fibres. This theory is based on a combined knowledge of 2 main theories (to be covered another day!); the fibre recruitment theory and the central govenor theory, for those of us who are wondering. It’s kind of like digging deeper and deeper to reach the rich oils beheath the earth. It takes time and effort, but once you are there you have access to a potent and sometimes seemingly endless supply of energy.

Through training you will, like me, discover that the first 2, or 4, or even 6 hours of activity become the digging that is necessary to hit rich veins of energy stored deep within. To illustrate this further I will use the analogy of lighting and burning a fire. The aim is to move from the easy to light, fast burning, yet highly flammable (and therefore fast energy utilising) dry kindling sticks, through the harder to light yet longer burning logs, and finally arrive at the hot, glowing coals that yield long term, high energy (yet slow burning) heat. When you arrive at the coals, all you need to do is to put on another potentially long burning log and your fire will keep on keeping on. You can’t, however, easily light and sustain the burning of the coals. You need to go through the initial steps first. And for all of it you need a good, steady supply of oxygen; another part of this analogy that is also true for endurance events. You also need to be sensible and smart enough to have built the fire correctly so the process can begin and continue.

If we now swap a few words around; kindling = easily accessible glycogen in the blood stream; logs = a 50/50 combination of stored glycogen and fat; coals = predominately stored fats with a little help from carbohydrates; a log that is put on = eating carbohydrates as you go, we can now see from what fuel source our energy comes from.

With this in mind, the training is all of a sudden easier to make sense of (I hope!).When next you light a fire, cast your minds back to this discussion and watch a symbolic endurance event take place. Do this, and then come back to the next instalment where I will talk about the actual training processes involved. As usual, questions, comments and ideas are welcomed and encouraged.

Time Poor? Then Run Rich! Half Hour Workouts to Fit in Your Busy Life. Part 2

Today I present the second instalment of 'Time Poor, Run Rich'. This post presents two more ideas and then puts it all together in an 8 week program you can utilise.

Just recently, I reread Joe Hendersons’ “Best Runs”, a collection of the authors’ writings from decades of running wisdom. In it I was fascinated to read of the 1-1-1 plan for improving speed, first proposed by 2 time Olympian Dick Buerkle. In a running world where exercise science, double blind clinical studies, and thousands of well meaning coaches can serve only to confuse, Henderson cropped the elaborate collage down to it’s simplest form and suggested doing 1 mile, once a week, 1 minute faster than normal training pace to begin or simplify speed training. Taking his advice were a number of fortunate (and open minded) runners who achieved PB’s in their following races. To this end, I have also followed Joe’s advice and regularly do a 5k loop through the trails near my home, finishing on a 1k, slightly down hill dirt path that I Hammer. I don’t stop before hand, I just press a button on my watch for the final K and go for it. Essentially, I have a 4k undulating warm-up at my normal training pace (about 4:15/k) and finish with a sub 3 minuter. From there it’s short walk home and all said and done in 25 mins.

The final 30 minute special is one that reminds you of why you love running. The eternal question of “why?”, and the search in our selves for an answer comes not in words but as a feeling. This running exercise, simple in its self, aims to harness the feelings of exhilaration, freedom, and well being we seek as runners. You need to find a large grassed area or sports field, take off your shoes and spend 15-20 minutes running in bare feet. We want to be more spiritual than physical in this endeavor. More accurately, through the act of being physical we are trying to access the spiritual. There is something special and primal in removing the barrier between us and the earth. In taking off our shoes, we again come into direct contact with the ground. As you run, try to achieve an effortless pace, be it fast or slow, that allows the mind to relax. In this relaxed state of mind you can do several things. You can work towards a meditative state concentrating solely on the sound of the soft patter as each step lands, or you can bring to the forefront of your mind a problem you have and just let it be as you allow an answer to formulate, or not which is also OK. Thadeus Kostrabula in his 1976 publication “the Joy of Running” writes extensively and theoretically about the spiritual connection we can obtain through running. He suggests we access different areas of consciousness through running; "It is like an alarm clock, a sign, a symbol perhaps like a stop light changing from red to green. It seems to allow the vehicle of the sole to go forward at least for a while”. For me, personally, this state of mind, or consciousness, is the first ad foremost effect I seek, and therefore reason, I run. The social aspects and personal goals to be achieved in terms of times and racing are secondary to the right hemisphered, neurohumoral bursts of insight, exhilaration, well being and lightness if spirit. A place where body mind and spirit can co-exist.

Try this 8 week program of 30 minute workouts designed to improve racing from 800m to 10,000m. Don’t let lack of time deter you from achieving personal best times.

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
1		5, 200m hills		15 min C-C	Rest		30 min run
2	Rest	2 sets 5, 60m steep hills		4-5k w/ fast last Km			30 min run
3		As many up and down stairs in 10 mins	Rest	15 min C-C			30 min run
4	Rest	1km hill TT, fast		15 min bare foot			10min w/up 10min tempo 10min c/down
5		1, 200m hill 1, 400m hill 1, iKm		20 min C-C	Rest		30 min run
6		2, 1Km hills @ 5 secs slower than TT	Rest	20 min bare foot			10min w/up 10min tempo 10min c/down
7		7, 200m hills		20 min C-C	Rest		10min w/up 10min C-C 10min c/down
8		2 sets 5, 60m steep hills	Rest	4-5k w/ fast last Km	Rest		Race weekend

Find a 3-5k race either on the road, cross country or track, then work 8 weeks back to begin the program. I’ve planned for 3, 30 min runs per week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. On the days that aren’t planned, you of course have a choice of what to do. I would advise at least one day between quality workouts, so perhaps just a run or some barefoot running would be appropriate for these days. Don’t be afraid of resting! I’ve put at least one day of rest per week in the program to high-light the importance of rest.

This program assumes you only have half hour blocks available for your training. There’s no doubt that spending more than 30 minutes of running 1 to 2 times a week is beneficial. If you can negotiate with your life to have one longer session in a week, plan to have one longer run for extended aerobic benefit. If this is to be Sunday, then replace Sundays 30 minutes with a 45 min to 1 hour run.

Once again, thoughts, other ideas, and comments are extremely welcomed. A big thanks to 3 chickens and a baby for their contribution. I would like to look further into 15 minute workouts, giving more credibility to the rule that some is by far better than none.