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.
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