I assigned a power-based workout to an athlete. It is a standard workout that I use for several of my cyclists and triathletes. When I modified the power goals for her, I inadvertently put in a range that was above her current tested goal range.

She tried the workout and was able to achieve the power numbers on the first three-minute interval, but her heart rate was higher than her threshold values that I was looking for. (I use a combination of heart rate and power to build fitness for athletes that have power meters.)

When she decided that I really wanted her to be at her threshold power values (tested within the last few weeks), she dropped the power down to the range we had previously used. That range produced less of a biological response (heart rate lower than threshold heart rate) than was intended for the workout.

The result?

We adjusted the power range up and now she is pushing higher power numbers and getting the heart rate response we want. Her good power performance wasn’t a one-time fluke workout.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had a similar situation occur with an athlete. Though I do like time trial tests to determine power or pace ranges, those tests are not infallible. Sometimes fatigue, dehydration or other factors cause the test values to be too low.

Use your training zones (power, pace or heart rate) with a grain of salt. Be sure you are achieving the power output for the cost (heart rate) that you’re looking to achieve - or vice versa. Watch for trends and make small adjustments. Examine the results and change – or don’t change – training zones accordingly.

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon andcycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlonplans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

I was consulting with an athlete that wondered why his progress was stunted and he couldn’t gain fitness. He told me verbally what he was doing for workouts and strength training.

When we examined logged data, his volume was actually 30 percent lower than his memory recalled.

Log your workouts - no matter what system you use. If you’re not logging your workouts, your memory may be too generous and all that does is limit your progress.

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon andcycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlonplans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

Warning:  Before reading this blog, consider that I could be just another person looking to justify doing the things they love to do – in spite of some evidence indicating that very activity is potentially harmful to health.

About a month ago, I wrote a blog that looked at research asking if endurance exercise is actually detrimental to your health. Over the last few weeks, I’ve given this blog and the research considerable thought. One of the first things that came to my mind was research that indicated as much as 90-percent of research is flawed. I looked at this issue in my blog “Are researchers just a bunch of manipulative liars?”

I also went back and read the research paper I referenced in last month’s blog. A couple of thoughts came to mind:

• Though the research noted, “Serologic markers of cardiac damage, including cardiac troponin, creatine kinase MB, and B-typenatriuretic peptide, have been documented to increase in up to 50% of participants during and after marathon running” – I kept thinking, “What about the other 50% of the people?” If this is a genetic issue – perhaps I’m one of the lucky ones? Maybe I'm one of the "other" 50%  that is not negatively affected?
• I also considered the cardiac changes in mice forced to do endurance exercise via electric shock. My thought was, “Of course they would show stressful cardiac changes – they were being electrically forced to run!”
• In none of the studies cited in the research paper were 100% of the people adversely affected by high intensity or long duration exercise. This leaves me to wonder about the people that were not adversely affected – did they live longer? Are their lives somehow better?

One of the athletes I coach sent me a link to a New York Times column noting that researchers believe due to our endurance capabilities as humans, we developed bigger brains. Our very existence is due to  endurance exercise.

Ah ha! There – proof that endurance exercise is good.

I also read a column about 91-year-young Sven Wiik that was an Olympian, “was always fixated on sports” and still skis nearly every day.

Ah ha! Here’s a living example of someone immersed in sport that is an excellent, healthy 91.

Then, across my desk came research that Olympic medalists live an average of 2.5 years longer than the general population.

Few athletes workout longer and more intensely than Olympians and they enjoy longevity. Perhaps some this longevity is due to endurance exercise  past the age of 40?

After mulling all of this around in my head for awhile, I decided that I enjoy endurance sport. I love doing long bike rides, long runs and hours of Nordic skiing. Research does interest me, but I also understand the limitations of any research on human beings. We are complicated and it is impossible to account for controlling all the variables in any research study, including genetic influences.

All things considered, I plan to continue doing the endurance sports and racing that I love to do – until the time when I no longer feel like doing those sports. I figure I’m on the earth for a limited amount of time and I plan to take personal responsibility for spending my time as I please while I’m here.

I might cut years off of my life or suffer cardiac changes that aren’t healthy.

Or, I might live to be over 100 still doing endurance sports making researchers ask “Why? How?”

How do you plan to spend your time on earth?

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon andcycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlonplans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

Question:

Hello,

I finally picked up the second edition of TrainingPlans for Multisport Athletes, had to because the pages were falling out of the first one.  Anyway, one quick question please.  Can the 13 weeks to a half Ironman be adapted so it becomes 13 weeks to an Olympic distance?  I don't have the 26 weeks to train, my race is April 14th, about 14 weeks away. 

It's not that I procrastinate in picking my races, my students pick my races.  Every so often, usually once a year, one of my students challenges me to race them.  This school year they waited till just before Christmas break to issue the challenge, so I had to pick a race close to home and before they get out of school.  But, I ramble.  Any help you can give in this matter would be appreciated.  

F.D.

Answer:

Hi F.D. ~

Thanks for letting me know you enjoy my work. I have a few suggestions: 

1. If you have the fitness now – you can use the last 14 weeks of the 24-week Olympic plan in Training Plans for Multisport Athletes. If you have the endurance but not the intensity, then you can use Zone 3 for the higher intensity efforts rather than Zone 4+ in that plan.
2. Another option is to begin the 24-week plan where your current fitness is – that is pick a week that seems “doable” to you. It can be a stretch, but don’t make it a 50% increase from your current fitness. Work your way through the plan by sequential weeks until you are one or two week out from the race. Then use the last one or two weeks of the plan to taper into the event. I say one or two because it depends on where you start now and where that puts you near race day. The bottom line here is you want to be rested heading into the race.
3. Also, my book Triathlon Training Basics has a fit beginner plan that is 12 weeks long. The training hours range from 5:15 to 8:00 per week for this one, so it’s not a performance oriented plan but rather one intended for “comfortable completion”.

Which option you use depends largely on your current fitness.

Hope this helps. Let me know how the race goes for you ~

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon andcycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlonplans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

One of the athletes I’m currently coaching was expressing discouragement due to her seemingly slow progress as a swimmer. She was being very self-critical and I told her that though she’s been swimming for about 1.5 years training for triathlon, she is still a beginner - maybe an early intermediate swimmer.

She had done some swimming as a child, but that was around 20 years ago and she hadn’t done much swimming since childhood.

I told her that to reach the top of her triathlon game – in terms of personal potential – it would take some 10,000 hours of training or roughly 10 years. She was surprised.

The first time I heard the 10,000 hour number was at a presentation given by Istvan Balyi during the USA Triathlon Art and Science Conference for coaches about 7 years ago. In Balyi’s presentation he was referring to sport development in young athletes seeking to reach the elite level of sport.

Though my athlete isn't looking to reach the elite level of triathlon, she does need to be patient with her sport development. You may not be aiming to reach the elite level of sport, but perhaps you want to ahieve high levels of personal success. If you're feeling frustrated by your progress, be patient with your development as an athlete.

Champions - and achieving your personal sport potential - isn't achieved in a year or two.

You can find a paper written by Istvan Balyi here.

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon and cycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlon plans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

The route for the 2013 USA Pro Cycling Challenge wasannounced today. Here are the city stages and dates:

2013 USA Pro Challenge stages
August 19 Stage 1: Aspen/Snowmass Circuit
August 20 Stage 2: Aspen/Snowmass – Breckenridge
August 21 Stage 3: Breckenridge – Steamboat Springs
August 22 Stage 4: Steamboat Springs – Beaver Creek
August 23 Stage 5: Vail Time Trial (ITT)
August 24 Stage 6: Loveland – Fort Collins
August 25 Stage 7: Denver Circuit

The Loveland-Windsor-Loveland-Estes Park-Fort Collins proposed (not final) route covers many of the roads that I ride on a regular basis. We do the route from Loveland to Estes Park a minimum of once per month. This stage, called "the penultimate stage" by VeloNews writer Brian Holcombe, will be fun to watch. The canyon leading to the small town of Glen Haven, is a perfect place to make abreak. The sight-distance lines are short. If a move can’t stick there – the switchbacks will break those who are near the edge.

Here’s the proposed route:

View Larger Map

Below is a link to a ride from Loveland to Estes Park viathe switchbacks and back on Highway 34. This is only a small piece of the stage and it has 3,858 feet of elevation gain: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/164118280

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon and cycling, along withevent-specific running, cycling and more triathlon plans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

A fellow coach, Steve Diggs, sent me the link to this research paper. Several years ago, Steve and I had a discussion about high intensity training (HIT) programs that other coaches were using, as well as repeated training for Ironman distance events. The short of the discussion is that we both had a gut feeling that there is some top limit for the volume of HIT and overall volume of endurance training where if you go over that limit, it is harmful to your health.

Now there is research that is backing up our gut feelings. Here are a few key plucks from the research paper:

· Mohlenkamp et al studied 108 middle-aged German long-term marathon runners and compared them with matched nonrunner controls. They observed a greater atherosclerotic burden in the marathoners as documented by higher coronary artery calcium (CAC) scores.

· Indeed, long-term sustained vigorous aerobic exercise training such as marathon or ultramarathon running or professional cycling has been associated with as much as a 5-fold increase in the prevalence of atrial fibrillation.

The conclusion of the investigation follows:

In some individuals, long-term excessive endurance exercise training may cause adverse structural and electrical cardiac remodeling, including fibrosis and stiffening of the atria, right ventricle, and large arteries. This theoretically might provide a substrate for atrial and ventricular arrhythmias and increase cardiovascular risk. Further investigation is warranted to identify the exercise threshold for potential toxicity, screening for at-risk individuals, and ideal exercise training regimens for optimizing cardiovascular health. For now, on the basis of animal and human data, cardiovascular benefits of vigorous aerobic exercise training appear to accrue in a dose-dependent fashion up to about 1 hour daily, beyond which further exertion produces diminishing returns and may even cause adverse cardiovascular effects in some individuals.

While it currently appears the researchers are saying “some individuals” – the endurance sports and intensities that some of us do repeatedly “may not” be good for overall health.

If it turns out that anything over an hour a day is bad for you – will you give up doing the distances and intensities you love so much?

Or – will you say everyone must die of something and if doing endurance sports year after year does it, I’m okay with that? (Comments can be added on Facebook. )

Note: Find the full article here, including a video interview with the author. The short video is worth watching.

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon and cycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlon plans found here.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.

On the road to recovery, there were a few things that surprised me (as in, I had no clue I’d feel this way) and some things I’m pleasantly surprised about.

I’ll give you lots more details on workout specifics after I see the doctor early next week for my follow-up appointment; but a few brief, pleasant surprises. First, I was on an indoor bike for 30 minutes three days after surgery. To date, after every aerobic workout I’ve felt better than before the workout - and it lasted. That is, I didn’t just get an endorphin high that left and also left worse off for recovery. In all cases so far, aerobic work seems to have sped up the recovery process. Within the last few days I’ve had a real run (not walk, jog, shuffle), an hour swim and a decent outdoor bike ride.

One of the things that surprised me is that I was afraid to drive the car for the first time. I had this odd fear that if I’d crash, the seat belt would dig into my surgery area and REALLY hurt. I was paranoid about having an auto accident. Never in my life have I had that fear.

I was also surprised to be afraid of riding my bike outside for the first time. When I tried to analyze why, it seemed I was afraid of falling – perhaps popping open wounds – and I had an odd fear that I would get so tired that I wouldn’t make it home. Turns out there was nothing to fear, I didn’t fall and I made it home fine.

Finally, because it’s not comfortable to have anything tight around my belly button area or even low and pushing up against the belly button (like low cut jeans will do when sitting) – I’ve found myself being attracted to those velvety workout-looking pants and hoodies. I can see how they make the perfect public attire for those not wanting to wear anything tight.

I have yet to purchase said soft-looking, stretchy outfit – but I was surprised at how I was suddenly attracted to them. Those that know me well say they day will not come when such a purchase will occur…

...don't count on that. When comfort is key, people will do unusual things.

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Detailed off-season plans for triathlon and cycling, along with event-specific running, cycling and more triathlon plans found here.

Comments can be added on Facebook.

Ironman and half-Ironman plans available on ActiveTrainer.