The Trimarni "Ironman" Method - Progressive Overload

 

When it comes to preparing our athletes for a long distance triathlon (140.6 miles), you'll never see us prescribe a 20-mile (or 3-hour run) and it's rare for our athletes to ride more than 100 miles more than once in their peak training. Our athletes never swim 4200 continuous yards until race day.

The "Trimarni Ironman Method" is all about progressive overload - Train as much as your body (and mind) can safely handle with strategic increases in volume, frequency and intensity done progressively overtime.

As listed in this photo, there are many different ways to add more stress to the body without riding 100 miles or running for 3 hours. 

An effective training plan requires a careful balance between the frequency of workouts, the duration of each session and how intensely you perform each workout. Working out too hard, too often or too long can be detrimental to health and can prevent the body from optimally adapting to the training stimulus. In contrast, working out too easily too often or not working out enough (or long enough) can also be detrimental to fitness gains. The human body needs new and different physiological stressors to build cardiovascular, metabolic and muscular endurance. Overtime, repeating the same workouts, the same training routine and/or the same type of activity for an extended period will increase the risk of a fitness plateau, overtraining, injury or burnout. Training provides a stimulus. Fitness gains and changes in physiology happen in the recovery period between two workouts. The adaptations occur when you….refuel, eat, hydrate, rest, sleep, etc. The body responds by building a stronger body. If you can’t recover or stay consistent with your training, your training plan is not working for you. There is likely excessive overload (frequency, duration and/or intensity) and inadequate recovery (rest, sleep, nutrition, fueling).

Train smarter, not harder.

Unconventional long distance triathlon training

 

I'm a big fan of repeatable workouts. I feel there is great value of doing a workout several times over the course of several weeks as you know what to expect and you can focus on executing better each time (especially under fatigue). I also believe that certain workouts are worth repeating year after year. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. 

When training for a three-sport, ultra endurance event like an Ironman distance triathlon, I feel that the best training approach is to find the least amount of training needed to produce the biggest training gains. However, among the endurance triathlon community, I find that far too many athletes are doing the same workouts over and over, hoping for different results. Every weekend is a long ride (5-6 hours) followed by a run (20-40 minutes) and the next day is a long run of around 2 hours (and maybe a swim or bike before or after). The training is somewhat predictable for the majority of long distance triathletes and this often results in burnout, injury, illness, excessive fatigue or a plateau in fitness. This isn't to say that this type of training isn't productive but after a few years of building your endurance, a new training stimulus is needed - not just physically but mentally. 

Endurance training is needed to build endurance capacity. Endurance training improves VO2 (max oxygen uptake), increases capillary density of working muscles, increases blood volume, decreases heart rate at the same intensity, increases mitochondria and so much more. But to truly prepare an athlete for a ultra distance triathlon, I feel too much weight is put on the long workouts as the way to ensure race readiness. But what about building strength, resiliency and improving the lactate threshold?

Taking a look inside our training/coaching methods, I'd say they are a bit unconventional. Our athletes aren't doing the typical "Ironman" training workouts that the majority athletes are doing. Yet our athletes feel prepared for their races because they are strong, resilient and healthy. We haven't always been this way but we have learned so much over the past decade of coaching endurance athletes. We found that endless hours of riding and running and continuous swimming didn't help our athletes become strong and resilient for race day. 

It's important to understand that unconventional training isn't the opposite of conventional training. Conventional training methods are effective. But we have found that our unconventional training produces similar results to conventional training - like strength, resiliency and most importantly....endurance. Most importantly, it provides extra benefits like bigger gains with less work. This isn't to say that our workouts are easy (you can ask our athletes - they work hard) but the workouts are a mix of quality, skill and happy workouts - a nice blend of workouts to keep our athletes physically and mentally healthy while optimizing fitness for race day readiness. 

I'm currently training for my biggest racing load of my endurance triathlon journey. I will be doing an Ironman, followed by a half ironman and then another half ironman - all within 6 weeks. Each race is two weeks apart. Then seven weeks later, I have another Ironman. I'm not sure how this will all work out but I know that I need to be incredibly strong and healthy in order for my body to perform well and not risk a health issue before/during this ambitious race schedule. 

My overall endurance is great. I don't find there is much value in spending every weekend doing long rides. Additionally, our terrain is very challenging, hilly and technical so our miles go by very slow and those miles are very demanding. Running is very hard on my body and brings the greatest risk for injury so I have to be very careful with how I go about my run training. I love to swim but after 30 years of swimming, I still need to focus on my technique. 

Finding different ways to stress my body helps my body adapt to different stressors. Because physiological gains are made in the later half of a long workout, I like finding different ways to stress my body so that it perceives the workout as "long." In other words, I not only mentally and physically feel like I've been training for many hours but physiologically, my body doesn't know the difference. Less time spent training = similar training adaptations. 

Here are a few examples of my last two weekends of "long" workouts: 

3/12: 

90 min Bike + 23 min Run (2.88 miles) + 90 min Bike + 42 min Run (5.21) = 3 hour ride + 1 hour run (~8 miles)

Bike workout (trainer)

WU: 15 min EZ

Pre set:

3 rounds:

2.5 min Moderate effort and 80 - 85 RPM

40 sec Strong Effort and fast RPM

1.5 min Steady smooth Z2 type of effort and choice RPM

---

4 min EZ spin

---

MS:

6x

1 min hard

4 min @ sub threshold/Sweet Spot and 80 - 85 RPM

2 min at steady smooth Z2 and 90+ RPM

---

10 min fast cadence recovery (100+ rpm)

---

5 min EZ spin

Run #1: Best EZ pace
Run #2: Steady effort

For this workout - the first "brick" of the 90 minute ride + short run was not too challenging, it was very doable like a mid-week brick. However, doing the same ride on fatigue legs was much more challenging and stressed my system similar to the last hour of an Ironman bike. And then running for over 5 miles after 3 hours of riding (and a 20 minute run) made for very tired legs - again, similar to the later miles of the Ironman. I needed to stay up with my hydration and fueling similar to a long workout and I also went through a lot of highs/lows - again, similar to a long distance triathlon. 

The next day was a "long run" of 1:35/11 miles with a main set of 2 rounds of 4 x (1.5 miles of hill repeaters - 4 loops up and down a steep hill in Furman) and then a loop around the Furman lake. I took a reset break between the sets. Doing this run on tired legs from Saturday and including hills (a safe way to get the HR up) provided a valuable training stress with low risk of injury for me. 

On Saturday (3/19) I did a slightly different workout of 
Run (5.28 miles) + Bike (80 minutes) + Run (12.5 miles)
My first run was a form focused run w/ 20 sec walk breaks every mile. 43 minutes and 5.28 miles. All of my runs include hills because well, that's where we live - it's very hilly!
I then did a 80 minute ride on the trainer (I love riding outside but I need to do the trainer for steady state work since we don't have flat where we live and steady state is not a strength of mine). The trainer ride was similar to last week except it was 6 rounds of 4 minutes sweet spot into 30 sec strong followed by 2 min EZ spin. I then went back outside for another run of 1:45 (12.5 miles) and included 3 x 10 min loops of a tempo effort around 45 minutes into the run. 

In total, I ran almost 18 miles and for the 12.5 mile run, my legs were incredibly tired. It felt like I was nearing the end of the Ironman. But I was able to practice good nutrition, work on my mental skills and focus on keeping my form in check. Of course, I was also receiving a lot of great physiological gains from this 3 hour and 45 minute "long" workout. 

And then on Sunday - 3:44 (34 miles) of mountain biking with over 4000 feet elevation gain followed by a 20 min run off the bike. 

This is just to show that there are different routes to get to the same final destination.
Make your training count and don't just count your training miles. 

2021 Trimarni Endurance Training Camp - quick recap

 

Every training camp is a different experience. No matter how much planning goes into the camp schedule and routes, we always feel like we are needing to be flexible due to uncertainty. The timing in the season, the campers, the weather.....there is just no way to predict how the camp will unfold. 

But after every camp, we find ourselves saying "that was the best camp." I don't know how it happens but every camp turns out to be the most rewarding, exhausting, memorable and fun experience. 

We planned the timing of this camp to occur two weeks before Ironman Lake Placid. We did this for two reasons. The first reason was to help our athletes break out of their normal training routine and overload the body in a safe, beautiful, challenging environment. With us watching over them, we could also keep our athletes in good health knowing that they were finishing off their Ironman training with a lot of residual fatigue. Secondly, in the case that Ironman Lake Placid was cancelled (we planned this camp back in the winter), we didn't want our athletes to go through another mental let-down and to feel like all of the training would go to waste. If the race was cancelled, we could still give our athletes an Ironman-inspired training camp. 

Thankfully, Ironman Lake Placid is a go and seven of our eleven campers were able to put together a solid 4-day training camp to finish off a one (to two) year journey in route to the Ironman Lake Placid start line. As for the other campers, they will receive a nice boost in fitness, endurance and resilience from the intentional training overload. 

Over four days in Greenville, SC, the campers stretched comfort zones, practiced their race day nutrition, worked through mental challenges, tested their physical limits and kept each other accountable during the low moments. There were laughs, smiles and tears and a lot of hills to climb. This camp was memorable for many reasons but it was extra rewarding to witness how several of our athletes have developed over the past few years. Although we were inspired by the work ethic of every athlete, it's extra special to see how the confidence, endurance, resilience and skills of our returning athletes improve year after year. It makes us so very proud as coaches to see how our athletes develop, as we know long-distance triathlon training is not easy and it comes with a lot of setbacks, obstacles and sacrifices. 

Over four days, our campers accumulated over 17 hours of training. 
~3.5 hours of swimming
~10 hours of biking (~10,000+ feet elevation gain)
~4 hours of running (~3000+ feet elevation gain)

Some workouts came as a physical challenge whereas others were more mental. But our campers kept showing up and they never gave up. There were no excuses, just focus, persistence and grit. Even with a few changes in the tentative schedule due to weather, our athletes never complained. And even on day four - the longest and most challenging bike session - it was as if our campers got stronger as the camp went on and finished the workout with strength and determination. 

As for me and Karel, we are exhausted. Training camps are fun and rewarding but they are very mentally draining for us. The constant worry of their safety while making sure each athlete is receiving the right type of training stress without risking a health issue is very stressful for us and we typically finish camp feeling mentally drained and physically exhausted. We try to keep things simple for our athletes so that all they have to do is show up prepared for each training session. This requires a lot of behind-the-scenes work. I'm incredibly grateful to those who help us out in our camps. Alvi and Eedee were super helpful and I could not have done it without them. The constant worry of their safety while making sure each athlete is receiving the right type of training stress without risking a health issue is very stressful for us and we typically finish camp feeling mentally drained and physically exhausted. 

Now that our campers are done with camp, it's time for them to let their training marinate as they recover from the intentional training overload. For some, they will soon experience a breakthrough in their training as they continue to train for their upcoming events. For the rest, it's time to sharpen the body and mind for in less than two weeks, it's time to celebrate the journey at the start line of Ironman Lake Placid. 

Performance focused: Are you exercising or training?

 

I think it's safe to say that most endurance athletes love physical activity. Certainly it would be difficult to train for a long-distance event if there wasn't a strong passion for working out. But with great enthusiasm to exercise comes a caveat - just because you are exercising, this doesn't mean you are becoming race ready. 

Exercise (or physical activity) is commonly defined as anything that requires you to move your body and burn calories.

Training is viewed as working toward adequate levels of strength, endurance, speed and/or power for successful participation (and completion) of an athletic event. 

To make the difference easier to understand, exercising satisfies an immediate need and is done for the effect is produces today. Exercise is done for its own sake - either during or immediately after. But when you have a specific performance objective in mind (ex. preparing for an event), you must change your physiology to prepare for the demands of your event. 

Although all training is exercising, not all exercising is training. 

Training is done with the purpose of achieving a long-term performance goal. Training is a process that must be planned out to produce specific results. It's methodically organized with great thought and understanding of human body.  

Preparing for an endurance event requires a specific type of physiological adaptation. Every workout needs to have a purpose. Not all workouts require intervals or high intensity efforts but there needs to be a motive behind each workout in the plan. This is training. There's nothing wrong with working out with the primary objective of getting into shape, improving health or changing body composition, but if the primary purpose of the workout is to only burn calories or do what "feels right" on the day, this not only prevents performance improvements but it can also compromise health and emotional well-being.

The difference between exercising and training is how you approach the activity - not the activity itself. 

Training requires intention, purpose and focus. It requires planning of nutrition, commitment to the task at hand and a smart mindset to listen to the body. If you want to improve your health, exercising will do just that. But you don't have to train for an Ironman distance triathlon or marathon to be healthy. And just because you train for an Ironman distance triathlon or marathon, this doesn't mean that you will remain healthy (or become healthier). Training requires putting your body under a specific type of intentional load, forcing it to adapt through training stress and recovery. Not always is this healthy. That is why training requires so much more than just checking off workouts for the sake of completing a certain number of training miles or hours. 

Although endurance athletes are experiencing many changes to life, training and mental health during the pandemic, I do worry that many endurance athletes have turned into exceptional "exercisers." While it's great to stay physically active during a time of cancelled races, if you are seeking short or long-term performance improvements, there needs to be a systematic plan in place - with purpose and intent. Exercising your way through high volume, intense or random workouts will not give you the results that training can offer. More so, health can be compromised if you are not focused on the factors that can help your body safely adapt to training - like daily nutrition, sport nutrition, sleep, stress management, hydration and recovery.

Training takes work, it requires a committed mindset, it involves diligence with lifestyle habits (outside of training), results are not quick to achieve and it requires a certain amount of "embracing the grind."

But, with a structured plan and long-term goals in place, every training session provides an opportunity for growth and development.

And this is why training is fun - achieving a performance result when it truly matters, while also keeping the body in great health. 

Ironman training: How long is long enough?

I've always been an athlete/coach who favors quality over quantity. Well, maybe not in my first few years of endurance training but through leaning the hard way with many lows in my Ironman journey's, I have learned to appreciate a smarter way to physically preparing my body to race for 140.6 miles. 

As it relates to training the human body for an endurance race (ex. Ironman distance triathlon), there are so many different approaches that I could spend hours and hours discussing all of the different methods that coaches and athletes follow in order to physically prepare the body for race day and dissecting how I prepare my athletes, of all different fitness levels and abilities, for endurance races.

Now I will say that there is a big difference between actually changing the physiology of the body to physically be ready to handle the demands of the upcoming race versus feeling ready as it relates to the mental component of handling the demands of the upcoming race. 

Fear-based training affects many athletes and even coaches too.

While there is a difference of opinion between coaches and their athletes, coaches and coaches and athletes and athletes as to the number and length of key long workouts that are necessary for proper peaking before an Ironman taper, many athletes suffer from fear-based training in that they need to complete (or check-off) a certain number or length (typically in miles) of a long bike, long run or long brick workout in order to feel ready.

Although sometimes this can be appropriate and useful, I often find that the fear-based training or "standard" 2-3 x 100 mile rides, 16, 18 and 20 mile runs and 112 mile ride + 2 mile run that occurs far too often on an athletes Ironman training plan is not actually inducing a physiological adaptation that truly prepares an athlete for race day.

Why?
Now don't get me wrong. There are absolutely some major training adaptations happening through accomplishing a long workout and it can be exciting to see your body do something for the first time. But when these long workouts occur, weekend after weekend, I often see far too many endurance athletes put way too much physical and mental energy into the length of completing these long workouts rather than understanding that it is the accumulation of repeated stress that allows for great performance gains.

What happens to the body of these athletes between workouts? Can an athlete actually recover from these long workouts in just 5 days even while training Monday - Friday?
Does an athlete have a life that is stable enough that he/she has consistency in training, week after week to follow this plan?
Does an athlete have good enough daily nutrition to recover and stay well between workouts?
Is an athlete able to recover from these long workouts and still function well in life?
Does an athlete have to make extreme sacrifices in his/her relationship, work, life with family/friends/kids, sleep or diet in order to do these long workouts?
Does this athlete consistently fuel and hydrate well before during and after these long workouts in order to properly absorb this training stress?
Is this athlete strong enough to absorb this training stress without risking injury or burn out?
Does this athlete have the proper skills to translate training in his/her own environment to his/her race course?
Can this athlete put just as much time, energy and focus into his/her weekly workouts as his/her weekend "long" workouts?
How often is an athlete improving in training versus just checking off workouts in order to get them done?
Is there a smarter way to training an endurance athlete instead of putting x-miles on Saturday and Sunday, on an athletes training plan, weekend after weekend for the 2-3 months before a race?

As it relates to the volume that is needed to be race ready, this is an area of conflict for many coaches. There are advocates of massively high volume training throughout the year, high volume in only the 6-8 weeks out from race day, a mix of high volume with short intense sessions and frequency over volume with very low volume all together and just a little intensity. 

If you are reading this blog right now and you are or known an endurance athlete, I think you could easily name an athlete (maybe it's yourself) that has succeeded with high volume training.

Certainly, high volume training is defined differently between athletes (and coaches) but we all know of an athlete who has done very well on Ironman race day by completing many long rides over 100 miles (often up to 120 miles), many long runs (between 18-20 miles) and long bricks (between 7-8 hours of combined cycling/running).

Although I don't consider my training to be super high volume, I could not imagine my body training any more hours over the course of the week, as I did in my Kona prep this year.......without risking injury, health issues or burnt out.

And just like the drug commercials we see on TV, where the happy background is making you ignore the scary list of side effects that may occur when you take this medication, we can not forget that endurance training has it's risks.

But endurance athletes often shove those aside just to check off long workouts.

Sure, endurance training is sexy. It's hard core and it's extreme. This lifestyle appeals to many type-A athletes who have a tendency to get obsessed with a routine and crave physical activity. 

But just like you can name a few athletes who have succeeded very well on race day through high volume training, I'm pretty sure that you could find it much easier to make a list of athletes who have not succeeded with a high volume approach to training.

Now I'm not just talking about having a bad or off day on race day and that defining a "non-successful race". I feel that if an athlete arrives to the race with a healthy body and she/he can finish the race and feel as if they executed well, they have succeeded better than many with their training plan.

But what about these athletes........
The athlete who gets a stress fracture.
The athlete who breaks a bone.
The athlete who gets burnt out.
The athlete who is always sick. 

The athlete who always feel "flat" when they train.
The athlete who has unintentionally lost a lot of weight.
The athlete who has unintentionally gained a lot of weight.
The athlete who has developed an eating disorder.
The athlete who obsesses about his/her body image. 

The athlete who is obsessed with training to the point that it controls his/her life.
The athlete who has had relationships ruined because of training.
The athlete who has made extreme sacrifices with work, family and friends in order to train. 

The athlete who is always training but is always unable to perform on race day. 

What about these athletes?
What about the many, many athletes who are registered for a long distance event, are handed a training plan and the basic understanding by the athlete is "as long as I do these long workouts, I will be prepared for race day."

I often question some of the methods by coaches and training plans as it relates to longer workouts (typically occurring on the weekend) and how those workouts "fit-in" with an athletes overall training progression, individual development and weekly training load. 

This isn't to say that I am not open to different training approaches but as it relates to my philosophy as to how I train and how I train my athletes, I focus on least amount of training stress that will offer the most physiological benefits. In other words, what is the best systematic yet often flexible and modifiable approach to physically prepar the human body to cover 140.6 miles?

As it relates to each one of my athletes and to myself, what volume of training is too much for each  athlete that he/she will no longer adapt to training without a great risk for injury, illness or burnout?

Have you ever considered what is too much for your body or do you just keep adding on more miles and hope that your body will survive til taper?

There are many roads that an endurance athlete can take to reach the same final destination.
As it relates to endurance training, here are a few roads that I choose to take with my athletes and myself as it relates to training a body to be and feel prepared for 140.6 miles:

-Developing a strong foundation
-Getting stronger before getting faster.
-Get faster before going longer. 

-Understand how to nourish, hydrate and fuel the body at different phases of training.
-Prescribe different, periodized phases of training.  

-Don't over-race.
-Race enough.
-Get good restful sleep.
-Focus on key workouts.
-Train frequently.
-Train smarter in the beginning of your season
-Avoid a long off-season (more than 6-8 weeks)
-Focus on development. Don't rush the process.
-Don't let gadgets control a workout.
-Use gadgets wisely.
-Warm-up well before all workouts.
-Strength train, year-round.
-Hill work - lots of it!
-More key workouts during the week (of longer duration or frequency). 

-Double workouts, if time-permitted
-Double run days, especially on longer run days
-Frequent running

-Learning to keep easy sessions easy
-Having a limit as to how much is too much training load/volume/intensity

-Don't mix volume and intensity in the same workout. It's either long or intense.
-Execute well for the challenging workouts
-Fit training into your life, don't make training your life.
-Make your training hours count.
-Develop strength on the bike, in the pool and on the run with different specific sets
-Learn how to pace yourself better
-Don't compare your training with another athletes training plan
-Don't train for miles
-Every workout should have a focus, a purpose and a main set.
-There is no standard approach to training an athlete because every athlete has a different lifestyle and goals.
-Consistent training outweighs any one or two weekly epic long workouts. 

-Avoid group workouts for several key longer workouts to ensure proper pacing, fueling/hydrating and mental strength
-Run often off the bike.
-Learn how to run easy
-Don't count weekly miles.
-Every athlete is bringing past fitness to a training plan. The more consistently you train, the more fitness you can bring to your future training load.
-Train smarter to train harder.
-Change up the weekly routine to avoid getting burnt out, injured or stale.  

-There is no set standard as to how many hours or miles you need to train to be prepared.
-Strength and form over speed is the way to feel prepared for endurance events. 

-And above all - accept where you are when you start your training plan and focus only on making progress. It's all about development. Come race day, you should be able to look back and feel you are stronger, fitter, smarter and healthier than where you were when you started.

In my next blog I will share my longest training workouts (Saturday/Sunday) for the past 12 weeks of my Ironman World Championship training.

Endurnace sports. What's stopping you?

 

 

 

Before every endurance event I do, I like to read my old race reports. I was recently reading my IMWI and IMKY race reports and I just laughed while reading them because I guess two and three years down the road, my mind still wants Ironman racing to be "easy".  I always think about a past race and somehow, my mind tells me it was "easy" back then and now I am really going to hurt. But it's funny that when I read my race reports, it was not easy and it was never easy. I guess the saying is true...

 I guess when it comes to thinking logically, the body and mind do not like to suffer. Not a good combination when it comes to endurance racing. Not sure how many times you look for that "easy" button but if you find it while training for an endurance event or while racing, I am not sure you will want to use it because if "it" was easy, everyone would be doing it.

You see, the great thing about endurance sports is that you get to become someone that you don't believe you can become. You must be patient and respectful of the distance but you must also be willing to work every day to make some kind of progress. You get to experience highs and lows and you get to learn how to work your mind and body in magical ways. You get to inspire and motivate others and you get to join a special group of individuals who seek challenges outside their comfort zone.

I love working with athletes who are new to endurance racing because the human body must be trained and fueled in a way that it resists fatigue and stays energizes and does the minimum amount of work possible to receive huge performance gains. Sharing this journey with Karel has been so much fun because I have seen his body and mind strengthen in many ways and as I share my 6th Ironman with him for his first Ironman, I can't help but think that we will both be going through similar emotions on race day....a lot of why's and hopefully a lot of why nots.

I wanted to repost a blog I did after my 4th Ironman, which meant so much to me because I really pushed hard and received the best prize ever....a rolldown slot to my 2nd Ironman World Championship. Talk about emotions....battling thoughts to get myself on the podium and then being so satisfied with my performance that I went to bed fulfilled only to find out the next day I was going to Kona in 2011.

So I wanted to share my post with everyone (again) as to why I love endurance racing and that I hope this post inspires you to do something that challenges you. Get started with something now without thinking about where you are now and where you need/want to be in the future. The part of working hard for your goals is reaching your end point and being able to look back as to where you were when you started.

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9-17-2010
This part of the report means so much to me. Not only because I finished my fourth IM since 2006 but I get to write MY report on behalf of all of the triathletes out there, who aspire to one-day sign-up and finish an Ironman. And even if you don't aspire to do a triathlon or an Ironman, or you have done an IM, this is for all of the people out there who have set a challenging, and perhaps, unthinkable, goal.

It is hard to describe the feelings that come with finishing an Ironman. For many of us, we devote a good 6-12 months of training to one event. That's right, an entire year dedicated to one event! And to make things even more nerve-racking, you pay a lump sum of money for the event.... 365 days before the race! For myself, this race was 4 years in the making and I sacrificed many other local races (and wants) to offset the expenses for this event.

For many of you, you are forced to put the hurdles and obstacles that you experience day in and day out, behind you, in an effort to train on most days of the week. On some days, your training may last most of the day. On other days, you may be up at 4:30am just to be finished before the sun comes up. But at the end of the day, you know your priorities and you quickly realize that only in your dreams would you train like a professional. That's right, no scheduled massages, no sponsorships, no free race entries, no purse prize. You have a family alongside work responsibilities and somehow, you are happy just make it all work. Why? Because you have goals. For many of you, perhaps your love for living a healthy life was taken to the next level and somehow, your goals became a lifestyle.
  
For myself, it was my choice to balance a dietetic internship and training. Just like you, I had ups and downs with my training and the rest of my life and just like you, I didn't always think it was possible to achieve long-term goal(s). You developed a support team and perhaps, there were some people on your team that bailed on you. However, by staying in the positive, you surrounded yourself with people who gave you energy, rather than take it away from you. Without a doubt, with IM training you are always searching for extra natural energy!!!

When I crossed the finish line, I was satisfied. I had given everything I had during the race and I couldn't have asked for anything better. For in an Ironman, every person who crosses the finish line is a winner. Everyone gets a medal, everyone gets a finisher t-shirt and every person becomes a member of a select group of people. Even for those who don't reach the finish line during an IM, they are still in a select club...for only a small part of the population even considers signing up for an IM. Reaching the starting line of an IM is one of the biggest accomplishments you can ask for. Finishing an Ironman is just the icing on the "healthy" cake.

Ironman training is tough. However, through following a periodized training plan, you should find yourself improving on a weekly basis. By allowing your body to recover through active recovery, weekly planned rest days and planned recovery weeks you should find yourself enjoying your IM training and enjoying the journey.
Ironman training is 10x harder than the Ironman event. In an effort to get to the starting line of an IM, you must train your body to complete a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run. Because you have 365 days to train for a 140.6 mile event, most athletes arrive to the starting line trained and ready to go. Sadly, many people arrive to the race overtrained and/or injured, so certainly, balance and a smart mind (and coach) may be necessary when planning for your IM journey.

It's hard to describe the emotions and feelings that flood your body at the IM finish line. Perhaps you want to envision yourself crossing the IM finish line but you may be asking yourself....will my body ever let me do an Ironman??

For those who like to swim bike and runANYONE can do an Ironman.

Here's how I can describe the Ironman journey.
Remember, it's a LONG journey with a one-day finish line.

Imagine yourself driving 140.6 miles on a daily basis. For the first few weeks, it probably seems really boring and you ask yourself "can I really continue doing this every day?"
After a few weeks, the drive gets easier and you become content with the drive. Maybe you even look forward to the drive because you are alone with yourself, your thoughts and feelings. Maybe you come up with new ideas and thoughts during your drive and feel inspired to change something in your life.
Certainly, some days do feel longer than others but overall, you are happy with your decision to do the drive.
Eventually, a group of your close friends tell you that they are going to ride with you during your drive to keep you company. The drive becomes much more enjoyable because you can laugh, smile and share stories with your friends during the long ride.
Down the road, you notice that thousands of other people are doing the same drive as you. Although they are in different cars (some nicer and more expensive than others) and drive at different speeds, they are all going to the same place as you. Some how, you look forward to the drive even more and you almost don't want the drive experience to end.
One day, you notice that there are lots of people on the road wanting to help you. They want to make sure your car is fueled, it is in excellent working condition and that you have everything you need to feel happy during your drive. It's amazing how special you feel during your drive and you feel compelled to tell your friends about the drive, almost as if you are motivating others to do the drive with you.
On your last drive, you notice that your closest friends and family are on the road waving at you. You couldn't be more excited to see them and they bring tears to your eyes because they are supporting your decision to drive 140.6 miles. They think you are crazy for doing it but they love you anyways and they want to see you finish the drive.
When you get to the finish of your last drive, you notice that there are thousands of people cheering you on. You tell yourself "but it's only 140.6 miles" but you know that not many people would make the decision to do this drive. A drive that you once thought was never possible and you finally made it to the finish line. Happy that you don't have to do the drive anymore, you are kinda sad and are ready to sign up for another 140.6 mile drive.

But because there are so many other people out there with you, wanting to reach the same finish line, you feel the need to help the people behind you, reach the same finish line.

When I reached the finish line, I was ready to see all of the future "IMWI" athletes cross the finish line. A line that once seemed impossible, was in close reality.

2% of athletes qualified for Kona at IMWI. That statistic is pretty consistent at most IM events. I'm guessing that around 8% of athletes are shooting for a Kona slot.
An amazing 98% of athletes at an Ironman are there to finish. 98%!!! If you feel as if you can't do an IM, you have absolutely no idea of what you are capable of doing. The body is truly amazing. Although many components play a role in finishing an Ironman, the Ironman event is very mental. With all of the training behind you, you are simply putting your training to the test and enjoying the day with 2500-3000 of your closest friends... a day that you have dreamed about for x-year(s).
If anyone has ever told you that you were "slow" for finishing an Ironman above the average IM finishing time of 13-14 hours or questioned why it took you 14,15,16 or 16 hrs and 57 minutes (that was the last finisher at IMWI 2010) to complete an Ironman....I give you permission to stare that person in the face and tell them "I am an Ironman and no one can take that away from me!"

Or
"I just swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles and ran 26.2 miles.....what did you do today???"

Adapt to the least amount of training stress: the "long" run

When you mention the word endurance athlete, I think most people would instantly think "long" workouts. As that would be expected if you are training for a "long" event. In my multisport world, Ironman and Marathon are the two big endurance events but I would also like to include anything over 2 hours, such as a half marathon or olympic distance triathlon for many.

When it comes to building endurance, there are many approaches as to the best way to improve the cardio, muscular and respiratory systems as well as building confidence for the big, long day. But before we jump ahead as to the best way to build endurance, I think I must point out the best way to train for any event.....

Forget about what your training partners are doing, what you read in a magazine or what a friend of a friend told you to do to improve fitness. The general and most basic approach to training involves periodization. If you do the same thing over and over, expect the same result. However, infrequent workouts bring infrequent results. Consistency is key as you continually stress the body.
That is, the most appropriate way for you to appropriately adapt to a sequence of training is in a way in which your body is overloaded to adapt to training stress but not at the cost of injury, burnout and fatigue. In order for this periodization principle to be executed properly, athletes must recognize that there must be a healthy balance between training and recovery so that you peak at the right time and training intensity/volume is specific to training and racing goals. In other words - there is no "best" way to train but instead the right way for your body to consistently (key word) progress with training....and still function as a normal human-being in life.

Structurally, your body must be flexible, strong and biomechanically "healthy" to move with proper form and skill and metabolically, your body must be able to provide energy to meet the demands of training.

For many athletes, the motivation is there but the body doesn't always perform. For others, the mind and body struggle to maintain energy as training progresses. I find that most athletes have about 3-4 "great" weeks in their system when they start a new training plan or start training for a race. Thus, this is where many adaptations quickly take place. However, athletes are known to be a bit inpatient and instead of progress continuing to be made after 3-4 weeks, athletes begin to plateau with fitness (and often, struggle with body composition issues) and recovery is delayed, motivation dwindles and goals are forgotten (or the opposite - the athlete continues to push with a body that is not responding appropriately to training stress).

In order to maintain optimal health as you see/feel yourself progress with your athletic training, it is important that you recognize that the best performances by athletes are done with individualized training. Therefore, how your body responds to training stress may be different from your training buddies. You can follow a similar training plan but your approach - the duration, frequency and intensity - may be different. Thus, it is important to recognize that throughout many cycles of "epic workouts" and finishing workouts you never thought you could start along with resting and recovering the body when it needed to rejuvenate, this is where the magic happens. It is not one or two great long workouts (or "yay, glad that is over") but instead, many orchestrated workouts that allow you to recover and then peak at the right time and eventually, race at your full potential on race day.

When it comes to endurance training, there are many approaches to improve running endurance.
For example, I have many of my athletes doing different styles of run training depending on how they adapt to training stress as well as their primary goals for race day.

A few different strategies for improving running endurance:
-mid week "long" runs
-long runs off a short bike warm-up
-mile repeaters during a long run
-fast intervals, a few times per week
-two a day runs, once or twice a week instead of a long run
-run/walk workouts
-plyometrics/hip strength
-cross training
-track workouts
-group runs
-hill workouts

As you can see, there is no right or best way to improve running endurance and despite what your training buddies may tell you, those long runs, weekend after weekend can be very damaging and non-productive.

Rather than blogging about the physiology of the body (I sure do love that stuff!) , I will keep things simple so that you can have a few take aways from this blog to figure out the best way to improve our running endurance.
- The primary prescription for building endurance is based on training frequency, training duration and training intensity.
-Research has shown that running twice per week may produce similar changes in VO2 max as training 5 days per week. However, if training intensity is low, you will need more frequent workouts to increase aerobic capacity.
-Depending on your workout intensity, this will determine your workout duration. If your intensity is above lactic threshold, the duration should be kept short due to fatigue.
-Although an increase in intensity will likely shorten the duration of activity, keep in mind that if training intensity is kept low, a greater frequency of training may be needed to elicit the desired physiological adaptations to enhance endurance performance.

Confused?

To maximize aerobic capacity, whatever workout you are doing should create an overload on the physiological processes of the body in order to result in adaptation. This is where it is up to you, as the athlete, to consider the risk-to-benefit relationship that exists when training for an endurance event. Increasing the duration of training too quickly may increase risk for overtraining and injury. Increasing the intensity too quickly or too hard, may cause premature fatigue. Not increasing the duration or intensity may have you wondering why you aren't making progress with your fitness.

When an athlete builds endurance, several things are taking place in the body to adapt to stress:
-Increase in cardiac output
-Increase in stroke volume
-Increase in blood volume and hemoglobin concentration
-Increase in blood flow to exercising muscles
-Decrease in resting heart rate and blood pressure
-Increase in mitochondrial size and number
-Increase in oxidative enzymes
-Increase in capillary density
-Increase in reliance on stored fat as an energy source
-Possible increase in myoglobin content
-Increase in VO2 max
-Rise in toleration of lactic threshold
-Improved ratings of perceived exertion
-Improve metabolic efficiency
-Improved mental strength

Out of all those adaptations that take place as we work on building endurance, there is no guarantee that running 20+ mile runs before a marathon will help you out on race day or running 3 hours as you train for IM will ensure that you will have a strong run off the bike.

It is without saying that you body must learn to tolerate stress if you are training for a long distance event and you have a lot to work on when it comes to training your body and mind but it important to consider the many types of workouts (ex. intervals,repeaters, tempo runs, hills, fartleks, short/easy runs, cross training, longer runs, brick workouts) that contribute to an increase in endurance. Many times, athletes forget that each workout stacks on the other to build endurance.

And most importantly, if your body is not physically ready to adapt to stress, it is important that you strengthen your body prior to pushing your body. Weak muscles do not respond well to weight-bearing activity for weak muscles bring poor form. The same is true with slacking on nutrition and how it affects your form, mind and recovery during a long run.... trying to progress too quickly with an endurance running routine will only bring haphazard results.

As I continue to blog about my 6th Ironman journey, I enjoy sharing my workouts with others but also with the hopes that I can inspire you to train in a way that allows for consistent success as you have fun with your training. Yes - there are hard workouts and the body will not like you at times but never should you feel as if training takes over your life and never should you stop liking training, especially when you paid money to train for an event.

Sunday's brick - My workout:

2 hour bike + 2 hour run
2 hour bike - 1st hour warm-up (as I progress with IM training, I often need longer warm-ups to get my body excited to train). 2nd hour w/ Karel on his wheel - nice and steady at a little faster than my IM pace (power).

2 hour run - solo
Run 1 mile, walk 10-12 seconds in between each mile. Per my mental coach Gloria, I am only allowed to focus on one thing at a time. When I am biking, I can not think about the run off the bike. When I am running, I can't think about how many miles I have left. It's amazing how much I can think about within a mile - it is a great way for me to stay focused and in the moment.

13.15 miles
Total time: 1:52
Average pace (including walk breaks) 8:32
(I refilled my bottles at mile 7 and mile 10, 2 minute break each time. Goal was to hold around 8:20 pace)
Mile 1: 8:19
Mile 2: 8:23
Mile 3: 8:17
Mile 4: 8:21
Mile 5: 8:19
Mile 6: 8:17
Mile 7: 8:13
Mile 8: 8:23
Mile 9: 8:28
Mile 10: 8:31
Mile 11: 8:21
Mile 12: 8:19 (I cut a deal with myself as miles 10-12 were getting really hard - it was very hot and I was running into the wind and my body was tired but still I was holding good form. The deal was if I could run sub 8:20 on mile 12, I could go "easy" on the last mile...done!)
Mile 13: 9:02
(my walk breaks ended up ranging from 10-22 seconds which I walked every mile from 1-13, from my Garmin which still gave me a consistent 8:32 pace and a body that recovers quickly so that I can have another consistent week of quality training)


Sunday's brick - Karel's workout

10 mile group run + 3 hour bike + 6 mile run

Another style of training based on Karel's goals and his fitness and how he adapts to training. The first 10 miles were a comfortable pace for Karel, between 7-7:30 min/miles for most of it (don't hold me to that though :) which he did with a group of runners at 6:30am at the beach. He then went for a 3 hour ride (I sat on his wheel for 1 hour of it) which was a nice steady ride at his IM pace. The 6 miles off the bike were by feel and Karel said he ended up feeling better on the 2nd run than the first run.

Two different approaches to the "long" run and both of us finished our 2nd big week of IM training. We are both feeling great and we have been recovering really well from our workouts..just enough stress to adapt but not too much that we feel lingering fatigue or injuries.

Of course, having good nutrition during the day and proper sport nutrition helps but we can't blame everything on nutrition. Train smart, train hard and recover harder.


                                 
6 more weeks.....thumbs up for fun, consistent training :)