The strong and durable endurance athlete

For any endurance athlete, there is great risk for injury and fatigue while training for an event lasting 90+ minutes. Certainly, every athlete training for an endurance event hopes to get to the starting line feeling fit, strong and healthy but not always does this happen. Sadly, far too many endurance fail to get to the starting line of their upcoming event due to injury or a health issue and if they do arrive, the body is weak, fragile and broken down. Because endurance sports are addicting, it's common for athletes to continue this cycle of never fully rebuilding or strengthening the body and to constantly arrive to races poorly prepared (physically and mentally).

Do you consider yourself a durable athlete?

Here are some red flags that should be addressed before signing up for races or progressing with your training volume/intensity.....

• You are constantly rehabing and racing, rehabing and racing.
• You struggle with consistent training due to life, low motivation, restless sleep, injuries, sickness, etc.
• Certain workouts scare you for you fear injury or falling apart from fatigue.
• You struggle to bounce back quickly from intense or long training sessions.
• You can't seem to put together a solid week or two of training before you get sick, injured or exhausted.
• You always feel under-prepared for races but show up anyways.
• You rely on panic training to squeeze in the workouts that you didn't do earlier in the season.
• You tend to train for one race at a time with a long break in the off-season or after a race.
• Your training doesn't really make sense - it lacks specificity, structure or progression.
• As your race approaches, you feel more withdrawn, exhausted and fragile/weak.
• You don't feel strong, healthy or durable.

Durability and resilience are elusive traits among endurance athletes but sadly, many athletes are chasing the wrong methods or outcomes in becoming "race ready." Understanding the unique demands of the sport in which you are training for is critically important.

As it relates to race readiness, is speed, fat adaptation, mileage based workouts and leanness criteria for success? While these aspects of performance may help, they are not worth chasing if you have yet to build a strong, robust durable and resilient body. And perhaps if you have achieved resilience and durability, these other factors like leanness, fat adaptation and speed may not be worth chasing anymore for you have become physically and mentally capable of withstanding the demands of training, ultimately improving your chances of success by improving longevity in your sport.

Building a durable body takes time, careful planning and patience. It's not easy and thus, many athletes (and coaches) skip steps, rush the process and get inpatient, risking injury, sickness, fatigue and burnout. Sadly, there's no secret prescription or program that will speed up this process. To become a durable athlete, it takes time......a long time. And it starts with first nailing the basics (before advancing with your training volume) like good form and skills, great sleep, stress management, diet, fueling, hydration and recovery. It's then important to not let these habits slip away in an effort to train harder or longer. From a training perspective, there's no point adding more mileage or intensity to your training if you haven't built a solid foundation and learned to do things well.

When it comes to endurance events, durability will take you far. While you will not become an overnight success, overtime, you will get results. Most of all, your body will thank you and will reward you with many consistent years of training and racing. To maintain your durability, your training plan must be specific to your fitness and should allow for slow development, building a solid foundation, optimizing recovery and adaptation to your every day stressors.

There's only so much time and energy that you can dedicate to training. Put your time, focus and energy into the right strategies to foster athletic success. Do you need to be lean and fast in order to hold a sustainable effort for 5-17 hours on race day? Take a moment and ask yourself if you are trying to rush the training process, skipping steps and/or putting your energy into the wrong methods of becoming race ready.

Neglecting to build a durable, robust and resilient body will place you at risk for injury, sickness and burnout. If this is happening to you, you need to break the cycle and start building a strong body.It takes time to create a strong body structure (ex. bones, ligaments, tissues, tendons, etc.) to withstand repeated load. Avoid signing up for a long distance race just because you identify with being an endurance athlete or you feel like it's the popular thing to do.

To be a successful endurance athlete, you need to be healthy. Make sure you are taking the time to build a body that can help you stand up to the demands of your sport. Strong and durable trumps lean and fast when your sport demands resilience - both mental and physical.

Scottsdale, AZ Train-Cation - Day 2

Before I talk about our last workout of the day, let's start with the first workout of the day.....

Day two of our mini train-cation started with an outdoor swim.......
My happy place. My comfort zone. My favorite sport!

After my mental struggles on the bike yesterday, I was so excited to start Tuesday with a 75-minute, 4350 yard swim workout (prescribed by Tower 26). I had never done this workout before and really enjoyed it.

WU: 500
Pre set: 5 x 200's with snorkel and fins with 20 sec rest as
200 swim
150 swim, 50 kick with board (head down in water stretching arms out while holding the edge of the board)
100 swim, 100  kick
50 swim, 150 kick
200 kick

MS:
500 at 70% w/ 1 min rest
2 x 250's at 75% w/ 40 sec rest
4 x 125's at 80% w/ 30 sec rest
7 x 75's at 85% w/ 20 sec rest
25 EZ

Post set:
500 smooth with snorkel, buoy, ankle strap

12 x 25's at 95% on 40 sec interval

50 EZ

After the swim, we changed and headed to the gym for a 50-minute strength circuit focusing on full body, with a lot of hamstring/core/back work. It was intense!

After the workout, time to EAT! I may just need to do another blog on all of our delicious eats because we have been enjoying some yummy meals filled with fresh ingredients! Today we ate at Mojo Morning Joint, which was amazing after our morning workout. I had the skinny frittata and Karel had the Mojo Burrito and the Rise and Shine smoothie. Oh - and I also got a mini cinnamon roll because......I love cinnamon rolls!

After our eats, we rested for about 90 minutes (Karel took a short nap and I got caught up on emails since I am not a napper) and it was time for our 2nd workout of the day - a trail run!

There's something so therapeutic about running on trails - out in nature and free from the world. Although this trail required a lot of ankle and hip strength to run over all of the rocks (there was a bit of walking to safely navigate my way over some piles of rocks), I felt really strong running on the trails. Plus, it was a heck of a workout! Emily tackled the trails like a champ which just shows me that trail running requires a lot of time to build strong tendons and ligaments to tolerate the twisty, turner nature of running off the flat road. I can't tell you how many times I rolled my ankle on the run today but thankfully, no inflammation or sprain (or falls!).

Fun fact about the cactus...

It can take 10 years for a saguaro cactus to reach 1 inch in height. By 70 years of age, a saguaro cactus can reach 6 and a half feet tall, and will finally start to produce their first flowers. By 95-100 years in age, a saguaro cactus can reach a height of 15-16 feet, and could start to produce its first arm.

Thanks to the fun fact, every time I see a cactus here, I try to figure out how old it is. How old do you think this cactus is?

Well, day two of our mini training camp is a wrap and now it's time to eat some yummy pizza from Picazzo's (and leftovers) and fuel up for our big workout tomorrow!

Strength training benefits - get stronger, get faster, go longer

When Karel and I were dating in 2006-2007, I remember the first time when I invited Karel to the gym with me to do my plyometric workout. As a cyclist, Karel didn't do much (if any) strength training as he didn't belong to a gym and didn't own any weights at home. All of Karel's training to get faster, stronger and more powerful was on the bike.

Although I met Karel with a fresh "Master of Science in Exercise Physiology" degree, my love for strength training (and knowledge) started when I was around 12 years old, when I started competitive swimming. Our coach wasted no time, even at a young age, for us all to belong to Gold's Gym where we would all do our 30 minute strength workout before heading back to the pool for our two-hour swim  workout. In High School, I continued to strength train and perform various plyometric and band work before workouts and then through college, the plyometric and strength routines became more complex as I found myself also swimming more yards each day/week than ever before.

The most important take away of this all is understanding that my swimming fitness came from a combination of being in the pool AND performing strength on dry land.

Here I am, 20 years later and I still value strength training as an endurance triathlete and it is an inaugural part of my cardio-focused training. 

When Karel did his first plyo session with me back in the day, he had very little balance and stability. Despite being super strong, anything he did on one leg or with a stability ball was extremely difficult for him. Also, he didn't have the upper body or core strength that matched his lower body strength so many of the exercises that required full body was rather difficult for him. Sure, he loved the intensity of the workout but the foundation wasn't there for him to really receive the benefits of plyometrics. I knew that I had to take Karel back a few notches before advancing with plyo's or else he would have gotten injured or experienced too much fatigue that the strength would not yield favorable results with his cycling performance and training.
(telling my crit-racing boyfriend that he needs to start at a beginner level was not easy!)

I realize that jumping off and on blocks or bounding on one or two feet can be a bit intimidating and it is isn't for everyone. But strength training is extremely valuable and it is one of the most effective ways to take your training to the next level all while reducing risk for injury. Considering that training for an event requires us to take risks to gain the competitive edge and injuries are quite high when you are pushing your body day after day, on the same environment (swimming = pool, cycling = trainer or outside, running = track, treadmill, trail, road), strength training is the easiest way to get fitter, faster and stronger with very minimal negative side-effects because you don't have to do it a lot in order to receive huge benefits. 

I often hear athletes saying that they don't have time to strength train despite doing over 10 hours of cardio every week. I hear athletes worrying about being sore from strength training but just love the soreness after a long run or brick session.  Sure, there is certainly a risk for injury if you are overambitious when trying any strength training for the first time and it's also easy to do too much if you are a lover of strength training so that is why it is important to periodize your strength training with your training plan. 

In my next blog I will share with you how we periodize strength in our training plans and show a few videos as well of our recent race-specific strength workouts.