Welcome to Ironmate Newsletter - May 2008
This month Ironmate is reminding how to keep your pre-competition preparation on song. They will be many of you that are already in your race phase so there are some important considerations especially if racing on consecutive weekends.
1. Pre-competition reminders
2. Competition phase Training
3. Recovery
4. Nutrition Tips
4. May Question - How to run strong off the bike
Pre- competition phase
Always have a good warm up to prepare you for your race pace weekly work outs and do not forget the warm down to speed up the recovery. Remember fitness is all about recovery. Failing to cool down properly loses some of the fitness gains that could be made from the quality session, plus when you start your next session you will still have your last session in your legs.
Break up harder intervals or race pace into shorter parts maintain good form. If you are planning on doing 4 x 1600m bike efforts consider 800m then 1200m next time then 1600m efforts. You can still cover the total same distance; just mix it around.
Competition Phase Training
If you are in your race phase complete NO MORE than a total of 4 hard sessions in the week between racing on consecutive weekends. With only 6 days between each competition you need to make sure that this includes NO MORE than the following sessions for each discipline:
1. Swimming - max of 3 hard swimming sessions 2. Cycling - max of 2 hard sessions (e.g. a time trial, hill reps or road race) 3. Running - once preferably intervals with long recoveries or a 5km for sprint and Olympic and 10km for Olympic and middle distance.
Be flexible and if you are tired then change the sessions about. Think, do you benefit from having 3 easy days after a competition before building up again or do you just need 2-3 easy days before your next race?
Some athletes perform best when their sessions on each day leading up to a race are easy, medium and then hard. Others prefer a hard session day, then medium, then easy before they race.
Test your self and learn what works for you. The hard/ medium/ easy preference may lack endurance as they need to recover from the hard session but note that this may be a lack of confidence rather than physiological. So use your early C & B races to learn.
For the over 40’s, doing 2 hard sessions on the same day provides more easy days in the 6 days between races.
Avoid weight training during your key 6 week competition phase.
3. Recovery
With less training sessions now being completed each week you will have the flexibility to change things around. Just do your pace efforts and include a good warm up and recovery. This is all you need to maintain fitness. You will remain very fit by reducing your volume by as much as 50% providing you maintain race pace training. Fatigue often takes 2-6 days to catch you up so do not be worried if you feel lethargic. The less you do the more tired you may become, enjoy as this is perfectly normal.
All racing is demanding so always ease down your training before racing even if it you think “it’s just a C race”. This will a) make recovery better b) you will be less likely to pick up an injury.
4. Nutrition Tips
Now you are completing much harder efforts, make sure you are getting plenty of local fresh fruit, salads and vegetables. You need protection from free radical damage caused by hard intensity and racing. Have foods that are high in anti-oxidants, these include fish, fruit, grains, some meats, poultry nuts and vegetables.
4. May Ironmate Question
Question: I want to be stronger when running straight off the bike?
Ironmate says:
Use back to back sessions to avoid dead leg syndrome.
Firstly let’s look at the end of the bike.
Think about spinning towards the end while still maintaining your speed. Not so fast that you are spinning furiously.
Your legs should have been spinning at 90 rpm and now you are expecting your legs to run 185 strides a minute, to do this you need to do the following.
Work on fast leg turnover or cadence when you get off the bike, soon your legs will feel normal again. You can do this by only pumping your arms a little not too far back and forth.
Your arms work in harmony with your stride pattern.
After 3 minutes of running or when you feel your running legs return maintain the cadence & work on good stride length without forcing or over striding. Your speed will increase.
If you use a Garmin you will clearly see how much quicker you are running even though the effort seems the same.
Now increase the amount you drive your arms and your legs will follow by speeding up. When you really start to drive your arms back and forth, you will increase the length of your stride. Find your own happy medium.
Session - Complete short multiple sessions. Cycle from 3-8 minutes then run half the cycle time. (I.e. 6 minute cycle 3 minute run) Hydrate after each session and repeat. As a result you end up completing 2-6 runs off the bike so come race day running once after will seem easy.
If you found this information useful remember to tell a friend - more next month. Ironmate is always updating the web pages so CHECK OUT www.ironmate.co.uk
Mark has 5 pages of his best 40 bike tips in this month’s 220 Triathlon magazine (June edition number 221) www.220magazine.com
The TRI Challenge Team Triathlon 26th July Dorney Rowing Lake Eton Windsor. 3 per team where all three swim 400m bike 15k (closed roads) & run 5k for more info www.thefixuk.com