As a pro-triathlete, I would have sacrificed my socializing, ensured I got to bed early and eaten correctly to maximize my recovery; come hell or high water I would never have missed a training session, unless I was ill or injured. So far I have missed about 50 % of my sessions mostly due to work, family commitments, or fatigue from my busy lifestyle. My planned 10 hours a week is averaging around 5 hours; Not good!

On the plus side, my diet, has been second to none. I had a scare last year with high cholesterol and since then have revisited my eating habits. Now, I am happy cutting out cheese and full fat dairy products, these are replaced by soya. I have stopped eating junk, no more biscuits and cakes. Once I set my mind to it, I have not been tempted to eat badly, apart from chocolate! I now allow myself a small amount of chocolate once in a while, so long at it is over 70% cocoa…why 70% ? Well, recent studies suggest that in small amounts dark chocolate may have certain properties that protect the heart!

I have stopped drinking alcohol at home, and now only drink with friends in the pub…..Drinking alone at home is a bad habit to pick up easily, and an odd glass of wine here and there, a cold beer while watching TV…by changing my approach to food and drink, I have already dropped from 70 Kg to 65 kg. so my weight is good, And I feel healthy, which is a positive.

As for the training, I have really struggled with the bike this year, the heavy snow and cold weather during the winter meant that apart from a trip to Lanzarote, I had not been out on the road bike much in England. This is very bad I substituted it all for indoor turbo sessions…which let’s face it, (unless you can get a good sound track to ride to or a good Tour de France DVD to motivate you), is mind numbingly boring. One plus, is my indoor trainer has a very good watts meter so I can monitor my power out put. This is still lower than it should be, averaging only 200-240 watts a session, not good  but as I have lost 5 kg of fat already, so I know my power to weight ratio has improved a lot, another positive.

The track running was also a disaster at the start of the year due to the snow and heavy travel commitments   , but I enjoyed running in the snow and mud, and this gave me some real stamina sessions, offering a great and unexpected base work out, another plus.

Swimming has been my favourite training, I am currently working on my timing, which is so important and something I have tended to over look in the past……if I am pushing too hard to think about my stroke, I slow the pace down. This strategy is paying dividends, as I have just knocked out my best set in the pool for over 7 years. I did 10 x 200 m on 3:30, averaging 2:40 for them all, proving to me that age is not a barrier to fast swimming, it is technique !! This is worth two smiley’s as I feel my swimming is ahead of schedule.

So we can see from the smiley test it is 5 smiles and 4 sad smiles……..which suggests to me that although I am not where I want to be at present, all hope in not lost

Mike’s coached athlete Carl Holland provides his first training update as he begins his preparation for Ironman Lanzarote. This week in addition to Christmas training Carl also looks at flight and accommodation issues that need to be considered alongside base training.

First and foremost, happy New Year to one and all who have tuned into peruse my Lanzarote IM athlete’s training blog.

Following on from my last post, my past weeks training has been a little sporadic, but then again, Christmas and New Year celebrations only come but once a year…. thankfully.   That said, my previous cold/chest infection has still been lingering, so I also felt it prudent to keep my training regime relatively low key in order to help my immune system rejuvenate; prior to the build up in training intensity.

However, with only 141 days to go prior to the 2010 Lanzarote Ironman, I can at least report that my mind hasn’t been totally focused on Turkey, Christmas Pudding and Mince Pies.  In fact, aside from managing to survive a number of training sessions leading up to and during the Christmas and New Year festivities, I have also able to complete a number of other timely logistical factors

Naturally, for those of you who have competed in endurance events previously, the following logistical factors will be nothing new; but to those of you considering the idea of training for and completing an endurance event overseas, the following may be worth noting. 

ie: Given that the Lanzarote Ironman is… a) based overseas, on an island, b) starts and finishes in the holiday resort of Pueto del Carmen and c) will be host to over 1600 athletes, their families and a number of supporters, we can already note that there are several logistical issues to contend with.

For example:

1. Transport to and from the airport (both in the UK and Lanzarote), and of course flights (not forgetting to also include your bike carriage in the process) – which as I found, due to its island setting made it a little more challenging to schedule; especially given that I wanted to arrive a good 5+ days prior to the event in order to help me acclimatise to my environment, the weather and of course my accommodation.

2. Accommodation: luckily given that I’d holidayed in Lanzarote (Club la Santa) early in 2009, and I’d had the opportunity to spend an evening in a very nice hotel situated in Puerto del Carmen whilst I was there, I thought it wise to stick with what I knew; and following several hours of perusing travel websites, managed to book my flights and my all inclusive accommodation to the very same venue, arriving Tuesday (ie: 5 days) prior to the main event.

3. Fuel: by fuel, I of course mean energy supplements. Now given that the event is sponsored by one of the prominent suppliers of energy supplements and that the event website also lists what fuel / supplements will be available at which points on the course, it also a wise to trial any supplements that you are not familiar with in order to prevent the risk of reacting negatively to them – and thus reduce your overall performance.  Hence, I am now the proud owner of several boxes of gel, energy bars and drinks powder, along with several tubs of recovery powder.  As you will note, I haven’t named the specific brand of fuel, as a sponsorship deal has not as yet to be offered… Come of Powerbar, you know you want to!

Thereafter, and now that the New Year is finally upon us, I have also started the process of  becoming more diligent with my overall diet and nutrition plan in preparation for the next 141 days of blood, sweat and tears.

So, with majority of my logistical concerns now out of the way (and hopefully elaborated upon) perhaps I should also provide a quick summary to the past several days physical training.  Specifically, that along with a 5-6 mile steady run on Christmas Day, interspersed with some striding, I also completed a couple of 45 min Turbo sessions using the Computrainer (1 x working on bigger gears and higher watts – 1 x higher cadence) whilst also working on my spincycle.  Additionally, I also managed to achieve a track session consisting of 16 x 400m (averaging 95 seconds, off 150 second intervals) – and a short run, followed by some hopping and wind assisted sprints.  Unfortunately though, the Christmas holidays meant swimming timetables were not as easily accessible. 

Still, given the time of year, the recent extremes in weather and my slowly resolving cold/chest infection, I have finished the Christmas holidays generally happy with both my logistical and physical progress to date… and I’m looking forward to jumping back on my bike for tomorrows session

Over the Christmas period I have noticed two types of triathlete appear. Some use every spare minute including Christmas Day and New Year’s Day to maximise their training…and the others  use these great opportunities as an excuse to do nothing!

Over the festive period get out and try some of these sessions, it will turn up the metabolism and allow you to indulge yourself in more of those naughty but tasty Christmas foods…anyway this is what Carl will be wading through this the festive season.

Hill Reps

You need a hill that takes about 3 minutes to run up, on gradient of 6-10%. You should just be able to jog back in 3 minutes. If you cannot get back to the start in time, you have run up the hill too fast, or the hill is not steep enough.

Start at 3 repetitions and add on one per week up to 6 reps then maintain until end of period.

Also before starting include some hopping. 4 sets of 5 hops left leg and 5 hops right leg twice through. Concentrate on contact with the ground and your drive phase…remember, land- lever- lift.

To do the hopping correctly,  land on the midfoot. It is actually impossible to land on the heal when hopping uphill.  I would recommend never hopping on  flat ground as it puts too much stress on your knees, always uphill hopping. Next you must Lever, ensure you get your centre of gravity over the front of the shoe and then drive forward and lift off the ground again (read more about one legged hill running here).

Easy Run with Strides

This is a recovery run, but instead of wasting time I have added in some strides to help develop leg cadence. So long as the sprints are downhill or on the flat, always with the wind, and there is a long recovery period between each 75m wind assisted stride, you should not build up lactic acid. This is because the muscles will use stored ATP energy. My athletes always feel much fresher after this session than if they took the day off completely.

Track Session

This is well documented in a previous blog. Even IM athletes should spend one period of their base training on the track, to ensure they do not  develop the IM shuffle! However I will allow them to run the intervals slightly slower than my Olympic distance athletes, as the IM guys are just putting in the ground work in for some much longer intervals later on.

Time Trial or Race

It is good to do a steady run at your aerobic threshold to help develop your efficiency, it is also good to keep a hand in at some sort of racing so that it is not such a big shock to the system when IM comes around, due to the nature of the beast, you can only really do one or two IM races a year, so it is important do a race of some type from time to time.

On the Bike

As it is the middle of winter, I keep cycling down to a minimum. It can be sole destroying having to  do long slow rides on cold, damp and windy winter days.

The focus of cycling in this base period, is on building up power, via  Low Cadence training high resistance cycling. It is ok to do this indoors.  This training can be as simple as 6 x 5 minutes pushing a big gear at about 65-75 cadence. Hold the biggest gear you can, while maintaining cadence. As you get stronger gradually push a bigger gear rather than increasing cadence. I tend to take about 3 mins easy spinning between reps.

The other key session, is in contrast, and could actually be classified as an easy ride.  I vary the sessions but the objective is to do easy intervals with little resistance to allow me to keep my cadence between 90 and 120. This real helps you concentrate on cycling efficiency, again I would do it indoors this time of year !

In the Pool

As Carl has a strong swimming background, the aim is to stop him making the fundamental error of concentring on his stronger discipline. One drill session and one interval session will get him through this phase. If he had been a strong runner I would have dropped that down to 2 run sessions a week and would have focussed on the swim.

I have one final point to add for this time;

Over the past three blogs,  I have shown how to build up a programme from race day and work backwards in time. I have also shown how to take it from the macro scale down to the micro scale. It is important to know where and why everything fits into the system.

However it is important to stress that this is the frame work, and from it we will inevitably deviate, when the real world comes into play…Injuries and sickness may happen. Work and family pressure may causes sessions to be cancelled or altered…but the key thing is that Carl can now see where he is heading and will soon be able to get back on track if he misses some sessions.

It should be fun reading his blog to see how he copes with is schedule and whether or not he breaks 11 hours at Ironman Lanzarote!

In response to my second IM training programme article, Neil asked me “I have just read your ‘Ironman Training Program’ on your website and you talk about Carl’s base training. I am training for my first UK 70.3 and just wondered how long the base training should last?”

My answer to this is if you have 12 weeks that is ideal, but you also have to fit in at least 3-4 months of speed, LSD and race prep. So you will need at least 6 months to your race to allow you a 12 weeks base.

6 is the minimum you should ever do, to effect any physiological change. Most of us end up compromising and doing between 6 and 12 weeks due to lack of planning, family and work commitments etc. But if you were a pro I would make you do 12 weeks. Unless you were planning two IM or 70.3 races a year, then I would split the 12 week base into 2 phases.

I hope that helps Neil and good luck with your training and race.

In the second of his 3 part Ironman Training Programme article, Mike looks at how his athlete Carl Holland will divide his training week across the three disciplines.

Since Carl has limited time available due to his work and family commitments, I will need to take this into account, as well as looking at his current fitness and  his past sporting achievements.

As an ex swimmer, I shall keep his swimming to a minimum and concentrate on the run and bike. To make the training more time efficient I shall give him some hill hopping and seated hill reps on the bike. This is efficient as it replaces the gym work. In an ideal world it would have been great to integrate some weights, but often as age groupers we have to set priorities and make some compromises.

When Carl gets through his base training, he should be fitter, leaner stronger, more efficient, and so in theory will be able to tackle his distance work at a higher pace than he expects, this will then mean that his speed work will also be able to start off at a faster pace than usual, which will hopefully lead to a faster race time.

I have only included 2 swims a week at this time. This is enough for  one drill session and an interval session. This will not take his swimming forward but will stop it from deteriorating and allow Carl to concentrate on his weaker two disciplines. Think about how long each leg will take in the IM race? Over 90% of carls race, will be on the bike or running. (1hr swim and 10hours for the bike and run combined).

With this in mind I want Carl doing 3 bike sessions and 4 runs in this base period. I shall put more emphasis on the bike in spring when the days are longer and the weather is slightly better.

The runs are:

1. Hill strides/hill hopping, to develop stride length and strength. The number of reps will gradually increase
2. Steady run including strides, for leg speed/ leg cadence
3. Track session: this is well documented in my previous blog and will progress over the weeks
4. Time trial, X-C race or fun run.

The bike rides will be:

1. Indoor Turbo cadence work trying to maintain cadence of 100 plus for riding economy
2. Indoor Turbo, big gear work, to build up strength and power output. Power output will be pushed up gradually, over the weeks
3. Easy ride 2-4 hours ( the exact length will depend on time commitments,  fatigue and of course the great British weather

Carl’s Week at a glance

Day One      RUN : Hill reps with hopping

Day Two      SWIM: Easy swim Stroke work     BIKE: Big Gear Work, (low cadence around 65-75)

Day Three    RUN: Easy run with 6x75m strides

Day Four    RUN : Track session

Day Five      SWIM: Intervals           BIKE: High Cadence work (100+)

Day Six        RUN: Time Trial or Race

Day Seven   BIKE:  Easy Ride 2-4 hours

Next time I shall go into more depth about the training, so that Carl can understand why I have given him each session.