Over the past 6 years, we’ve been fortunate to work with hundreds of athletes from all over the world. Coaching is an ever changing endeavor. I have yet to come across 2 athletes with the exact same athlete profile (experience, goals, life situation, etc), which is why we take so much time in creating and maintaining a custom program for each person we coach. However, there are a number of common things we see from triathletes, especially long course triathletes, that we almost always end up correcting and addressing when they first come on board. As coaches, we can sometimes overlook these things since they seem so commonplace to us. Yet, most newer triathletes may have never considered some of these aspects of training and racing. Here is a short list of the top 5 most overlooked aspects of long course training and racing:
1. PEAK EFFORTS – Yes, long course racing outwardly looks like long, slow, consistent efforts. But what about those hills, rollers, and kickers on course? And how about the melee that ensues during the first 500 meters of the swim? If you never test and train the top end, you will not be ready for these efforts. You will never know where your ceiling is at, and therefore, constantly train below your potential. We generally start our experienced long course athletes on a speed and skills development block so that we can garner as much top end as possible before we have to get into doing tons of volume. This means intervals that make you want to quit, short course racing, and lots of spikes in effort, followed by short recoveries. Overall, the volume is low to keep the workload in check, but if we push up the top end, the remaining blocks of volume become less time demanding. The rich get richer, and the fast get faster.
2. RECOVERY – You would think by now athletes would understand the importance of recovery. Just because you still feel good after 3 weeks of low intensity volume, it doesn’t mean that your body can and should keep pushing. So what if you missed a couple workouts here and there, you still knocked out your 5 hour bike and 2+ hour run in the same weekend for 3 weeks straight. Time to take an easy week. I won’t keep harping on it. For more info on recovery weeks, check out this post.
3. TIME SPENT IN AERO – Well now we are getting specific! That fancy rocket ship bike you have basically becomes a heavy road bike if you have to sit up out of the aero bars because your back hates you. During your long rides, especially those race specific long rides, you need to spend as much time in aero as possible to prepare your body to be in that position a very long time. On a course like Ironman Florida, there is no place you NEED to come out of aero. If you end up sitting up every 5 minutes to stretch, you are talking minutes lost off your bike time because you didn’t prepare correctly.
4. TESTING NUTRITION AT INTENSITY – Aside from needing to come up with a specific nutrition plan, and sticking to it, most long course triathletes have never tested their foods of choice at intensity. As you cross that threshold of what you’ve done in training, and get into the unknown, you need to be certain your palette and stomach are still going to handle the same foods you’ve been using for all of your endurance based workouts. Your heart rate will be higher than you have experienced during workouts due to cardiac drift which can start to mess with your digestion and other metabolic processes. I have heard too many stories from athletes who just stopped eating on the run because they couldn’t stand the food they had with them. BAD IDEA! I personally prefer to pull from the course so I don’t have to carry much, if anything, but I know that after 8 hours I cannot stand any more gel or any real solid food in my stomach. This poses a problem because it limits what I can get calories from for the last 90-120 minutes of the race. But from testing at intensity, I know I can put down some bananas and drink soda (with water) freely without stomach issues. Therefore, I often times look like an ape that got loose from the zoo during the marathon.
5. WATER WEIGHT – Yes, you need plenty of fluids during long course training and racing. No doubt about it. But there are aid stations on course for a reason. The second biggest thing you overcome after drag is weight. You bought the lightest bike and wheel set on the market, worked so hard to increase your FTP, got down to race weight, and then you go and add 8 pounds of fluid to your bike. Not only that, but housing 3 bottles plus your flat kit behind your seat really isn’t as aero as the manufacturers of those products claim. Grab some buddies, set up a mock feed zone, and practice taking bottles at speed. It’s not a tough skill to master and it will pay off dividends in the long run….no pun intended.