CF Update: 04/15/03

Sorry it’s been a while since our last update. 

Cali Half
Well, it finally happened.  After 3 years of training together, Jon finally beat me in a race.  He passed me with authority at about mile 4 of the run and when on to a 4:38 finish, while I crossed the line at 4:48.  More importantly, he ran a 1:32 off the bike.  This is a HUGE improvement for him over the course of just a few months.  After trying all the sexy stuff: huge volume, high intensity, track workouts, etc, Jon went back to basics: high frequency, moderate volume and moderate intensity.  If you want to see how it’s done, and done right, check out his training logs on the website.

Race plans and reports
Cali also marked the first round of race reports and race plans posted by TC athletes.  As a rule, I ask my folks to submit race plans to the board for “peer review,” and then write a race report after the race, with lessons learned.  A lot of great information is shared this way.  By the end of the season, they will have vicariously planned for and raced MANY races.  Feel free to post your plans and race report to the site.  You’d be surprised how many holes or questions you can find in your plan when you actually sit down to write about.  We’ll give you our ideas and input.

Swimming
I found this response by a reader on Gordo’s board and asked if I could share it with you:
Q: Is a low stroke count always better?
A:It depends on how you're keeping your stroke low.

I think the TI way of teaching swimming is a great first step. To be honest, not many people hit the stage when they are ready for the next step. If your balance is good and you're doing 15-16 strokes per length, you may be ready for the next step: Propulsion. (Hey, I swim almost entirely SCM ... so I like those metrics).

Lowering your stroke count is important to a point. What is that point? A lower stroke count can indicate that you're bringing your body into balance. If you used to take 20+ strokes to cross the pool, it is highly likely you a) were not swimming "tall" and/or b) had crappy balance. Probably both as they are closely related. A decreasing stroke count is one good way to measure success in these areas.

However, once you bring these things into a good range, as you have, lower stroke count should indicate a different point of improvement: Greater pull.

Bad swimmmers have bad balance

Good swimmers have decent balance, clean stroke

Great swimmers have perfect balance and pull more water, more efficiently.

At 15-16 strokes per 25m, you're doing something right. If you cannot hold 100 SCM intervals of, oh, let's roughly say, 1:45 or 1:40, and do so with some degree of comfort, you are likely "cheating" your low stroke count by gliding too long in the water.

A proper low stroke count is the result of good balance, tall swimming, AND GREATER PULLING FORCE IN THE WATER. Not gliding. Greater force means more distance per stroke and, conversely, faster times. Perhaps the "bigger in general" faster swimmers have greater upper-body swim strength?

While the TI emphasis on gliding and front-quadrant swimming is useful for getting from bad to good, once you've got good swimming down you can focus on the importance of the pull. And to do this, you need to give back some of that FQS/gliding.

Warning: while massive speed improvements can be seen on little volume and lots of drills to correct balance, further improvement requires more pool time. A lot more. Even then improvement is slow. You have to ask yourself whether that is time well spent. Short course athletes who want to be competitive at the higher levels must focus on swimming; long course athletes can often get away with good balance, clean technique, and small gains in propulstion. Indeed, the additional swimming muscles may not be the best thing for a fast marathon. Personally, I have found that winter time is a great time for additional pool work. It's too damn cold and dark to bike anyway.

Sheila Taormina wrote a great little article about this on Slowtwitch. I find the article a little too negative. Terry et al admit that they ignore propulsion. Their arguement is that time spent on propulsion is time wasted if you cannot swim with balance. They are right, and in my opinion, have structured a class that provides the most benefits to the greatest majority of their potential customers.

For golf drills:

4x50 ... hold race pace, or faster, and decrease stroke count by 1 each 50. The time you pick can be important here ...

4x50 ... hold stroke count (16 SCM) and decrease time by 1-sec each 50. Start 2 seconds above and finish 1 second below your time above.

This second drill really hammers home what you need to do to increase propulsion.

Cycling Cadence
Cycling cadence is very individual and also trainable, meaning that in the range of possible cadence, where you end up largely depends on what you are used to.  Attached file is something I wrote last month.  Let’s talk about cadence within a range of “most likely” cadences, about 80-100 rpm’s. 

“Low:” about 80-85 or 88: a relatively large force component, meaning that you are pushing on the pedal pretty hard with each pedal stroke.  However, because you are performing this pedaling movement more slowly, your HR will probably drop a bit during low cadence cycling.  This is a high force contraction and requires your muscles to recruit a large percentage of fast twitch fibers.  These fibers burn glycogen at a higher rate than slow twitch fibers.  Therefore, low cadence will conserve your heart rate, but will burn your muscle glycogen more quickly than higher cadences.

“High:” about 90-100.  Pressing lightly on the pedals but doing so much more often.  HR will likely increase a bit.  However, you are recruiting slow twitch fibers which conserve glycogen.  Because as endurance athletes we are aerobic machines, it makes sense that we should shift some of the load to our aerobic system (slightly higher HR) in order to conserve muscle glycogen. 

 Bottom line is that as a beginning IM cyclist, I’d like to see your cadence somewhere in the 92-95+ range.  In fact, if you pay attention, you’ll notice that during the course of a long ride you will become more comfortable at higher and higher cadences as your legs become fatigued and your body naturally seeks to shift the load from your leg muscles to your aerobic system.  Don’t worry, your body will get used to it very quickly.

 I’ve found that stronger, more experienced cyclists begin to become more comfortable at lower cadences, say 85-88.  They have the strong leg muscles to support these relatively high force contractions, and riding at this cadence allows them to keep their HR a few beats lower than they would otherwise.  This is the evolution I have seen with my own cycling.  In 2001 I was uncomfortable under about 93 rpm’s and remember spinning the last 10 miles of IMCali at 105+.  Now, in 2003, I am much more comfortable a 86-90 rpm and use this as a tool to get my HR down at times. 

Q: Will easy to moderate volume make me faster?
A: Ah, that is the rub. Gordo says that if you ride "enough" AeT volume, then you will get faster. I'll talk about in terms of watts. Lets say that at your lactate threshold heart rate you are able to hold 200 watts. As an Ironman athlete, there at two ways to get "IM faster."

1. Increase these LT watts, ie, get stronger. If you increase your LT watts to 250, your watts a lower paces (zones 1-4) will increase also. So let's say you increase your LT watts to 250 and are able to hold 170 watts for 6 hours. The kind of training that achieves this is lots of zone 4-5a, lactate threshold stuff. This training is very risky for the self-coached athlete, as athletes almost always do too much too soon. However, under the guidance of a coach (me) this is a VERY time efficient way to train. You only need one main set per week of about 30-40 minutes.

2. Increase the % of LT watts you are able to hold for long distances. So your LT watts is 200 and you can hold 150 watts for 6 hours. AeT training (Gordo's method) allows you to increase the 6-hour wattage to 170 watts, for example, while your LT watts may only increase to 220 watts. AeT training involves sitting for relatively long periods of time at a relatively moderate intensity. This carries a lower risk than #1, but requires more volume and therefore more time.

 And what would an email from Rich be without a table?  Gordo gives me a hard time about this, but I like to see things laid out very simply:

As your coach, I have decided to combine these two ideas as best we can. Your Tues bike is LT watts focused, while your long bike is AeT focused. Through experience I have learned how to minimize the risks of each approach. Bottom line is do what I say, when I say it, and no more :-) You'll be fine and much faster. Trust me, it works.

Thanks for your support,
Rich