CF Update: July 14

Happy Monday!

It’s finally warmed up here in SoCal, just in time for Kona training.  Check out my training log: Rich’s Log

CF Ironman Wisconsin Camp sold out
My training camp on the Moo course next weekend sold out 20 slots in less than 10 days.

Crucible Fitness Ironman Training Camp - Florida.
Because of the great demand for our Wisconsin camp, we have added another camp this year on the Ironman Florida course.  Jon Pedder is joining me for the 3-day camp, September 26-28.  Complete details here.

Real time decision making vs racing a plan
In my opinion, successfully racing the Ironman is about execution, not fitness.  You simply can’t fake the funk out there.  You have to know what you’re doing.  Fortunately, most athletes understand this.  Their method on race day is to execute a plan.  However, the events of IMCDA further convinced me that a better strategy is to practice real-time decision making, adjusting your plan to the current conditions.  A few thoughts for you, to apply to all race distances:

·        OODA Loop: continually assess the situation, using the OODA Loop: Observe the situation, Orient yourself to possible courses of action, Decide on a course of action, Act.  The faster and more often you perform this loop, the more likely you are to stay ahead of what the race is throwing at you.

·        Perform this continual assessment within a Box.  In the swim, this Box is about 6’ x 3’, the space your body occupies in the water.  On the bike, the Box starts at your front wheel and extends forward about 20-30 minutes along the course.  On the run, it starts at your feet and extends one to two aid stations. Why? This is the area you can control.  You can’t control what is behind your rear wheel (the past) and you can’t control what is going to happen hours down the road (the future).  Race in the now and do the best you can do, right now.

·        Throughout the race, especially on the run, you want to keep this Box as big as possible.  This requires a task oriented focus.  Focus on the task at hand, the events you can control within your Box.  As you start to lose this focus, your Box shrinks.  Your OODA Loop slows down.  Before too long the race is throwing things at you faster than you can react to them.  Your Box shrinks to about 30 seconds long and this is not a nice place to be.  The Silly Zone J.

Many people at IMCDA found out they had a 75-80 degree plan, not a 95+ degree plan.  The heat threw them off their game and they did not have the knowledge or decision skills to adapt in real time.  This is why it’s so important that you educate yourself about endurance training and racing.  I have some articles on my Tips page to help you.

Ironman: Bike/Run Weeks
When your endurance gets up there and you are able to do both a 6hr ride and 2.5 hr run in the same week, they begin to conflict with each other. I’ve begun to adopt a schedule that allows the athlete to still complete as many of these events as possible, while minimizing the recovery cost.  We to go a 4 week schedule: Bike Week, Run Week, Bike Week, Rehearsal Week

Bike week: Move the long run to mid week, do 2 x long bikes on the weekend.  Maybe 5-6 hours on Saturday and 3-4 hours on Sunday.  The rest of your workouts are reduced or moved around to accommodate the two long rides and one long run.  However, cycling has priority.  More experienced athletes can plan an Epic weekend by perhaps riding 120 out, staying overnight, and riding back the next day.  This is particularly powerful because, by giving yourself all day to get there, you are less likely to push the pace.  In short, devote the weekend to sitting on the bike and building your aerobic engine.  When you are riding 200+ miles in two days, intensity is not an issue.  Just ride!

Run week: 2 x 1.75-2hr long run. One midweek, one on the weekend. Retain the weekend long ride, but shorten it, if needed, to ensure a quality second long run.  It’s also a good idea to do recovery swims after each of the long runs.  More experience athletes can add 2-3 additional short runs during the week, to boost their run frequency.

Rehearsal week:  Move the long run to mid week.  Do a 3800m swimming time trial on Thursday or Friday, and a 100-112 race rehearsal on Saturday.  Take Sunday off as reward.  The race rehearsal is your opportunity to practice everything, just like game day.