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Mac was an awesome triathlete. In fact, so was his wife.And yes, I’ve changed their names, just in case they read this…

The problem with Mac & his missus was that they weren’t quite “the best” athletes around at the time. And of course, what do you do when your results aren’t what you’d like them to be? That’s right, you train more & you train harder. So, that’s what they set out to do. The way they tell it - we had yet to meet at the time this was going on - they were knocking out 40-hour training weeks with plenty of intensity thrown in. And they were working full time jobs.

Whenever the results didn’t quite meet their expectations, they simply threw in more intensity & trained harder. And the results never got any better. It never actually occurred to Mac that if they simply slowed down for a couple of weeks, they’d recover & would perform better.

Tragically, by the time I met Mac & his wife, they were both suffering not from acute over-training syndrome (which responds well to a period of relative rest), but from chronic long term over-training. The result of this was that neither was able to train at all any more. Mac told me one day that after 3 months of doing nothing (including having given up his job), he went for a 20-minute run… and then slept for 24-hours, after which he was exhausted for days. This pattern had been repeating itself for a few years, he said.

Unfortunately, due to us both moving away and this being pre-internet, we lost contact. I have no idea how Mac is today, although I did see his wife’s name on a result sheet a couple of years back. And she was once again, somewhere near the top of the field. It seems that years of rest had allowed her system to repair itself.

The 3 years that Mac & I spent living in the same city, regularly meeting up for coffee (although I can’t remember what he drank, probably camomile tea) served as a lifelong warning to me, also a “mega-mileage monster”, that there is a point at which your system is telling you to slow down for a bit.

The trick is to listen!

Do you have any of the following symptoms?

• Your performance in training is below par.
• Your legs feel “heavy.”
• You’re sleeping more than usual, less than usual or your sleep is disturbed.
• You always seem to be ill, especially with coughs, colds and other upper-respiratory infections
• You get injured easily and “everything hurts.”
• You’re irritable and anxious - your partner says you’re impossible to live with!
• You can’t concentrate and struggle to make decisions.
• You feel sad, depressed and just can’t see the bright side of anything in life.
• You feel stale and burnt-out.
• You’re not eating well, because you’re not hungry.
• You can’t face training and if you were asked to race right now, you wouldn’t bother.

What’s going on? Isn’t exercise meant to “cure” most of these symptoms?

The chances are that you’re over-trained, or as I like to put it, you’ve been over-living.

“I can’t possibly be over-trained, I’ve only done 5 hours this week! And not much more last week!” I hear this kind of thing from a lot of athletes that I feel have been over-living and who present with the symptoms at the top of this post. And they’d be right, the training is likely not the crux of the problem. It’s all the other stressors in their lives that, added to their training, have pushed them over the edge.

You see, when you are training, you stress your system (mind, body, spirit). The idea is that your system will respond to the stress and become stronger as a result. But for this to work, the stress has to be just a bit above what your system can handle.

The problem arises when you have not only the stress of training, but work stress, family stress, friend stress and all the other stuff that makes up life. And it doesn’t seem to matter that very little of this stress is exercise-related, stress of all types has a negative physiological effect. All kinds of chemicals are released into your bloodstream, which in amounts that are too large, can play havoc with your nervous system.

As an aside, it always helps to imagine that you’re not a 21st century human, but still living in a cave with only your basic biological imperatives to deal with (essentially to eat, sleep and reproduce). These are the things that your system is set up to deal with, it’s not intended to deal with falling stock markets, angry employers, nagging spouses, tearful children, driving in rush hour when you’re late, deadlines…. And the stress response to all of those is in some measure, the same as facing a wild animal or another human competing for your food. But unlike our ancestors, who’d face this sort of thing once a week, some of us are facing it in some measure, once every five minutes!

So, we’ve established that you’re over-living, what do we do about it? Here are a few things that I suggest:

• Reduce your training volume and intensity for a few weeks - don’t stop altogether, but leave out the sessions that are hard to fit in.
• Use your training as a stress release and don’t allow it to be a stressor - leave your heart rate monitor, power meter, gps device and even your watch at home and just do the training in a way that makes you feel good.
• Change where you’re training - you know the old adage, “a change is as good as a rest”? Well, a change of scenery can work wonders for your training too.
• Go running with the dog… at his pace - I take my dog out around the local dune system and just enjoy watching him futilely chase rabbits while I jog slowly along the paths. Just Eddie & me, no-one else in sight, it works wonders for my mood.
• Look at the other stuff in your life and see where you can reduce the extra stress. Sometimes this just isn’t possible, but you’d be surprised - simply excluding the cat from my office in the two hours before mealtimes has lowered my stress levels immensely!

In the end, there really is only one way to recover from over-living (over-training) and that’s relative rest. You’ve just got to slow down and let your system catch up. When it does, you’ll be fitter, but until you give it the opportunity, it hasn’t got a chance.

Tomorrow, the cautionary tale of my friend, Mac.

And the answer is an easy one… YES, TEST!

The problem is, it’s not quite so easy to know what to test, nor how to test it.

Here are just a few physiological metrics you could test and the ways you could do so:

• VO2 Max is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body is able to utilise. It’s commonly measured during a progressive exercise test using gas exchange analysis. Most people think it’s the determinant of how good an athlete you could become… but is it?

• Lactate Threshold is a measure of the point at which your body begins to produce more lactate than it can process. There are various ways of testing this - gas exchange analysis, lactate analysers being the most popular. Again, it’s held to be a good measure of your fitness… but is it?

• Body Fat Analysis tells you what percentage of your body is fat. The most popular method at the moment is one or other form of bio-electrical impedance device. They claim to be very accurate, but are they really the best way to get the measurement? And are they actually accurate?

Above are just three of the most measured physiological metrics. I regularly have clients present me with tests that they have had done at great expense, believing that the information thus gained will give them an edge. Sadly, this is seldom true.

• VO2 Max tests rely heavily on the tester knowing what they are doing and calibrating their equipment properly. It’s not uncommon to have an individual present me with a very good test score, which bears no relation to the athlete in front of me. More than that, VO2 Max isn’t something you can influence very much beyond your first 12 weeks of structured training unless you have a lot of weight to lose (it’s measured as ml O2/kg/ min). A far better measure of your potential at this moment (and one which you can improve) is speed at VO2 Max. And you don’t need a lab to test that.

• Lactate threshold tests simply annoy me. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for tests to vary considerably from one to the next. So, if you’re not being tested every week or two, how do you know that your 6-monthly test isn’t a rogue result. When I queried one such test from a well know lab, I was told that I “clearly had little experience doing lactate testing.” And that’s true, I prefer not to spend my days stood in an exercise physiology lab. But to tell an athlete who by every carefully measured, objective observation is the fittest and fastest he has ever been, that he is less fit than last year, is ludicrous!

• Bio-electrical impedance devices are in my experience, not consistently accurate either. As they rely on your state of hydration for example, in order to get an accurate measure, I’ve observed them to give outrageously different readings over the period of a week, even if the measurement is taken at the same time of day.

I have a strict standard for any test or testing measure that I would recommend: It must be simple to reproduce accurately time after time. And the measurement must be one that can easily be compared to previous tests in order to establish progress or the lack thereof. In the Triathlon Handbook, I lay out some very simple performance tests that you can perform with the minimum of equipment and without a huge financial outlay, which will give you real-world results to measure your improvement. And what’s more, you don’t need a degree in sports science to understand them.

I was reading a few triathlon-related blogs today and found this post. As it’s a really good one, I’m not going to write any more today. Here it is…

How to not so seriously train for a triathlon

ENJOY!

The title of this post is a question I’ve been asked many times since I’ve been coaching athletes. And it’s a fair question. I mean, that’s the logical conclusion, isn’t it?

Well, it is logical, but counter-intuitively, it’s not strictly true.

While training slow and at low intensities all the time will make you good at going slowly and at low intensity, a critical mass of long slow training will actually make you faster in the end. Of course, that’s on the understanding that long slow distance isn’t all you - but more about that at the end of the post.

Among other things, long slow (or steady) training will do the following for you:

• Done right, it’ll teach your system how to become more dependent on fat for fuel rather than sugar - as you’ve got enough fat to fuel days of exercise, but only enough sugar for a couple of hours or so, this is brilliant news for endurance athletes.
• Long steady distance training accustoms your ligaments and tendons to the stress that your sport will place upon them. When you come to the part of your training where you want to work on speed or power, they’ll be less likely to become injured.
• If you’re training in cold weather (like winter), training at lower intensities makes you less susceptible to getting ill. Breathing cold air at high intensity over extended periods isn’t great for your lungs. And as endurance athletes are quite susceptible to upper respiratory infections, you need to keep this in mind.
• Slow recovery workouts help to loosen up your muscles and give your body a small training effect, thus avoiding the fitness losses associated with even 3 or 4 days of inactivity, while avoiding the kind of stress that’s likely to push you over the edge.

But as I mentioned earlier in the post, long slow training by itself will get you to your peak speed. You need to add small amounts of hill repetitions, speedwork, threshold intervals and other speed-enhancing stuff in order to get the most out of yourself. The key however, is small amounts at the correct time.

In the meantime, keep most of the training … slow.

Now here’s something I thought a lot about before I started coaching: Is it better to do my run training on or off-road? I’ve also had a lot of discussions about this.

And I think that the consensus is that running off-road is overall a better approach for a number of very good reasons:

• The impact forces absorbed by your legs are lessened when you run off-road. Although this is true, running on hard-pack dirt doesn’t actually lessen them that much. But if you’re running a lot - and considering that every foot-strike transmits a force equal to 2 or 3 times your body weight to your joints and lower back - every bit helps.

• Running on an uneven surface means that no two foot-strikes are the same. This means that you use different muscle fibres and fire your proprioceptors differently in every step. The result is a reduction in overuse injuries, which are usually the result of repetitive use of the same few muscle fibres over and over again (could also be called “repetitive strain injury”). These fibres then get tired, can no longer perform their function properly… and you get injured. Running off-road reduces this risk significantly.

• Off-road run routes usually take you away from urban sprawl and into the countryside. The result? Well, it’s simple really; it’s good for the soul. You get to run where you can hear the birds sing, smell the smells of the countryside and listen to something other than the drone of traffic.

Of course, you need to be careful not to step in any potholes, trip over anything or breathe in any of the midges or other insects that buzz around in our countryside. And running off-road in the winter means accepting that you might get a bit (or a lot) muddy. But if those are the only downsides, I’ll keep running off-road for most of my training.

Now that the wet and cold of winter is upon us, you may be considering adding a little group riding with your local cycle club to your routine. Or perhaps you’ll still ride on your own throughout the winter. Either way, it makes sense to make a few modifications to your bike if at all possible - and anything’s possible if you want to …

Here are my top 5 modifications to make your winter riding more pleasant:

1. Put mudguards on your bike. Yes, you heard me correctly, mudguards. If you’re going to ride in a group, this is simpy good manners. Nobody likes a face full of mud and … (I live in the country near lots of farms, you figure it out!). Ideally, add a flap to the end of the rear mudguard so that it nearly touches the road, this minimises the spray you’ll kick up. Most racing bikes have too little clearance for full mudguards, but you can either buy some very nifty clip-on ones or you can customise a pair of full ‘guards as I did. Your mates will appreciate it, trust me. Oh, and if you’re only going to ride on your own, at the very least you’ll have a dry backside.
2. Get some lights. And I do mean good lights. You need at least one red rear LED light just to be legal in most places, I’d have two - one constant beam, one flashing. I’d leave these on the bike for the whole winter, ‘cos I’ve lost count of the times I’ve ridden in poor light, mist and rain when lights just made sense. On the front, you need something that throws a good beam on the road. While strictly legal, flashing white LEDs are simply risking your safety - while you may be seen, they do nothing to help you see where you’re going. Get a good set of lights and you may even be able to get in good mileage at night this winter. A few years ago, I averaged an extra 200 miles per week by riding in the dark!
3. Change your tyres to a pair that are puncture-resistant. Wet weather plays havoc with tyres because little bits of grit and other muck gets stuck to the surface and then works its way into the tyre, leaving you standing by the side of the road trying to change a flat with numb hands in sub-zero conditions. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need lots of tread on a wet weather road bike tyre - tread on a car tyre is there to aid water dispersal and prevent aqua-planing. There isn’t enough surface area on a road bike tyre to cause you to aqua-plane, if you’ve fallen off in wet conditions, you probaby did something silly!
4. Buy a chain cleaner… and use it regularly. Nothing wears out componentry on your bicycle faster than grit on a chain. A number of companies make these things now and at a good price - certainly cheaper than buying new chains, cassettes and derailleurs all the time. And it’s a lot less messy than cleaning your chain manually all the time.
5. Finally, get yourself a can of water-dispersing lubricant (brands in the UK include GT85 & WD40). And again, use it regularly. Ideally, wash your bicycle down after every wet ride with warm soapy water, rinse it off and then spray anything that moves. You really will prolong the life of your bicycle. I know, you’ll be cold, wet and tired. And the last thing you want to do is to clean your bike, but think about all the salt, mud and … (farming area, remember!) and what it will do to your bike if you don’t. Oh, and remember to lubricate your chain with something else which is actually meant for the job.

With a bit of thought, you can make riding in a cold, wet winter a lot more pleaseant. In fact, there have been periods in my triathlon career when winter was my favourite time to ride. And if you get it right and ride consistently, next season you’ll be a whole lot faster.

This is the first in my Triathlon “Workout of the Week” series. I thought about having a swim, bike, run etc of the week, but you know what, you’d probably get bored and so would I. So, it’s one per week, perhaps an extra one here or there when I think of something cool!

Today is all about your swim efficiency and is a session that I love to do and hate to do, all wrapped into one. It’s something my coach used to use a lot and we got quite good at it. Essentially, it’s a test, but one which you can perform almost any time in order to work out how well recovered you are in the stage of training you’re in. It also gives you an indication of stuff to work on with your swimming.

Here we go…

7 x 200m Step Test

After a good warmup (and I mean 1000m or so of mixed drills & steady swimming),

Swim 7 x 200m on 6:00* (That’s starting every new set exactly 6 minutes after you started the last one) as…

1. at 60 beats below maximum heart rate (count your heart rate at the end of the 200m for 10s and multiply by 6 - eg. 21 x 6 = 126, which is 64 beats below my estimated 190bpm maximum)
2. at 50 beats below maximum heart rate
3. at 40 beats below maximum heart rate
4. at 30 beats below maximum heart rate
5. at 20 beats below maximum heart rate
6. at 10 beats below maximum heart rate
7. at maximum heart rate

On every set you need to be strict about maintaining your breathing pattern (mine is bilateral - breathe every 3), counting your strokes on every lap, taking an accurate time for each interval and recording all of these, your heart rate and how you felt when swimming after every interval.

After this set, swim a nice long cool down, get out of the pool and stretch off well.

Now have a look at the data you recorded:

• Were you disciplined enough to achieve the heart rate limits, especially early on in the set?
• What happened to your stroke count as you progressed through the set?
• What happened to your times? Were you as fast for each as you expected?
• Did you maintain your breathing pattern properly?
• How did your swimming feel in each?
• Most importantly, from the above, what could you improve on?

Keeping in mind that fast swimming is a blend of superb aerobic fitness, muscular strength endurance, hydrodynamics and efficiency, the answers to the questions above will set you on your path to faster swim splits next season… as long as you apply them!

I was doing a bit of reading today & I came across this article on Tri247.

Now that really is some very bling new kit for triathlon cycling. Guess what’s on my Christmas list?

Autumn is here, the leaves are falling from the trees, the nights are drawing in and it’s definitely getting colder. Although if you live in the UK, the weather has probably been better than we had all summer. However, the point is that your racing for the summer is probably over.

And as such, it’s time to take a well-earned end-of-season break. But what should that break actually look like?

When I first started racing in Britain, I took the same breaks that everyone else did - 4 to 6 weeks of doing virtually nothing, no triathlon training at all. And every summer I emerged in roughly the same shape as I had before.

I noticed that when I started training again, usually in early November, it was as if I had never done any triathlon training in my life - my heart rate was high, my perception of effort was up, I weighed in a good few pounds heavier than six weeks previous and it took me until December to start to feel like an athlete again.

I’ve since discovered that when you take more than 2 weeks off training (and even that’s too much if you do nothing at all), you lose many of your hard earned physiological gains. And they take a lot longer to regain than they do to lose!

So why should you take time off at all?

The reason for an end-of-season break is usually much more psychological than it is physical. Taking some time away from structured training allows you to “reset” your mindset from one of racing to a training one. Most athletes I work with need to send this message to their nervous system in a more effective way than simply deciding that “from today we’re in training mode.” Taking a break accomplishes this very nicely.

And what should that break look like?

The key to an effective end-of-season break is not to do nothing. What works best is to remove the structured element from your workouts. So I’d suggest leaving your heart rate monitor, power meter, accelerometer, gps device and every other performance measurement gizmo at home and simply do what you feel like doing. Run somewhere different, go mountainbiking if you usually train on the road, swim because you can or even better, do somethng that requires fitness, but that you wouldn’t ordinarily do - perhaps try a new sport?

By taking this approach, you can extend your break to 6 weeks if you wish without losing significant parts of your fitness and while still giving your brain that all-important holiday. After all, if you live in Northern Europe, you’re going to need your mental strength to get out the door through the long dark months of the winter…