Top 5 Posts of 2011

With the new year here, I decided to do a quick recap and easy navigation to the top 5 posts of 2011, as decided by you all, readers of the blog. If you missed any of these during the year, check em out by simply clicking on the bold-font below for the links:

5. Body as a Machine: A bit science, a lot philosophy, explores the body, the mind, and their connectedness

4. Reflecting on Mentorship in Triathlon: A look at the importance of mentorship as a foundation of the triathlon community

3. Triathlon in a Job Interview, and an Interesting Turn to Divorce Rates in Triathlon: We always expect the chance to talk about goal setting, drive, and the accountability inherent in our sport, but divorce rates...this threw me off guard to say the least...

2. Balancing Training with Other Things in Life, and the follow-up, Making Training Work: Thoughts from Near-Elites that are Pro at Something Other than Multisport: Sequence examining how to integrate multisport into the rest of life; first an editorial, and then some powerful bits of wisdom from a bunch of great athletes.

1. Focus on What You Can Control, Don't Waste Energy on the Things you Cannot: Getting the right mental state dialed in for the approach to and on race-day

And finally, I want to wish everyone the best in 2012. Take some serious time to reflect on the past year, identify your limiters (whether they be power on the bike, having fun at races, or lifestyle considerations), develop reasonable plans to address them, and get at it!

For me personally, 2011 was a very positive year. I trained smarter and thus more consistently (missing no time to due to injury) and as a result, raced Duathlons at a high performance level, earning All American Honorable Mention, and representing Team USA at the World Championships in Spain. I started working with a new coach who I felt really aligned with my personality and style, and I couldn't be happier with the decision! I continued to learn a lot more about the sport, and have really enjoyed the opportunity to share my thoughts through writing here on the blog and on a few other multisport websites. I also got great support from my partners, and look forward to only strengthening these relationships for years to come.

In 2012, I am making the full-on switch to Triathlon, and will be focusing on the 70.3 distance, with a goal of qualifying for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. I'll need to focus a ton on my swim (and am already underwater in the process), as well as building durability and more strength on the bike, while maintaining if not improving my current abilty to run fast at longer distances off the bike. And more broadly speaking, while in 2011 I "managed" the long-course races I did, in 2012, I want to "race" for 4+ hours. As for the schedule, I still plan on racing a few early season and higher-profile duathlons, but come June, the race-plan exclusively shifts to triathlon.

So there you have it! Have a wonderful NYE, and only good things to come in 2012!!!

The Face of Triathlon Coaching

Triathlon is growing at all levels. Fueled by an increasing popularity of the sport (e.g., specials on CNN, Articles in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, etc), there has been a recent and large influx of newbies competing for the first time. In addition this growth in sheer numbers, there has also been a rampant growth within the sport; races are getting faster every year, and age-group competition is more fierce than ever. Finishing is no longer good enough, but rather, more tenured athletes are focused on things like winning their division, rising to a spot on the overall podium, and for some, earning elite status or their pro-card. It only makes sense that, in parallel to this heightened intensity in triathlon participation, there has also been vast expansion in the business of triathlon coaching.Whereas not too long ago most age-groupers were self-coached, or may have followed a full-season book or online plan, nowadays, it seems that more and more amateur athletes are seeking out (and finding) individuals that offer personalized coaching, which begs the question; where are these coaches coming from? It seems that while a few may have formal training in exercise physiology, many coaches are simply pros or aspiring pro triathletes hoping to use the knowledge they have accumulated from an intimate relationship with the sport(s) to help others progress, and, to create a revenue stream to help support their own training and racing. Rather than focus on the debate around the pros and cons of this (which will be the stand-alone subject of my next piece) or posit my own opinions, I figured the best way to get inside the new face of triathlon coaching would be to ask my own coach, Wesley Johnson, a few challenging questions.

Wes, first off, thanks so much for doing this. How long have you been competing in triathlon?5 years with a background in competitive swimming. I swam for the University of Utah.

How would you classify yourself as an athlete; e.g., pro, semi-pro, elite, age-grouper, etc? Elite

When did you first get the idea to start coaching, how long have you been coaching for, and how many athletes do you coach today?

I have always [since my teen years] privately taught and coached swimmers. I started getting the idea to coach triathletes when many triathletes came to me to help them improve their swim technique. I have now been coaching triathletes full time for 4 years.

One of the nice things about having a job completely unrelated to triathlon is that it makes it easy to separate the sport from other components of life. How do you (or do you) find balance between your training, coaching, and then life outside of the sport?
I must admit, it can be hard to separate life, my own racing, and my coaching. However, I believe I have figured out how to balance my life and the sport of triathlon pretty well. How do I do that? I got married! I have noticed that since my marriage, my life is much more balanced and I am not always focused on myself and my job. I have someone else to care for which has really helped me find balance in my life. The two loves of my life are my wife and triathlon - whereas before it was mainly just triathlon. As long as I put my family first and then keep any additional hobbies or responsibilities (such as church or keeping up with friends outside of the sport), I have been able to balance my life pretty well. What can get hard is coaching and fitting in my own training. The nice part is that I am my own boss and I can fit in training where I want and need to fit it. The challenging part is that this job has become a 24 hour one with emails, calls, and text messages from my athletes at all hours of the day. Luckily for me, I love this sport and I love my job! I never get sick or tired of the triathlon-related questions. In terms of a breakdown, I'd say that 85% of my day is setting up training plans, group workouts, answering emails and texts, answering calls, and then getting in my own training. People ask me, "Don't you get sick of it?" I say "Never!" This job is not for everyone and I realize that. I feel blessed that I have found my passion and I believe I am pretty good at it!

We all know what it feels like to be completely spent at the end of a long and hard training day when the only thing imaginable and seemingly possible is the couch; yet you have told me that as a coach, you are constantly "on call" with your athletes. How do you force yourself to give 100% in coaching always?I guess I kind of answered this question above. The [only] way that I can always give 100% to my athletes is for my intense love of the sport and of my athletes. To me my athletes are so far from just clients that pay me money. I deeply care about each one and I sincerely want them to train, race, and be happy to obtain peak performance.

Do you think that you'll ever have to choose between coaching and really going for it as a pro? I mean the top triathletes aren't coaching anyone, and I assume this is because to compete at that level, training, nutrition, and recovery become a full time job. So, lay it all out there in an attempt to become a top pro, or build the coaching portfolio?

My priority is coaching. I would like to become Pro in the next couple of years. However, my number one objective is to build my coaching and provide for my family. Becoming a full time professional triathlete is just too risky for me right now in my life. I do believe that I will become a professional triathlete sometime in my early 30's. However, this will never take the place of my coaching or family. I have the utmost respect for professional triathletes, and I am friends with many of them. I think it is so amazing to live your dreams and realize your goals. If I do become a professional, I may cut back just a bit of my group coaching (e.g., running swim clinics) and other big time commitments to reach my peak performance. Nevertheless, I will always return to coaching [more broadly] and will absolutely remain coaching the athletes I have grown to love and care for. I want each athlete to do their very best, be happy, and never stop improving.

Do you have any formal training in exercise physiology, nutrition, or movement science? Where do you draw upon for most of your knowledge and subsequent approach to tailor-making your athletes' season plans.
Although my degree is in international business, I have since taken classes and trainings in exercise physiology and nutrition. Much of my knowledge and experience comes from USA Triathlon ("USAT"). I am frequently taking courses in physiology, nutrition, and other trainings through USAT and at the university level. I am a USAT Level 1 coach and will be upgrading to a level 2 status in the next couple of months. I plan on obtaining a Masters Degree in exercise physiology in the next few years as well. I am also a certified USA Swimming coach and I frequently attend trainings through their organization as well as USA Cycling, and USA Track and Field. There are many coaches out there who say they are a triathlon coach without certification from the body of our sport which is USAT. There are also many who think they don't need the certification or to continuously be learning the modern science of the sport due to their own knowledge and what they have learned through their own racing. This is a huge problem in our sport because doing well in this sport is very individual and you really have to understand the athlete and why their body is reacting to the training in a positive or a negative way. USAT is frequently involved with research and other new modern methods to help the individual succeed. There is no general or "cookie cutter" program that will work for a group of athletes. Each training plan should be individualized for the athlete and may be changed week to week based upon the athlete and his/her lifestyle and how their workouts went the previous week. There are many coaches out there who use a "cookie cutter" approach and base their knowledge upon their own experiences which is a problem.

More than a few influential people in the sport say it's a real problem that so many pros and aspiring pros without the formal pedigree and background are coaching. How would you respond to that?Professional triathletes, no doubt, have obtained lots of knowledge from their racing careers. However, like I said before many of them think that as long as they coach the way they learned and how they trained [and raced] their whole life themselves, they will be successful coaches. I believe that a former or current professional triathlete can be an amazing coach...as long as they do acquire the knowledge and continue learning through modern research, education, and also learn how to individualize around each athlete based upon their age, lifestyle, and other commitments.Most people can imagine the "good things" that athletes do in the athlete/coach relationship, but what is the one habit you may have noticed among your athletes that you simply can't stand?

Hahaha. This is a great question. The hardest thing for me to deal with is when athletes are over trained because they are adding their own workouts to the schedule since they think they aren't doing enough. Communication and trust between the athlete and coach is very important. It is important that the coach knows how the workouts are going and that the athlete is not overdoing it. Workouts should be monitored and adjusted week by week to make sure the athlete is not over training. Even if an athlete has the same amount of training as the previous week, but his work and family life has become very stressful, this athlete may be over training. Thus, communication between athlete and coach is of critical importance. If the athlete is doing extra workouts that the coach does not know about, that is what can and will lead to over training. So I guess that is what I can't stand!

Anything else I may have missed that you want to share?

Have I said that I love my job?!


Wes Johnson is a USAT Level 1 coach in Salt Lake City, Utah with GPP Endurance. He has coached athletes of all levels - from the Ironman World Championships in Kona to completing a sprint triathlon. He coaches athletes from all over the world and frequently puts on training camps all over the nation for varying levels of athletes. Contact him at wesjohn50@hotmail.com.

Thanks to My Partners

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I wanted to take a few minutes to mention all of those that help support my training and racing. Competing at the level that I aspire to be at requires a full tool-kit of resources, and I'm grateful to have some great individuals and organizations in my corner. With no further ado:

Coach Wesley Johnson: I had the wonderful opportunity to meet and train under Wes [in-person] this past summer when I was in Salt Lake City. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was the guy that could best take me to elite status. It's very rare to find a coach that has both great interpersonal skills, as well as technical expertise. Generally you can find one of the other, but Wes exemplifies both; he has the knowledge base to design a technically sound plan, and shows an uncanny level of caring that manifests every time we tweak and adapt that plan, which happens quite often. Thanks Coach Wes! Big things ahead in 2012!!

Massage Therapist Julia Nelson: Recovery is a critical element of my training, and Julia's touch goes a long way to keep my healthy and in balance. As a former varsity rower, Julia has a vast understanding of the athlete's body, and this is reflected in her massage work. I am almost 100% convinced that my weekly sessions with Julia are a big reason why I have been able to train so consistently over the last year. If you are an athlete in the Ann Arbor area, I would highly recommend scheduling some time with Julia, as she will do wonders to keep you injury free and ready to work hard. She can be reached at: Julianeslon67@gmail.com.

Bike Mechanic Matt Meyer: Whether I need a full tune-up, some fine tuning on parts, an opinion on my fit, or an innovative product order, Matt is my go-to guy. Dude knows everything about bikes and bike racing, and this shows itself in his wrench expertise as well as product sourcing. I would highly recommend reaching out to Matt for service and/or products. You can get Matt at: Matt@rocknroadcycle.com

Swim Coach Christi Vedejs: I've been fortunate to have recently started working with Christi. Christi has competed at the highest levels of swimming, and has so much to offer. She makes herself available always, and in just a little while, we have already improved my technique in the water immensely. Looking forward to a lot more where that came from! If you need a little extra attention to your pull or catch, Christi may be your best bet.

Extreme Endurance: The only supplement that I take regularly, this all-natural lactic acid buffer does wonders for me. As an amateur athlete, I have to balance my training with graduate school, work, and so many other "general life" obligations. To those ends, it has become critical to take a quality over quantity approach to training. Extreme Endurance makes a noticeable difference in my ability to recover from hard workouts, making it much easier to ensure I get a critical intensity in my training cycles, without needing massive training volumes all the time. A great recovery aide, for more information check out Extreme Endurance.

Center for Yoga: "Strength without flexibility is rigidity, but flexibility without strength is instability." I heard these words from a very skilled teacher at CFY, and the rest is history. I aim to practice at CFY twice a week. Both the physical and psychological benefits of yoga are huge for triathletes. Center for Yoga has helped me get my body and my mind in a position where they are both strong, but also always ready to adapt to the situation. Talk about direct relevance to triathlon. Stop Center for Yoga where you first class is free, and see for yourself.

***An additional thanks to my friends and family that are supportive of my goals in the sport. And of course, my girlfriend Caitlin, whose support means more to me than anything. Love you babe!

Reflecting on Mentorship in Triathlon

As featured in Xtri.com.

Triathlon has the potential to be a very individual, and at times, self-serving sport. Proper training protocols are almost always built around a particular athlete's current capacities and future goals. Additionally, given the significant amount of time that it takes to train, workouts tend to be executed when they fit in; one athlete's 4AM ride may be another's 9PM ride. Although it is certainly possible to find group training opportunities, my own experience has shown me that they are hard to come by and even harder to maintain in any consistent fashion. Generally speaking, we are a group of athletes with very personal goals and are often forced to take highly individualized routes toward achieving them…which is why it strikes me that when you ask any triathlete about his/her favorite aspects of the sport, most include the strong sense of community in their response.

And this is no illusion. While the reasons are numerous and could easily be the topic of an entire article, it seems that a shared sense of challenge, struggle, and accomplishment work to create a strong bond amongst triathletes. Maybe more than any other component of this community, I hugely appreciate the value of mentorship, and with Thanksgiving around the corner, I found it fitting to reflect on just how appreciative I am to have a mentor in this sport.
In my mind, a mentor is someone who can draw upon their own experiences to teach, counsel, and guide around a particular topic, while being a strong listener at the same time. They are open and honest, and in the context of triathlon, go much further than simply recounting their past glory days…although some of that is definitely allowed too! The mentor/mentee relationship constantly evolves, and ideally, becomes stronger over time. In a sport that is so complex both physically and emotionally, I am fortunate to have found someone that is starting to fill this role.

I met Marty on an 8-hour bus ride across Spain en route to the Duathlon World Championships. To be totally honest, at first, I thought to myself, "Great, this old-timer is going to sit here and talk my ear off about how epic he was for an entire week." Turns out Marty is pretty damn epic, and that I couldn't have been more wrong about his intentions. Marty has had a long and successful career as a dominant age-grouper; with five trips to Kona, National Championships, and most recently, a World Championship in the 50-55 age-group [in Duathlon] to his name. Marty is also a loving husband and father, and a successful professional in something other than triathlon. I quickly realized that if I could paint my future progression in the sport, it would look a lot like Marty's past.

Over the course of our time together, Marty spent more time listening and reacting to my goals than recounting his past…even though the latter was far more exciting 99% of the time. He could always go back to his vast inventory of experiences and pull forward the one that aligned most to what I was wondering about at the time; be it training, racing, or balancing our obsession with a corporate job. He never held himself up on a pedestal, and always focused his story-telling around what I could learn from it to forward my career as an athlete.
Since parting ways at the end of the World Championships, we have stayed in contact (a big thanks to modern technology and yes, I admit, social networking) and I have no doubt that we will continue to for years to come. Whenever something comes up that is outside the athlete/coach relationship, odds are, Marty will be my go-to. I realize how lucky I am to have such a good mentor/mentee fit with Marty. Form a very pragmatic standpoint, I met someone that has achieved goals similar to those I am aiming for (e.g., age-group dominance, balance with a family and job, staying competitive into the second half of life), and is at a time of his own career where he is prioritizing "giving back" to the triathlon community…whereas most of my focus is still on taking from it, but in the most gracious way I can.

With the off-season reflection period in full swing, ask yourself if you could be a mentor to someone or if you could benefit from having one…and remember…the two aren't mutually exclusive. It is these types of relationships that take our often individual and self-serving sport and turn it into something much more.

Triathlon in a Job Interview, and an Interesting Turn to Divorce Rates in Triathlon

As Featured on Xtri.

In a recent job interview with top executives of a multi-billion dollar organization, my competition in endurance sports became the topic of discussion. Given that I am in my final year of a graduate degree, I have been interviewing quite often, and am no longer surprised when this happens...because it almost always does. The conversation generally follows a common trajectory; awe ("wow, it is so amazing that you do this"), to genuine interest ("so, tell me more about the Duathlon World Championships"), to the relevance of multisport in professional settings (e.g., goal-setting, data tracking, measurement, and strategic planning). But this particular interview took a turn for the interesting when I was asked, "There is all kinds of literature out there about high divorce rates with triathletes, what do you think about that?"

Not gonna lie, I was thrown slightly off-guard, but after I got over my initial reaction [whoa, pretty ballsy question], I told him exactly what I thought:

• Yes, it's disturbing that triathletes get divorced, and well the subject is highly publicized, nowhere have I ever seen that the number is truly greater that then [50%] of all marriages that unfortunately end in divorce.

• Much like participation in any other individual passion, in the context of a relationship, communication, planning, and probably more than anything, trade-offs are key. I went on to tell the panel of interviewers that I almost never attend University of Michigan football games (I am a grad Student at U of M, where football is as big as anything). They all looked at me like I was from another planet. I explained that I generally need to get in a weekly long workout, and if I were to spend 4 hours at the football game and 4 hours in the saddle, I probably wouldn't have much time for anything else; be it work or a relationship; basically, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If I am going to train for half the day, I realize that I may not be able to watch football with the guys for the other half.

• I then brought up golf, and my (although admittedly vague) familiarity is that many corporate executives may play a few rounds per week. 6 hours a round x 2.5 rounds a week and there you have a decently high volume [15 hours] training week. This insight seemed to really strike a chord with the group.

• Finally, I helped them realize that the divorce rate they read about is only one side of the coin. In my relationship, the power of endurance sport has been almost all positive. Even though she is not a triathlete (or duathlete for that matter), as a result of partaking in this culture, my girlfriend and I are extremely active, eat healthy, and are totally in touch with our bodies. Although we may not spend too many late nights at the bar, we have a great social life, are embedded in a wonderful community of other people that value a similar lifestyle, and we actually think that spending a Friday night eating a box of Cookie Crisp Cereal over a rental movie is pretty incredible...so we can wake up feeling good for our long workouts the next morning (although after an entire box, feeling OK may be more appropriate).

While I realize that as a graduate student without kids, my current situation may be a bit easier, I find it hard to believe that the same types of principles don't and won't apply throughout the rest of my life too. For me, so long as multisport fits in with the greater context of my life, and doesn't become my life, I'm not all that worried.

So, when triathlon inevitably surfaces in your next interview (or any professional conversation for that matter), odds are you'll get to speak to the fact that your swim/bike/run performance evaluation system is actually pretty similar to that of IBM's business tracking. But, in the event that things get interesting, it's good to think through both sides of the coin...and more importantly, to make sure that you are comfortable with your own answer for reasons far more important than getting the job.

4 Pillars of Holistic Training: Nutrition

First off - sorry for the hiatus. When you (and I) look back to my last post, you may be upset (and I, somewhat embarrassed) that it has been 6 weeks. No need to waste more time with a long explanation, I've just been very busy with a number of things. Good news for everyone is that you can simply look back to the last 2 posts to refresh yourself of where we are at in our discussion of the 4 pillars of performance (1. sport-specific training, 2. functional strength, 3.nutrition, and 4.recovery). Today, we focus on nutrition. Much like with the prior posts, this should simply serve as a primer on a very complex topic, and I encourage you to take what you read below, and continue to educate yourself. Hopefully, if nothing more, the following helps you target your search for future information. OK, onto the good stuff.

Nutrition is of huge importance. You are what you eat, and you train and race what you are. The decisions that we make about what to eat and, as you'll read below, when to eat it, are pivotal to our immediate performance (e.g., hitting targets in a workout or race), long-term performance (e.g., getting to an ideal body weight and composition, recovering from and adapting to hard training), and overall general health (e.g., feeling good everyday, and setting ourselves up for long and high-quality lives). With so much going on here, I am going to make an initial cut to make this all a little bit easier to digest (no pun intended) by breaking this discussion of nutrition for athletes down into 2 parts:

1) Fueling: What we eat right before, during, and right after a workout

2) Nutrition: What we eat the rest of the day

1) Fueling

First I will introduce the concept of a "workout window," which is the period of time encompassing the 30 minutes before a workout, the total time of the workout, and the 30 minutes after a workout. The baseline understanding everyone needs is this: muscles run off of carbohydrates, and can store enough energy to get through between 70 and 90 minutes (depending on the individual) of training. So, if you have a longer workout, you have to refuel yourself as the training session goes on. If you are under that 90-70 minute mark, you may not need to fuel during your workout, but should still focus on the "right before" and "right after" portions of this post. Even if your workout is short and you don't need to take in calories, you should be drinking water for hydration during any workout, about 24-32oz/hour (if you want a more exact number, Google "sweat rates for athletes" and perform a sweat test.

- 30 minutes before a workout: 2 things are most important about this. The first is that whatever you eat, your gut needs to be able to tolerate it easily and digest it fast. No one wants to enter a workout feeling bloated, with a stomach ache, or nervous about having to poop. The second thing is this meal should be dominated by simple carbs. Like I said above, your body runs off of carbs, so proteins and fats in this time period are pointless. And, within carbs, the importance of simple carbs is huge. Complex carbs (e.g., brown rice, brown anything) take longer for the body to breakdown whereas simple carbs (e.g., most white things, sugars) are available for use by the body much quicker. In this instance, right before training, we want to top off our muscle stores (from the previous meal) with readily available carbs that we can use asap.

- During a workout: Same 2 things mentioned above (tolerable and simple carbs) apply, but with even more importance on both. To those ends, we have an array of sports drinks and sports solids (Gus, Powerbars, etc) -- giving us what we need in an easy way to digest -- to choose from. While there are many equations out there, a good general rule here is to aim for between 2 and 3 calories (again, dominated by simple carbohydrates) for every pound of lean adjusted body weight. So, for an athlete that ways 160 pounds and is 10% body fat: 160-16=144, 144*2/3 = between 288 and 432 calories per hour. Ideally, you want to aim for the upper end of this threshold, but meeting the first criteria; it has to be tolerable. Much like sport-specific training, this also takes practice (and a lot of experimentation to find out what works) but you have to train your gut to be able to digest while exercising. Since those caloric requirements can be kind of high, I almost always recommend using a mix of sports drinks and solids to hit the requirements. Since you generally want to chase solids with water, this requires having some sort of hydration plan that allows you to carry both sports-drinks and water. Lastly, you don't want to take down all your calories at once, but rather, break up your consumption over the course of an hour. Most athletes either eat/drink every 15 minutes or every 30 minutes, depending upon preference for size of intake (the latter obviously mandates a greater intake per time you eat/drink). Finally, waiting for that 70-90 minute mark to "start" this process is *not* what this means. If you know you will be training longer, then start your in-workout fueling immediately. So, for a simple example, in a 100 minute workout, I will start fueling 15 minutes in, and by the end of those 100 minutes, have probably consumed around 600 calories.

- 30 minutes after a workout: Your muscles are starving for fuel (even if you did everything above right, you can only replace about half of what you burn) and this is the time to give it to them. So many athletes don't eat after workouts, and it makes no sense. Refuel in this period with a mix of simple carbs (again, muscles are hungry, don't make them wait, keep it simple) and proteins. The ideal combo is 4 grams of carbs for 1 gram of protein. This is why Chocolate milk gets so much hype, as it is nature's (with some tweaking by man) perfectly formulated recovery drink (4:1 ratio, mostly simple carbs thanks to the added sugars). If you have the $$ to spend, the specialized recovery products may be even better, because they don't include anything that you can't use right away, and thus focus on maximizing the value of every calorie to fulfill what your body needs following a workout. 300-500 calories for this snack is ideal, followed by a proper meal a few hours later. I don't want to go into too much detail, but force yourself to take in this snack immediately after a workout. It is so important for realizing the gains from the workout and recovering so you can be ready for the next one. This completes the "fueling" portion. Onto general nutrition.

2) General Nutrition

If you train regularly, you will notice that the act of "fueling" really requires you to take in a lot of simple carbohydrates. Here is where things get interesting: Simple carbs are really only good for one thing, fast energy. Otherwise, they really are not good for you at all. So, with that simple principle in mind, throughout the rest of the day, an athlete wants to focus on proteins, "good fats" (e.g., unsaturated, olive oil, fatty fishes, etc) and complex (brown rice, sweet potatoes, whole grain stuff) carbs that take a long time to breakdown and thus provide the body with sustained energy to get one through the non-training parts of the day. The exception to this rule is fruits, which are often high in sugars, but their benefit in anti-oxidants and other critical nutrients by far outweighs the "sugar" hit.

I am not going to touch on this in much more detail, since I am in no position to make caloric recommendations and don't want to dish out general daily nutrition advice since this is very personal. What I will do is leave you with a simple overview for general nutrition:

Get your simple carbs and splurge on your sugary cereals, granola bars, pop-tarts; just make sure that you time this splurge correctly and in the fueling "workout window." Once this window closes, stay away from simple carbs (outside of fruits) and the focus should shift to the other macro-nutrients (proteins, good fats) and complex carbs for sustained energy.

So, when you evaluate your overall nutrition as an athlete, think in terms of fueling and general nutrition. Go over what you currently do, and determine the things that need to change. Be patient, and remember, much like training the rest of the body, the gut needs training too. Start slow, and experiment with fueling techniques to see what works best for you. In terms of general nutrition, it may seem hard to stay away from simple carbohydrates, but once you get in the habit of doing this, it actually becomes quite easy, even in our modern day fast-food era.

I also want to stress that this is a broad overview and there is just too much on this topic to cover in any one blog post. Feel free to contact me for further questions, etc.

4 Pillars of Holistic Training:Functional Strength

Last week we discussed sport-specific, or endurance training, and the many factors that go into swimming, biking, and/or running (see below if you missed it). This week, we turn to the second pillar of performance (endurance, functional strength, nutrition, recovery). By definition, functional strength is 1. Ensuring an athlete has the strength (and flexibility) to perform the movements his/her sport demands in the best and most efficient way possible, 2. Without becoming injured. While these two facets of functional strength almost always go together, I will examine them separately for the sake of structure in this post. And while what's left to say will be pretty short, do not be fooled. Functional strength may be one of the easiest things to comprehend and explain, yet it is one of the hardest things to actually make time for and do.

1. Strong/flexible enough to excel at sport(s): Push-off on the run, power on the pedal down-stroke, and pull on the swim. Stride length, lower-back reach in the aero-position, streamlined horizontal posture in the pool. These are just a few examples of things that make an enormous difference in your performance that cannot be achieved solely by sport-specific endurance training. As a matter of fact, sport-specific endurance training often works against these aspects of solid performance, as your body tends to default to "what is most normal/comfortable" and hard-wiring current muscle memory, even though it likely isn't optimal. Rather, a much more efficient and accurate way to target the muscles and joints needed for sport is through functional-strength training. Since this is not an area of my expertise, I will not recommend specific exercises, but will say, this generally does not mean power-lifting and heavy weights, but rather, very controlled and refined movements that often use one's own body weight for resistance. The best exercises bake in strength, flexibility, and balance. If you read on and commit to getting serious about functional strength training, purplepatch has some great resources, such as their functional strength for runner's program (click and scroll down).

2. Without becoming injured: Being able to complete high volume sport-specific training requires incredible structural (muscular-skeletal) support. Think of strength and flexibility as an enabler to your high-volume training; lay the foundation by building good functional strength, and your body will better tolerate and adapt to the endurance training. The most simple reason for this is that toward the end of long days, weeks, monthly cycles, when you are most prone to lose proper form, you won't. Losing proper form means muscle imbalance and compensation patterns, which are probably the largest culprit of injuries in our sport(s). There is research showing that even some bone injuries (e.g., stress fractures) result just as much from torque on the bone (e.g., tight muscles, ligaments pulling the bone at attachments points) as they do from sheer impact.

Earlier I said this is one of the hardest things to actually do...and I will just tell it like it is. Most endurance athletes always default to using that last 15 minutes to get in another few miles or lengths of the pool. Stop. The marginal benefit from using that time to stretch or perform functional strength exercises is literally 10x more than those last few miles. This *does not* mean start cutting your workouts short. It does mean designing a training program that includes and makes the time for this, and if that means shortening some of your workouts, then so be it.

I'll end my post with a great quote from a yoga teacher. "Strength without flexibility leads to rigidity, and flexibility without strength leads to instability." For endurance athletes, I will add one last part..."and having neither leads to total meltdown and injury."

For more detail on functional strength (and all the pillars of performance for that matter) check out the purplepatch knowledge+ page. For runners, check out the purplepatch running plans.

Like I said before, there are other options out there, but I have started working with purplepatch because I truly believe in the approach and philosophy, and have seen how well it works first-hand, and in some of the athletes that I work with.

4 Pillars of Holistic Training: Sport-Specific Training

I’ll start by saying I am intentionally keeping these pillar-specific posts on the short side. They are simply meant to serve as a primer on each component of a holistic approach to training. If you want more detail, I highly recommend that you visit the purplepatch fitness knowledge page where there is an extensive amount of excellent material.

Sport-specific training, or endurance training, is obviously fundamental to an endurance athlete’s progress in the sport(s). I hate to say it, but anyone who says that you can become a better runner without running is wrong. So, while a large part of your training should be running (I use running as an example from here on out, but for triathletes, the same goes for swimming, biking, and running), the type and timing of your runs matter more than most think.

Type: Without being overly long winded, simply “running” is not enough. In order to improve as a runner, you need a good mix of endurance runs, pace-particular runs, long runs, hill-repeats, speed sessions, and recovery runs. The key here is that every run should have a purpose: from building strength and form (hill repeats) to building muscular endurance (long runs) to building speed (speed-sessions) to building feel and confidence (pace-particular runs). Making sizeable gains (especially for those already more advanced in their training) requires a shift in thinking from “going out for a run,” to “doing hard hill-repeats to build strength followed by two recovery run days to trigger physiological adaptations from the hill-repeats.” To enable this shift in thinking, it’s critical that the athlete has an understanding of what different runs accomplish, or is confident in a coach/program that does.

Timing: Once an athlete has mapped out all the different types of sport-specific workouts (e.g., the running examples listed above) the timing of when to complete these workouts becomes critical. Timing can and should be designed on a micro and macro level: For a triathlete doing a 2-a-day, should the bike or run come in the morning? What days of the week should my hardest workouts be on, and what days should my active recovery be on? At what point of my season should I be doing hill-repeats vs. speed sessions? Much like I mentioned above regarding the type of run, it takes both a thorough knowledge of sport-specific training, as well as a 30,000 foot view of an entire season to be able to time workouts properly. And one more additional note here; timing should not only consider the other sport-specific workouts, but also fit and align with all the pillars (functional strength, nutrition, recovery) of performance.

So, to summarize, with sport-specific training, the type and timing of workouts are very important, and always work together. Once an athlete understands that every training session has a purpose, the key becomes to balance those sessions and time them correctly to allow for the best physiological and psychological gains. Well this seems complicated enough for the running example I follow above, it becomes exponentially harder for multisport athletes, who must balance and integrate the 2-3 sports (love to Duathletes out there!) that comprise "sport-specific" training.

To that end, I think it takes one of two things to make all this work. 1) A lot of time and passion about the sport(s) to do the research and develop one’s own training plan...and also, a lot of discipline to stick to it and evaluate the results objectively, something I personally find impossible to do... or 2) A good coach or program, and a lot of trust and confidence in that good coach or program.

Personally, I take the later route (I have a pretty good knowledge of this stuff, but lack the ability to evaluate my own results objectively) and recommend it for almost everyone that is serious about improving as an endurance athlete. If you think this is some kind of “sales pitch,” re-read the above, remember that there are subsequent posts coming on functional strength, nutrition, and recovery, and then try to honestly tell me that you can integrate all of this on your own, and stick to (and also adjust at times) what you come up with. I would be hard pressed to find anyone that can do that.

So, with all of that in mind, I urge you to evaluate your current sport-specific training. If you are considering incorporating/using outside resources to enhance your training, for runners, check out the newly released purplepatch running plans , which I can personally vouge for. Furthermore, if you want more information on additional programs and coaching options, just reach out to me - I am familiar with many.

Next week’s post will focus on the second pillar: functional strength. In the mean-time, if you like what you are reading and want more in the form of very short blurbs, follow me on twitter.

Until next time, live hard, train hard!

Holistic View to Endurance Sports Training

The very nature of endurance sport(s) is one that demands a lot of effort spent in preparation. In the simplest of terms, racing at long distances requires training at long distances, and training at long distances takes consistent time and energy. Because almost all of us have a day job and numerous other commitments, there is a tendency to focus what is generally limited time and energy on improvement at our sport(s), by doing our sport(s): for this audience, running; or, swimming, biking, and running. This [I'll call sport-specific training from here on out] is extremely important. Generally speaking, particularly for those newer to the sport(s), if you want to run faster or further, you have got to run more! And for beginners, thinking of training for a 10K as running (or training for a shorter triathlon as swimming, biking and running) is probably OK, and a serviceable way to tackle your first event.

Here’s the catch…As an athlete becomes more advanced and serious [e.g., training harder/longer and racing more frequently] a much greater amount of stress is placed on the body, and often times, on the mind too. At this point, a one dimensional sport-specific approach to training not only no longer makes sense, but can actually be extremely dangerous, leading to overtraining, burn-out, and even worst, detriments to general health. Now it’s not like all of a sudden a one-dimensional athlete will get hit by a train, but more often than not, cues kick in that it might be time for a shift in paradigm: Stagnant performance, constant minor injuries, a stress fracture, frequent cold, trouble sleeping at night, lethargy during the day, etc, etc...More (in terms of sport-specific training) is better to a point, and even then, only if that “more” is done in the context of a much broader overall training environment.

Enter a more holistic

view of training that will drive performance and ensure good health. Matt Dixon, arguably the most visionary coach/mentor in endurance sports today (just look at the crazy

roster of pros under his guidance) has characterized [and made pragmatic] this holistic philosophy as taking a 4-pillar approach to training: 1. Sport-specific training, 2. Functional strength, 3. Nutrition and 4. Recovery. Much like a building, if one of these pillars is relatively (to the others) weak, the athlete will begin to crumble, and if a pillar is missing altogether, the athlete is likely to fall.

This approach by no means equates to more total hours spent on our sport(s). What it does mean is often a re-balancing of the current hours (e.g., a few less hours running, a few more working on strength and flexibility) and a much broader view of training (including what I eat, when I eat it, and how much I am sleeping). All too often athletes sabotage phenomenal sport-specific training by neglecting functional strength (this can manifest in the all-too-common achilles injury 2 weeks out from your marathon) ignoring nutrition (which involves fueling, or what you eat before, during, and right after exercise as well as general nutrition, which means what you eat during the rest of the day) or short-changing recovery (spending hundreds on the latest shoes, but not $50 on a monthly massage). Making this holistic approach work requires considering all 4 pillars in the greater context of your life. For example, if your current physical training load requires 8 hours of sleep per night for recovery, but your job and kids mean that the most you are ever going to get is 6.5, the answer might not be sleeping more, but it might be re-configuring the physical load. Hence, the 4-pillars can apply to everyone, but often times, in a very individualized way.

What are the implications of this? As a first step, when you design your training (or find a coach to help you do so), be aware of and consider how all 4-pillars fit in. Give each pillar equal weight so you don’t risk crumbling; this may mean learning more about nutrition and making hard behavior changes, cutting out an hour of running to attend a yoga class, and actually planning and building into training sound recovery from the physical work. And in an ideal world, make this equal importance tangible; if are the type that is crazy about tracking weekly mileage and pace, start tracking the calories you burn during a workout and your replacement of them in the glycogen window (more to come on these details in future posts). Keep a sleep diary for a week. Etc, etc.

While at first glance this may seem like a radical approach, once you learn more about the 4-pillars and how they fit together, it turns out that traditional one-dimensional program that only focus on sport-specific training is probably the most radical thing out there. A more holistic and comprehensive approach requires an enormous shift in orientation, and this isn’t just a challenge for age-groupers, but for many pros too.

If this makes at least some sense to you, please stay abreast of the blog over the next month. I will be profiling each individual pillar, and then writing a post showing how they all fit together. If you don’t have the patience and want to learn more now, visit purplepatch fitness and start exploring the wonderful resources Matt Dixon has put together. This week’s articles of the week are also themed around the purplepatch approach and 4 pillars.

As a disclaimer, I am starting to get more and more involved with purplepatch, simply because I really believe in what they are trying to do, and have seen it work in my own training (and no, I am not coached by Matt Dixon, but am lucky to be coached by someone who generally echoes his philosophy, and I’ve seen it work in huge ways). This also means that I will be continuously learning more about the 4 pillars, and to the extent that I can, sharing it with you! To that end, I just joined Twitter, and will use it solely as a vehicle to pass on this type of information, but in much shorter (pretty sure the limit is 140 words) and succinct blurbs (I may join Twitter, but I’ll never say tweet). If you are interested in daily tips and even an inside look at what some of the top pros are up to, follow me at: http://twitter.com/#!/Bstulberg

Until next time, Train Hard, Live Harder!!

Focus on What You Can Control, and Don't Waste Energy on the Things You Cannot

While reading an interview with a Kona bound age-grouper, Adrian Rishworth, one particular insight really stood out to me. Worrying about whether or not his qualifying race (IM Lake Placid) would be wetsuit eligible, Adrian’s friend told him, “Focus on what you can control, and don’t waste energy on the things that you cannot.” With the second half of the race season fast approaching, this is some of the simplest yet most powerful advice we [as endurance athletes] should keep at the forefront of our minds. I’ll even go an enormous step further, suggesting that this is a pretty good way to approach nearly all elements of life. Since the wisdom largely speaks for itself, my subsequent examination of it will be brief. And in order to avoid overstepping the purpose and reach of this blog, I’ll keep things in the context of endurance sports.

The first part, focus on what you can control, gives us a lot to focus on! Prior to a race, there is a laundry list of things (big and little) to do that we have full control over. And while these tasks often have the power to make or break a race, it is common to hear stories of athletes (and often really good ones too) getting lazy here, and then paying the price. There is no shortage of examples.

The right in-race nutrition, and in the right format to easily take it down; having your 3 Powerbars will do you no good if you can’t get the wrapper off while biking or running. Foam rolling; It’s a pain in the ass (literally), but the 2 minutes it takes in the morning can save you 40 minutes of meltdown causing pain in the later stages of a race. Blister control and other minor bodyshop care; it stinks to spend time duct-taping your big toe, especially at 4AM (when even the smallest things are hard to do), but the one time you don’t do it will be the time the blister grows to performance deteriorating levels. Pre-race fueling; you train so hard and for so long, often scrutinizing a lot of what you eat, so it makes zero sense to mess up your carb-load, yet this seems to happen far too often. Call the hotel and check out the local options in advance, and if they don’t have what you need, pack it! Getting to the race on time; leave early! Again, you put so much time into this, so what’s an extra 10 minutes on race morning to minimize stress? While I could go on forever, the theme should be clear by now; there is a lot that we can control and should focus on in the days leading up to a race.

The second part, don’t waste energy on the things you cannot control, is equally as important! All the things we can control (see above) can really place a sizeable stress-load on us, all in addition to the usual pre-race anxiety, and the extreme physiological stress that racing places on the body. Long story short, there is a lot to do pre-race [within our power] that will demand a ton of energy, and then all the energy that is left over should be expired on the course! So, with that in mind, it makes absolutely no sense to devote a single calorie of energy (mental or physical) to things that are out of our control. For example, wasting energy worrying about what the temperature will be on race morning is pointless; you are not going to change it. But…the lost sleep, raised HR, physical tenseness, and forgetting to do other things (that you can control) because your mind is consumed by worries about the temperature is likely to cost you in a big way.

To summarize, in the lead-up to races (or in training, or really anything in life) the worst thing you can do is worry about the things that you cannot control at the expense of doing the things that you can. Unfortunately, this seems to be a vicious cycle that too many people fall into. The best thing you can do is the opposite. Focus on what is within your control and knock all that stuff out, and believe me, there isn’t likely to be a shortage of it. And for the things that are out of your control, don’t waste energy on them; you simply can’t afford to. It’s OK to be prepared to react to a handful of variable situations, but it’s not OK to worry endlessly about which of those situations might occur.

Good luck to all as we head into the second half of race season!!!

Tea and Endurance Sports

In a constantly changing "flavor the of the week" enviornment around nutritional performance enhancers, tea seems to withstand the test of time. Regardless of the magazine issue or dietary trend of the month, tea always works its way into the equation. For this week, I asked Randee Bloom (thanks for the guest contribution!!), an RN and tea collector/enthusiast why this is the case. Here is what she had to say:

Intense exercise or everyday normal function requires the replacement of vital nutrients and fluids. The careful selection of which dietary sources to consume and when is critical to restoration and performance. Endurance athletes are especially concerned with selecting foods and beverages that pack a punch by offering multiple benefits; such as both hydration and nutrients. Tea, the most consumed beverage in the world after water, may be a good choice.

All natural tea, including the white, green, and black varieties begins life from the same plant. It is the manufacturing process, including fermentation, which results in the different amounts of available nutrients. Because green tea is unfermented or not oxidized (the leaves are instead steamed) it does not undergo the process known to eliminate or severely reduce the naturally occurring polyphenols, including the most common and powerful, flavonoids. Compounds such as flavonoids have received considerable attention by healthcare providers and researchers as potentially offering anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic, anti-fungal, and even anti-viral properties. Research around the globe on animals and humans has and continues to be conducted to isolate specific benefits.

Focusing upon endurance exercise, no conclusive benefits have been reported:One research study tested green tea’s potential to improve endurance during exercise. The controlled study measured the running times to exhaustion in mice. Findings reported in the American Journal of Physiology in 2006 revealed that those animals fed green tea extract (“GTE”) had higher running times to exhaustion and higher muscle glycogen contents as compared with the exercised but not GTE-fed group. That said, no such findings have been replicated in humans. In a study published in 2010 in the International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research, multiple respiratory and circulatory measurements of nine endurance-trained men were taken before, during and after exercise. Those who consumed GTE did not demonstrate performance or energy metabolism improvement. Unfortunately, the sports-science community seems to be at a mouse roadblock, for the time being anyways.

Green tea’s affect on fat oxidation:
One area of green tea’s potential benefit to all individuals, including those highly trained and seeking maximal metabolic function, is fat oxidation. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2008 found that young healthy men who consumed the equivalent of 3 ½ cups of green tea prior to their cycling measured higher fat oxidation rates, a measurement of how fat is broken down. Researchers suggested that green tea creates higher concentrations of noradrenaline, thereby stimulating fat metabolism which in turn is transported to the muscle providing fuel during exercise. This could be particularly beneficial for longer-course endurance athletes, who often race distances that deplete carbohydrate stores and require burning fat as fuel. In non-race situations, green-tea could be a helpful tool in achieving a particular body composition, by stimulating the burning of fat before during training sessions. That said, take caution (and see articles of the week) when attempting what have become known as “starvation workouts,” which while thought to increase fat-burning, may have minimal benefit and could be detrimental to training and fitness progression.

Green tea’s nutritional benefits:Rather obvious but possibly overlooked, green tea offers certain benefits as a daily fluid because of what it does not contain. Compared with common beverages of choice, green tea has relatively low levels of caffeine (certainly markedly lower than coffee, black tea, and traditional cola soft drinks). As a natural plant-based food, green tea offers a significant combination of vitamins, including more Vitamin C than black or oolong varieties. And maybe most notably, green tea contains many necessary minerals and compounds known as antioxidants. Research has demonstrated that the antioxidants in green tea are powerful enough to slow the oxidative damage to cells, possibly blocking the oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol and increasing HDL (good) cholesterol and improving artery function. Studies have suggested green tea drinkers reduce their risk of stroke and coronary artery disease. However, the FDA has rejected manufactures’ requests to permit labeling the beverage as “heart-healthy.” Few harmful effects have been reported following green tea consumption in otherwise healthy adults. In addition to these more general health benefits, anti-oxidants found in green tea may have a powerful effect on reducing the byproducts (e.g., crap released in the body during intense training and recovery) of oxidative stress endurance athletes place on their bodies.

In summary, as a highly available, inexpensive, and delicious beverage, green tea appears to be a safe, even smart choice, for seeking hydration. Few cautions are offered for green tea drinkers, especially noting the relatively limited amount of caffeine compared with that usually measured in black tea. However, claims that actual physiological changes can be obtained which benefit either exercise endurance or overall cardiovascular, muscular, or hematological changes have yet to be documented. It appears that the complexity of this plant and the interactions of multifaceted human biological processes challenge the study of green tea’s potential. The isolation of either a single component or a recommended dosage for optimum health or performance remains hard to find. Further studies are sure to follow, but for the time being, it seems like Green Tea is likely to help, and not do harm; something many (more expensive and highly marketed) supplements can’t necessarily say.

Art and Science in Endurance Sports

Endurance sports are generally numbers driven. At the highest-level, performance at races is judged by the most honest broker of all -- time. To me, that’s a large part of the growing draw to endurance sports; in a world filled with so much subjectivity (just ask any management position at big company what it means for them to do a good job, and odds are, it won’t be a simple explanation), endurance athletics provide us with an increasingly rare ability to set a goal and measure it against an objective criteria. If the goal was a 3-hour marathon, there is no wondering if you did a good job or not. You either ran sub-3, or you didn’t. For better or worse, there just aren’t that many other areas in life where you can test yourself in such a pure way. So, against that backdrop, I would say racing with time as a gauge is a good thing.

Then there is training. Whether it is pace zones, distance, heart-rate, or wattage, workouts tend to be both driven by and measured by a proliferating amount of numbers on a screen. This provides an enormous benefit, using bio-feedback to ensure that our hard days are hard (not a problem for most endurance athletes) and that our easy days are easy (usually a much tougher challenge for endurance athletes). Numbers based training also lets us to measure progress and can highlight problems as they arise, allowing athletes [and their coaches] to make adjustments to training in real time. Personally, I train using pace and heart-rate, and if I could afford a power-meter, I would train using wattage too. I’m a big believer in making informed decisions in all things, and my training is no different. Data is great.

Next comes nutrition and recovery. Not that long ago, “calories in, calories out” was a fine guiding principle; now it is no longer good enough. Not only do we measure nutrients; carbs, proteins, and fats; but also sub-types of nutrients (energy gels are now branding themselves as having the right mix of glucose, fructose, and maltodextrin) and the timing of when we eat them (simple carbs right before and after workouts, good fats and proteins throughout the rest of the day). This type of nutritional information arose out of a lot of hard-science and an entire fleet of PhDs, and on balance, it’s pretty accurate, and it’s hard to argue that it can’t help improve performance and health. Same goes with recovery; new IPhone apps can tell you how many hours you spent in REM, and for under $70 at Costco, you can take home a scale that reads your weight, BMI, body-fat percentage, and hydration levels.

I could go on forever, but by now the point should be pretty clear. As endurance athletes (especially those of us that are more serious) we don’t just engage in a sport, but an entire lifestyle, and one that can gravitate toward being pretty numbers driven. Personally, I think all of this science is a good thing, but we cannot forget about the critical importance of art in the endurance athlete’s lifestyle. The rationale is pretty simple:

1. Population-based data (e.g., the ideal weight and body-comp for a male marathon runner) is based on a bell-curve. The smallest minority of people comprise the median/average, and the great majority (of us) fall somewhere along the tails. As a matter of fact, it is our individual scatteredness around the center that creates such a recommended number. To that end, becoming hell-bent on achieving such recommendations is a bad idea, since odds are, that recommendation isn’t fit for you as an individual. Use it as a guide or starting point, but know yourself, listen to your body, and figure out where along the curve you [as an individual] lie. Then zero-in on your “ideal point.” This is true for all population based science; it certainly defines a neighborhood you want to be in, but that’s it.

2. Individual data (e.g., heart-rate zones) is also somewhat based on averages. You may know your training zones like the back of your hand, but how does your last night’s sleep impact your heart-rate, or the argument you had with your boyfriend, or the stressful project at work, or the cup of coffee you had with lunch…Over time, these metrics (whether it’s heart-rate, pace, or power) paint a great picture of where we should be for each workout; but, on any given day, they can actually be detrimental to the success of a workout. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that we have this personalized bio-feedback, but even it can be deceiving at times.

For these reasons, I suggest relying on art (or feel, touch, Zen…whatever you want to call it) to support and work in unison with science. Neglecting science can lead us down an extremely unstructured and dangerous path to poor training, racing, and health….but neglecting art can too.

I’ve noticed amongst peers in the sport(s) that a lot of people are becoming more and more comfortable with science, but a much rarer few is even aware of, let alone focused on the importance of art. And it’s not easy. When the Garmin says 7:10 or 149bpm, you know exactly where you’re at. But, what about when the body starts to feel lethargic all the time? Or you realize that little things throughout the rest of the day are bothering you more than they should? Being in touch with that side of the lifestyle, and then being able to make tweaks based on that feedback, can be a much greater challenge, but one that I believe separates good from great training and racing (and also good from great coaching, for those of you that work with or are considering a coach).

For further insight on this topic, check out the articles of the week. Most notably, the Slowtwitch interview with Matt Dixon, the Ryan Hall series, and conversation on the pros and cons of training with metrics.

Introducing Greater > Than Endurance

Over the past year, the balance of postings on my old blog was split pretty evenly between topical (e.g., approaches to training) and personal (e.g., race reports). I’ve realized that there is much more interest in the former than the latter. I’m still convinced most of my races are legendary...in my own mind anyways...

So, with that said, it became evident that a rebranding was in order: the content will now be centered around discussions on issues important to all of us: the latest in training, nutrition, recovery, and the lifestyle of an endurance athlete. I’m still reserving the right to share a race report every now and then, but I’ll only do so if I feel that there are take-aways highly applicable to a wide audience. I will try to get my own new posts up at least every two weeks. But another new and exciting feature of the blog will always be updated regularly: see the upper right panel for links to the top five endurance training/racing articles of the week. I’m a total nerd about this stuff, and read it frequently, and while a lot of what I read is great, a lot isn’t…so I’ll do my best to act as a “filter” for the good reads. Even if my writing doesn’t excite you, hopefully some of these articles will…and the blog will still carry some value for you

What’s up with the new name and site address: Greater > Than is a philosophy that characterizes us as endurance athletes. It is about creating and “opting-in” to just manageable challenges that yield physical, mental, and spiritual growth. We push ourselves to uncomfortable places and challenge our respective limits so that we can be Greater > Than we were the day before. While the medals, Facebook status updates, and Twitter feeds are cool, you don’t last in endurance sports if that is what drives you. Rather, we live this stuff for the complexity it creates in our lives, the character and confidence it builds, and the deep-rooted community we get to share it all with. My aim is for this blog (even if in the smallest way) is to contribute to your personal pursuit of becoming Greater > Than.

The first post on the newly branded blog is all about integrating this stuff with other aspects of our lives. It’s crowd sourced, so 99% of it is in your own words, and I think the result is pretty damn insightful. Check it out below!

***Got to give credit where credit is due: I didn’t come up with Greater > Than, but my good friends Mark and Jon Sider did, when they launched an electrolyte replacement sports drink that has partnered with the best local running store (RunningFit) to sponsor an Endurance Racing team out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'm a big fan of the drink, and an even bigger fan of the philosophy.

Making Training Work: Thoughts from Near-Elites that are "Pro" at Something Other than Multisport

It’s fitting that I’m pulling this post together on a flight back to Detroit for a wedding in my girlfriend’s family…after a half-day of work…after a 4-hour brick workout that started around 4:30AM. I won’t have my bike in Michigan, nor the time for such a long training session, but it was a critical workout that had to get done, and it got done. I’ll still train this weekend, but nothing nearly that long, and the focus will be on family and friends, not my cadence while climbing.

While I’ve written about finding “balance” before [http://bradstrainingupdate.blogspot.com/2011/02/balancing-training-with-other-things-in.html], the broader topic of making multisport training [and more generally, the lifestyle] work with other commitments is one that seems never to go away; constantly brought up on long group rides, in magazines, and recently, even in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Given the significance of and interest in this topic in our community, rather than giving additional thoughts of my own, I decided to take a “crowed source” approach. I asked over 30 near-elite [we aren’t talking weekend warriors, but athletes that constantly win their age-group and often find themselves on overall podiums] individuals that are “pro” at something other than multisport* how they make training at such a high level [often between 15-20 hours a week] work. The results, in their own words, are below. This is a long one, but probably the most insightful and useful stuff that has ever been up on this page. Go figure, it’s the one thing I didn’t write!

“I think it can be a very destructive sport and I’ve been aware of that from day one. I’ve always had my wife’s support. I’ve watched friends and training partners go from training, to sitting around, watching TV to jumping on Facebook, to having a stretch, then back to Facebook. That’s not how I spend my time. I think when you have other commitments, you need to be regimented, get things in order and get things done….I also always try to include my family in some way.”
“The balance is a lot of planning and communicating. But overall it comes down to the family understanding what I do. But also me understanding what I need to do…which is get up early a lot and get it done. Sleeping in and rolling out for a mid-morning bike ride on a weekend is unacceptable.”“I don’t golf, I don’t play poker, and I probably make $20K less than my full earnings potential. But I’m a hell of a lot healthier, wiser, happier, and a better example to my children for it.”
“It’s deciding how you want to spend your time. I am content with a mediocre social life and very few activities that don’t involve working out. The more you put into something the more you will get out, it works for training, relationships, and life. To put more in somewhere one usually has to take some out somewhere else.”
“I teach 6th grade, am getting my masters at night, have certain Teach for America obligations, a relationship, and train a lot. Everything is scheduled, and I try my best to stick to it. I also have a plan where I know what races to prioritize…I sync those up when the timing with everything else is right.”
“Quality over quantity. Use the trainer.”
“I have a very supportive and understanding husband, and I am constantly re-evaluating the balance of more training time to get faster and more competitive-and the importance of that. I would rather be an elite wife and mother than an elite athlete”
“I like to combine family outings with a workout. I will ride to my in-laws, meet the family in town.”

“It helps to have family that is supportive of the individual who is pursuing a multisport lifestyle, so they can operate in a more functional and progressive manner. Trying to balance graduate studies and doctoral internships, military training and deployments, and family life is a never-ending balancing act. I try to give the proper attention to each aspect of my life. It’s not easy, but as the time goes on you begin to realize how to fine-tune what aspects in your life need more attention, just like in multisport, when after a certain amount of time you begin to realize what aspects/disciplines of the sport you need to give more attention and fine-tuning to. We choose multisport because it pushes the mind and the body and allows us to feel the gift of life, in its most honest and natural state.”

“I have been EXTREMELY fortunate to be dating a girl that understands the dynamics of a competitive athlete, such as me. I have also been extremely successful in surrounding myself with people who both understand and admire what I do- and that's half the battle of making it work.”
“I do jeopardize other aspects of my life. My friends in the department constantly ask me if I want to go out for a pitcher or something on the weekends, but I always have to turn them down because I'm getting up early to roll on the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's just the kind of sacrifice that you have to make. You have to surround yourself with people who "get it", and the rest will take care of itself.”
“Planning and communication is key. At the start of every week, my wife knows when my workouts are, and if they don’t “work out,” then they are adjusted. Getting 15 hours in a week actually isn’t that tough at all, so long as you find the right 15 hours. That is a joint effort.”

“This sport is my Soma. You can get me at 70% 100% of the time, or 100% 95% of the time.”
“Yeah, it’s an addiction, but I see those that end their nights with 1-2 hours of TV on the couch just as addicted. And while mine may cost more now, when I hit 65, 70, it will cost a lot less”
“I’m not really sure how it works, to be honest. It would probably be easier to be a pro, but that’s just not realistic for me. It’s tough to be too good to do this casually, but not good enough to do it full time. But at the end of the day, even in monster weeks, finding 25 hours is feasible. Whether or not it will always be (I don’t yet have kids) I can’t say.”

I hope that you found this as thought-provoking and insightful as I did.

Until next time, Train hard, live hard!

*I include just one quote from a pro, which is the first one; I found it quite good.

Training Update from Salt Lake City, Utah

Between a Spring filled with lots of racing, some down-time, and then moving out west for the summer to work at Intermountain, it has been quite a while since my last true training update. I'm back to base-phase type work, and with my priority race for the Fall being a long course duathlon [4.5mile/56mile/13.1mile], the early focus is all about building power on the bike and muscular endurance on the run; this equates to lots of low rpm (55-70) riding, steady-state runs of 10-14 miles, and functional strength work in the weightroom. I'll give a few additional details on three aspects of my training that have changed since coming to Utah: 1) early morning workouts 2) recovery and 3) riding in the canyons of Utah.

Early Morning Workouts: My job at the hospital starts fairly early, and because I would rather do my longest workout of the day in the morning (things always seem to come up in the afternoon, and even when they don't, my body's circadian rhythm best lends itself to quality in the morning), I have been getting up between 4:15 and 4:30. At face value this seems a little outrageous, but I've been going to bed between 8:15 and 8:30, so I'm actually sleeping quite a bit! Basically, I've stayed on Michigan time. I do most of my midweek riding on the trainer -- both as a way to really dial-in these highly specific workouts (for more on this see a great article on trainer benefits: http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/06/training/the-endangered-outdoor-ride_31264-outdoor-ride_31264) and to eliminate the risk of flat tires and other mechanicals that could easily cause me to be late for work. In addition, trainer rides help out with the light factor since it is still dark during the first half of most of these workouts, which would be OK for running, but not so much for relatively fast cycling. As for running, the streets in Utah are extremely athlete friendly, so even when it is darker, I have a pretty large shoulder to work with, and decent lighting as well. In terms of the workouts themselves, nothing too exciting or heroic to report here. I have started working in weekly double bricks (bike/run/bike/run) which are mentally pretty easy (you I have 4 shorter workouts vs. 1 real long one) but physically pretty challenging (they definitely stress your body)...which is a nice transition to my next topic, recovery...

Recovery: I have been bouncing back from intense workouts (and even some shorter races that I have worked into my training) better than ever. This may be attributable to a whole manner of things, not to mention the fact that I haven't done any high-intensity speed work, and not even that much training at threshold yet. That said, if my legs feel good 20-hours after a 15 mile climb (more on that in the next section), it makes me confident that something is at work for me. Here are the four things that I am excited about. 1) I recently partnered with Extreme Endurance (http://xendurance.com/) which makes a supplement that helps your body process and remove lactic acid and other waste product. As you all know, I am absolutely anal about what I put in my body, so I have researched this product extensively, and tested it in the medical community. It's safe, totally legal (obviously) and I have found it highly effective. Rather than go on about the science here, if you are interested, you can learn a ton on their website. It's a great investment in your training, and I would highly recommend it. 2) I have been eating a ton of cherries, and more specifically, using them to fuel my early morning workouts. Research shows that a variety of compounds in cherries help with inflammation (on par with Ibueprofen) and the fruit has a high anti-oxidant content which is also great for fighting all the crap we create in our body from the stress of training. In addition to their more medicinal benefits, cherries are a great and all-natural source of simple sugars, perfect for pre-workout fueling. 3) Whey Protein has been shown to both help prevent the breakdown of muscle and to jump-start the re-building and recovery process. I've been adding a scoop to my post-workout chocolate milk and/or oatmeal. It's cheap, you can get it anywhere, and the science here is pretty indisputable. 4) I have written about compression socks before, and now so have all the leading multisport publications. Long story short here is they don't just work for me, but they also seem to work for just about everyone. I don't use them during training, but after harder sessions, I put them on for at least three hours, and have noticed a huge difference from those few rare times where I don't throw them on. Another great investment.

Riding in the Canyons: Climbing back home in Ann Arbor, Michigan means half-mile to mile rollers. I've learned that the true meaning of "climbing" means 10-15 mile ascents up 4-10% graded roads. It's quite the difference! Going from 90 and sunny to snow-crested roads is just awesome!! I have loved these gritty hill-climb rides, and have no doubt that I will be faster on the flats and rollers when I get back home as a result. The bike lanes are wide, drivers courteous, and views spectacular. Pretty much heaven for a cyclist! I'll stop there and let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Stay tuned for my next post, which I am quite excited about: a "crowd-sourced" review of how many near-elites (that are still "pro" at something other than multisport) are able to maintain their level of competition...as well as all the other things in life...

Until then, train hard, live hard!!

Articles of the Week June 25 Edition

Good afternoon! Articles from the week of June 18 to June 25 are up, top right panel. This week's reads are a mixed bag of technical, fanfare, pragmatic, and inspiring. Hope you enjoy. Also, if you ever want links to past articles, let me know, as I have them archived and can easily send your way.

A training update to come soon!

Racing Consecutively

Over the past month, I raced duathlons on 4 consecutive weekends. This is quite untraditional and often not recommended. That said, as I mentioned in a prior post, this type of race volume made sense for me for a few reasons. Most notably, all of the races were short-course duathlons [so pretty good recovery in between events was possible], and I knew that I would be reentering a base-building phase of training in June [as my focus shifts to preparing for long-course racing in the fall]. My objectives for the month were quite simple: to go as hard as I could at each event and to gain race experience. Now that I’ve made it through the gauntlet and come out the other side, I’ll share a few thoughts on racing consecutively.

First, I’ll speak to the physical. This certainly isn’t rocket science, but racing places an immense stress on the body. No matter how well trained you are, the compounding effect of race-efforts wears you down. Minimizing the physiological breakdown through good recovery becomes absolutely critical. Ironically, “good recovery” for the next race starts before the current race begins. Following a proper fueling plan is absolutely critical not only to your performance in a race this Saturday, but also to your performance in a race next Saturday. The less time your body spends running on near-empty [or in scientific speak, the less glycogen deprivation that occurs] the faster you will bounce back from that effort. What you consume directly after the race is also very important; much like during training, aim to get a good carbohydrate/protein [4 to 1] food into your system immediately after finishing. Chocolate milk works great, and if that is logistically hard, most Powerbar-type products work too. While this seems pretty easy, when the post-race food tent is offering pizza, chocolate milk and Powerbars have a way of becoming much less appealing.

This transitions nicely into my the next point, which is be especially smart with how you treat your body in the 48 hours after finishing a race. I know that personally, after racing, I usually really let loose; we’re talking total crap consumption, in solid and liquid form. This is actually a huge part of a smart annual training/racing plan, and important for both physical and especially mental health. While the natural inclination is to go nuts after finishing a race, this isn’t such a good idea if you are planning on revving things up in full force just 6 to 7 days later. It’s more than OK to celebrate a good performance, but if you are racing consecutively and want to be celebrating the next weekend too, make sure not to do anything tonight that will leave you in the bathroom for over 20 minutes tomorrow morning. This was actually quite hard for me [I give myself a B- here] and has a lot to do with my “do everything 110% personality” which is common amongst so many endurance athletes. It takes a lot of mental strength to hold back after a race, especially when we are literally trained, encouraged to, and in the habit of doing the opposite in most other situations. Be aware of this, think about your next race before you act, and if it’s not just a couple of days later, by all means go nuts!

In the few days between races, strive to find a balance between passive recovery [total off days], active recovery [very easy training], and “stay-sharp” workouts [short and sweet bouts of intensity]. The right mix varies by individual, but the key that holds true across everyone is to have some kind of mix. Also, don’t be wed to a plan. Observe how your body feels, and make real-time tweaks. I often substituted a total off-day for a recovery workout, or the opposite, and if my body didn’t feel great on a day that was meant to include a 20-minute tempo interval, I nixed it. Again, while it sounds easy to do this, scrapping the plan can be hard, especially when it’s the plan that got us to where we are.

You may be noticing a theme, which is maintaining the physical strength needed to race consecutively relies heavily on mental strength. Before touching on that, just a few additional things I have to throw in. Eat lots of fresh green foods [vegetables], which are high in alkaline and work to balance acidity in the body -- very important when so much acid is created from race-efforts. Get a pair of CEP compression socks and wear them often. Of all the things marketed to endurance athletes that are supposed to work but sound suspect, these by far and away “actually work” the best. Probably the smartest $50 I have spent in the past year. Pick one race to be your true priority, and ideally, make it the first one. This comes into play because although you can kind of peak for one month, you really only peak for one day. The easiest way to illustrate this point is through the concept of race-weight. You hit your race weight on week 1, but then, in order to recover to race on weekends 2-4, your training volume and intensity decreases dramatically from what it had been. Meanwhile, if there was ever a time to make sure you are getting sufficient nutrition, this is it, so your caloric intake is going to stay constant, if not go up a little. By the end of week 4, you are likely going to be decently above race weight. No big deal since we are talking about seconds here, but since seconds can matter a lot, build things around a priority race in which you want every second to count.

Now, on to the mental. Instead of getting very long-winded here, I will introduce a foundational premise and offer some pragmatic advice. The mental discipline it takes to race consecutively is enormous. This entails everything from not getting cocky after good outings, to forgetting bad ones, to tempering celebrations, to focusing on each event individually as its own [while still keeping the big picture in mind], to accepting the more-than-usual suffering inherent to racing hard.

Maintaining the mental edge is an enormous challenge, and simply being aware of its importance is the first step to knocking this down. Next, try to create an environment keen to supporting your mental edge. Minimize other stresses to the extent that you can. Since you know how much discipline will be required in this realm of your life, splurge a little in other realms; now is the perfect time to read a stupid book [or just quit reading altogether!], put Rihanna on repeat, or wear only underwear while you walk your dog around the block. Communicate your situation to other key people. This list probably includes significant others, colleagues, friends, family, etc… You can’t expect any of them to be accommodating or supportive if they don’t know where you are coming from. Meditate. The power of mindfulness exercises is huge. I got in the habit of doing 30-minute body scans as often as I could. And when time is tight, there are plenty of good 5-10 breathing meditations that really helped me refocus and cleanse my mind of the anxiety and excitement that comes with racing all the freaking time.


None of this easy and I can’t imagine anyone will be even near perfect. My best advice is probably don’t race consecutively. But, if you find yourself in a situation like I did and want to give things a go, then hopefully revisiting some of the above points will be helpful. And the last thing to remember, unless you are winning nationally recognized high-profile events, the awards are not going to compensate for the race fees…but whatever…rack up that hardware!

Until next time, train hard, live hard!