Quick Update: Training in Clermont, Sarasota Half Marathon, and Peak Time on the Horizon

It's been quite some time since I gave a true training update, so I figured I would recap the last month, say a few things about where I'm at now, and then give a download on what's to come.

Recap of the Last Month
Training trip to Clermont Florida: This was a great time, and a very intense week of training. I put in around 17 hours of volume, with a lot of quality and higher-stress work mixed in. It was great to get off the trainer and on the road for countless reasons, but chief among them: a) this was my first chance to ride the time-trial bike outdoors and get in some good miles of handling practice and b) I almost forgot how much "fun" riding a bicycle is; the wind, pavement, and feeling of actually moving somewhere [versus watching CNN on the trainer] was really uplifting. Training with Marleigh [not indoors] was a blast, and spending time with my Coach Doug and Olympic hopeful Triathlete Ethan Brown was also really neat. I got great insight into how the elite workout, eat, and sleep, and how the importance of the later two elements of "training" rival that of the first. Other notable elements of the trip: I came too close to a gator during a tempo interval [good excuse for missing heart-rate targets], I quickly discovered why so many episodes of COPS are filmed in Florida [Vacation Village is designed to be the setting for COPS], and enjoyed sleeping between 8-10 hours a night!

Sarasota Half Marathon: This wasn't really a priority race for me in that it came in the middle of a big training block, and thus, I only had a mini [2 day] taper for it. Nonetheless, come Thursday night of that week [start mini-taper] I treated this like the real deal. Also, this is the only "road running" race I have on my calendar for the Spring [all my other races are Duathlons], so that added a little urgency and excitement. I went 1:24:27, or at a 6:26 pace, which was good enough for a top 20 finish, and second in my age-group [guy got me by less than a minute, and was a helluva runner]. I was really happy with this result. The race was a 3-minute PR for me at the 13.1 distance, and the pace and race execution were almost exactly as we had planned for. Two biggest positives from this race: 1) I really let the race come to me. It was quite windy early on, and my Garmin was telling me I was running 6:40 pace when the plan was to be running a 6:20 pace. Rather than get all worried or push things too hard too early, I remember taking a few deep breaths and telling myself that I would get a tail-wind [it was an out and back course] during the second half of the race. Rather than force things, I showed patience, and sure enough, I negative split the back-half. 2) I took a risk earlier than I have ever before. Normally I hold back until about the last mile for fear of going "all-out" too soon, and having a melt-down. This time around, I trusted my training [which over the past few months has been as consistent as ever] and went into suffer-mode with 2 miles to go. It hurt like hell, but my last 2 miles were the fastest 2 miles of the race, and included 2 passes [not bad when you are up toward the front group]. Ideally I will be able to do this for longer periods of time in future races, but this is a step in the right direction. It's simple to say "I'll trust my training and suffer," but much harder to do it when you are out there racing, checking your watch, figuring out potential finish times in your head, etc, etc... All in all, this was a great morning. The weather was beautiful, Caitlin race-walked a huge 10 minute PR, and my Grandma got to come out and support both of us!

Where I'm at Right Now

In a recovery week that ends with a race-simulation this weekend, which will mirror the Duathlon National Championship distances. With that big race being only 5 weeks out, this will be a good chance to work through transitions, and see how my body reacts to the pacing that my coach and I think is appropriate given my current level of fitness. After that, I have 2 "overload" weeks where the volume and intensity of my training will peak. It will be very important to focus on nutrition and recovery during these weeks. Luckily, I'm in a real good spot with school, and exams are not until after this brutal 14 day stretch, so I should be able to minimize stress and concentrate on getting through this. These are weeks that you love to hate, and honestly, hate to love [or even like].

What's to Come

Race season!! After the overload weeks, I have a 3-week phase down into a true taper that will get me ready for the Duathlon National Championships on April 30, as well as the rest of the month of May. Overall, this four-week block should be a really exciting time! After Nats, I am racing in 3 more local [all in Michigan] Duathlons...on consecutive weekends. I have never raced consecutively like this before, so it will be something new for me. It doesn't hurt that 2 of the 3 races are shorter distances [with only 10K total of running in each], so recovering from those [shorter, run-light races] shouldn't be too much of a problem. The plan is to do only a few intense workouts in between races, and otherwise, to focus on good recovery, and to let the last 4 months of training carry me through. It will be great experience, and I look forward to seeing where I stack up both nationally, and in the state.

Stay tuned, and until next time, Train Hard, Live Hard!

The Unimportance of Speed

It’s great to be training down in Clermont Florida, where it has been 75 and sunny every day. A huge impetus for taking this trip [amongst many other things] was to create an opportunity to ride my new time-trial bike outdoors before Duathlon Nationals and the May races [in Michigan] that I have on my calendar. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, to make a long story short, a “time-trial” bike has a much more aggressive geometry/fit than a road bike, and as a result, it handles much differently [e.g., one has a lot less control on a TT bike vs. a road bike, but also the potential to go much faster].

My first hard training session of the trip involved a 1:20 bike ride that included speed sets, or 2x10 minutes of best-sustainable-effort [2 episodes of near all-out riding with 3 minutes rest in between], followed by a 30 minute transition run; the first mile at a tempo effort, everything else relaxed thereafter. I averaged around 24mph for the bike speed sets, and then ran a 5:55 first mile off the bike. For me this is incredibly fast -- by far the fastest I have ever been. I wasn’t sure if it was the new bike, the improved legs [payoff from seemingly endless winter hours on the trainer] or some combination of the two. In any event, I was stoked, and excited to report the results to my coach. His response went something like this: “Don’t matter Brad, I just want to know where your heart-rate was at.”

After giving him my heart-rate data [which was also quite good, as my legs were able to sustain an extremely high heart-rate during the intense parts of the workout], I pushed a bit harder on his whole “non-reaction” to the enormous speed gains from any workout that I did last year. I got nothing from my coach but a reminder that I did the workout on flat terrain [plus for speed], in wind conditions that will never be exactly the same again [who-knows for speed], and only two days after running a 10K at race-effort [minus for speed].

Taken together, speed tells us very little to nothing, and is an awful proxy for judging workouts. Too many factors outside of one’s effort and current fitness impact and determine speed. It’s actually an extremely long list, but the best and most clear examples of some confounding variables are:

1) Wind condition
2) Course profile/grade and
3) What you did in the days leading up to the workout [e.g., are you well-rested].

To really drive the point home: it’s much better to go 23mph on a windy day over rolling terrain after doing a hard workout two days prior than it is to go 26mph with the wind at your back on a flat course after a week of easy training. Although the speed feedback implies that the second workout was much better, odds are, our hypothetical athlete was probably pushing his/her body harder in the first example. And if training sessions are judged by the physiological and mental adaptations that they foster, than the first workout was superior and the one to be celebrated.

This is true of biking and running, and I’m sure in many other sports too. This is also why almost all coaches and training programs use heart-rate, power, perceived exertion, or pace bands [forgiving pace ranges] to guide workouts, and why how you feel after a workout [are you sore and beat after a hard effort...or refreshed after a recovery workout] is more important than the speed on your Garmin. This is also extremely counter-intuitive, and a hard chasm for data-driven, improvement oriented, speed junkies to cross. But, once crossed, you’ll be more likely to choose more challenging terrain for your workouts and get more out of them, and you'll be less likely to stress over a number that really is rather arbitrary and I’d say anywhere from 20-30% out of your control depending on the day (unless you can control the wind and things like that).

Small caveat here, there are some times when speed is extremely important. For instance, if you are trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon or some other race that uses speed as a standard [pick a flat course, hope for no wind, and taper properly], or, if you are doing indoor training on the same course under the same rest conditions [e.g., weekly 400 repeats inside after two easy days] then speed matters and can be useful as training data. But more generally, the best way to monitor performance during training and racing is based on indicators of exertion [and for competitive athletes, did you go faster than the guy/gal in front of you in races]. This doesn't mean one needs to invest in all kinds of heart-rate and power technology [though it helps]. The best way to judge an effort is how your legs feel during it and the morning after. It takes some getting used to, but I guarantee that over time, you’ll be shocked at what outstanding data you gather simply from how your body responds to training.

Until next time, train hard and live hard!