Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 48)

It is because of this that I firmly believe that a big swim base and learning where your “sweet spot” is during the swim is key to having a good Ironman race. It is true that you can’t win a race from the swim, but if you burn yourself up in the water you can certainly lose one. Proper pacing and good stoke mechanics are the key to a fast yet efficient swim."

I've been wondering about this so called BS rule they threaten with but don't actually enforce.  When you see pro’s cross with no DQ, how could they DQ an age grouper? 

Ok since my name is getting dragged throught the mud on this whole swim thing I figured that I might pop in and defend myself.

First off, Phatknot I do consider you a buddy! We have had our share of disagreements but they have always been civil and I think that we have both ended up learning something from them.

In regards to the swim....where you bolded my statements and accused me of using hyperbole you are incorrect. We have data from a large sample of our athletes using groups labled "swimmers" (those who come from a swim background of some sort) and "non swimmers (those who had no formal swim training prior to triathlon). What we did during our experiement was to have our swimmers and non swimmers swim in our current pool at a constant flow rate for a given time. Once completed the subjects exited the pool and conducted an FTP test on the trainer. When we compared the data gathered our non swimmers had higher HR (i.e. more energy expended) at the same flow rate than our swimmers. Our non swimmers also saw a bigger degradation of power during their FTP tests as a result of the extra energy expedature. Like I said in my post a poorly trained athlete could conceivably burn through most or all of their muscle glycogen during the swim (90+ minutes).  Now do not misinterpret what I am saying here, the bike proportionally is the largest part of the race and should get the lions share of training time, likewise it does no good to have a great bike split if you are so spent you can't run off the bike. This is where proper pacing and nutrition come into play as well as having a strong run base.  No where in my post did I say to swim more at the detriment of your bike and run training. What I did say and I will stand by is that by swimming 3-4 times a week as opposed to 2x you greatly increase your efficiency and will lower your overall "energy bill" for the swim portion.

Now in order to clarify.....are we talking about finishing CdA or are we talking about racing ? They are two totally different things and require two totally different levels of training and commitment. You can finish an IM on 12 hours a week of training.....long swim, long bike, long run it's not really rocket science.

Josh let me give you a piece of advice that I was given when I first started out coaching (and this isn't a shot or an attack on you, I think you have given some very sound advice in this thread), "Don't train/coach people the way you would coach yourself". Everyone is different and each athlete will adapt to training stimulus in a different way and at a different rate. Looking at your logs you are someone that adapts very quickly and can accept a large run training load. If I tried to 6x a week/150 miles a month I would be injured from the word go as would the majority of athletes on here. Athletes that are new to long course racing (and triathlon in general) are not ready to accept that kind of load on their joints and connective tissues. You can't rush endurance or physiological adaptations that take years in some cases.

50 miles on the trainer.  Sounds brutal!  Do you fill your water bottles with beer and rest the chips and dip on your aero bars???