Gray Guys/Girls Master's Focus Triathlon Mentor Group--CLOSED (Page 48)

Steve, Scott and Deb - Have a good race day tomorrow.  Hopefully lots of fun.

Scott - Thanks for the info on tapering.  It really cleared it up for me.

My real problem was insufficient fitness. I probably ran the slowest 5K I've ever run (25:30). There were a few hills on the course, but I was just plain slow. 

Steve

The days are definitely getting shorter!

My (I think) final triathlon is in two weeks - the Black Diamond Triathlon. This will be my first half-Iron distance race. Tomorrow, our tri-club is holding a one-day training camp on the Black Diamond course. If it isn't raining too hard, it should be fun!

After that I need to taper. Here's my plan - your thoughts would be appreciated:

Bike: I'm following the TrainerRoad Half-distance (low volume) training plan for the bike and it includes a fairly aggressive taper of volume. Last week was 5 1/2 hours, next week is 3 1/4 hours and the week of the triathlon is 2 hours. It maintains some intensity, but the workouts are shorter.

Run: Frankly, my volume has been pretty low over the last few weeks. I've been fighting some Achilles tendon soreness so I've been doing mostly short runs (5K). I'll drop the number of runs further in the final week. I don't want to deal with the Achilles tendon soreness on race day.

Swim: I swim 3 days a week with Masters team and have one day of lessons. I will drop to 2 masters days the final week and skip my lessons. I might also try to cut each workout a bit shorter and drop the intensity a bit. Pushing off the wall after the turns seems to irritate my Achilles tendon almost as much as running.

That's my current taper plan. Any thoughts?

Hey Scott,

A couple thoughts -

First, have you considered Kinesiology tape for your Achilles soreness?  I have had very good results improving nagging injuries/pain (Achilles tendonopathy, shin splints) with a couple of the athletes I have worked with.  Won't do any harm.  Here are a couple YouTube videos that may provide some guidance -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7OAD4zIBos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itpo-SkaR8o

As to the second part, your questions about taper - perhaps it will be helpful if we re-frame the question and look at it from a bit of a different perspective.  We all hear about tapering.  Indeed, an uninformed person might conclude that "tapering" is the magic bullet that will guarantee success on race day.  If only it were that easy.

At it's core, tapering is about freshness.  Tapering is about improving race day potential.  Tapering is not necessarily about reducing volume and/or intensity.

WHAT?

Yes, you read that correctly.  Tapering is NOT necessarily about reducing volume and/or intensity.  To think about it another way, tapering is about peaking your race day potential on race day.  So perhaps it will be helpful to replace the word tapering with peaking.  We want to peak for a race.  We want to peak our race day potential, or the ability to perform well, on race day.  With that thought in mind, let's talk about how to peak for a race.

There are three things we need to be mindful of as we train.  As we apply training stress to our body (swim/bike/run, etc.) we begin to build fitness.  Over time, our fitness climbs higher and higher, however we also begin to accumulate fatigue.  I am not referring to fatigue as in, "I want to go to sleep," rather I mean fatigue in the sense that your muscles are able to respond to your will.  If there is a high level of accumulated fatigue in your muscles; your muscles simply will not be able to physiologically provide a maximal effort.  Because of that accumulated fatigue in your muscles, your race day potential will be very low.

The goal and purpose of peaking then is to maintain fitness, while reducing fatigue, and increasing race day potential to a maximum level (note this definition is not predicated on reducing volume).

Let's put that on hold for a moment because there are two other concepts we need to look at before we tie this all together and look specifically at your race day preparation.

The first is 'specificity.'  Stated simply 'specificity' says that the closer you get to race day, the more your training looks like the race.  For example, if you are planning to run a 9:00/mile pace in an IM marathon next week, you aren't doing 6:30/mile intervals on the track this week.

The other concept I want to look at is this idea of 'fatigue.'  Perhaps for the sake of our discussion, it would be better to think in terms of 'residual fatigue.'  If I go ride my bike today at a medial effort for one-hour, how might that impact my ability to ride again tomorrow?  How about three days from now or next week?  The flip side of that question is, "If I DIDN'T have some sort of training stress last week, will I have residual fatigue this week?"

So, now, with all of that in mind, let's look at your final race preparation.

I submit that you have already had your taper and you should be looking at how to peak for the race, not further reduce your fitness. 

Let me explain what I mean.  I noticed your post on 8-25 in which you said, "I'm feeling OK about my fitness for the 70.3. I missed nearly half my workouts in the last two weeks"  Since the doctors aren't currently letting me do much more than drag a mouse across a mouse-pad, I looked at your training log and created a little spreadsheet to do a quick analysis.  I ignored the walking - yes, walking provides fitness, however unless you are doing MASSIVE miles walking (20+ miles/day for weeks), it isn't something you need to "recover" from.  I noted a couple of strength workouts, which I also ignored as they were relatively brief.  The swimming I hold somewhat separate.  Unless you are swimming overwhelming volume - in excess of 10K/day - overnight recovery from swimming is sufficient.  You have been putting in sufficient volume that 1.2 miles at a race pace around [STP + (2/3)] will prove to be little more than a warm-up, which is precisely why you have been doing the volume you have been doing.  That leaves cycling and running.  Here is your run/bike training for the last 8-weeks with variation against previous week and max week:

As you can see, your volume was down significantly in each of the three weeks prior to last week.  THAT was your taper.  Looking at the run volume during those same weeks, you were well less than 50% of your typical volume so sadly, I suspect you also had some degree of fitness loss.  At this point, if it were me, I would be looking at something like 2-3 sessions per week in each discipline 30-45 minutes per session at race pace.  Something like:

Swim - STD WU, 12 x 100 @ STP + 3, 30 RI, 200 CD

Bike - 15' Z1 WU, build to 30' Z2 with 2/3 30" Z4 accelerations keeping cadence at 85-95

Run - 5' Z1 WU, build to 25' Z2 w/2-3 30" Z5 fartleks.

At this point, you are not going to be able to develop additional fitness without accumulating additional fatigue that will hamper you on race day.  Better to prepare your body for race day.  Get you body used to swimming at race pace, get your legs used to turning the pedals at race pace and get the legs used to running at race pace.

Hope that helps.  Good luck.

Hey Scott,

A couple thoughts -

First, have you considered Kinesiology tape for your Achilles soreness?  I have had very good results improving nagging injuries/pain (Achilles tendonopathy, shin splints) with a couple of the athletes I have worked with.  Won't do any harm.  Here are a couple YouTube videos that may provide some guidance -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7OAD4zIBos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itpo-SkaR8o

As to the second part, your questions about taper - perhaps it will be helpful if we re-frame the question and look at it from a bit of a different perspective.  We all hear about tapering.  Indeed, an uninformed person might conclude that "tapering" is the magic bullet that will guarantee success on race day.  If only it were that easy.

At it's core, tapering is about freshness.  Tapering is about improving race day potential.  Tapering is not necessarily about reducing volume and/or intensity.

WHAT?

Yes, you read that correctly.  Tapering is NOT necessarily about reducing volume and/or intensity.  To think about it another way, tapering is about peaking your race day potential on race day.  So perhaps it will be helpful to replace the word tapering with peaking.  We want to peak for a race.  We want to peak our race day potential, or the ability to perform well, on race day.  With that thought in mind, let's talk about how to peak for a race.

There are three things we need to be mindful of as we train.  As we apply training stress to our body (swim/bike/run, etc.) we begin to build fitness.  Over time, our fitness climbs higher and higher, however we also begin to accumulate fatigue.  I am not referring to fatigue as in, "I want to go to sleep," rather I mean fatigue in the sense that your muscles are able to respond to your will.  If there is a high level of accumulated fatigue in your muscles; your muscles simply will not be able to physiologically provide a maximal effort.  Because of that accumulated fatigue in your muscles, your race day potential will be very low.

The goal and purpose of peaking then is to maintain fitness, while reducing fatigue, and increasing race day potential to a maximum level (note this definition is not predicated on reducing volume).

Let's put that on hold for a moment because there are two other concepts we need to look at before we tie this all together and look specifically at your race day preparation.

The first is 'specificity.'  Stated simply 'specificity' says that the closer you get to race day, the more your training looks like the race.  For example, if you are planning to run a 9:00/mile pace in an IM marathon next week, you aren't doing 6:30/mile intervals on the track this week.

The other concept I want to look at is this idea of 'fatigue.'  Perhaps for the sake of our discussion, it would be better to think in terms of 'residual fatigue.'  If I go ride my bike today at a medial effort for one-hour, how might that impact my ability to ride again tomorrow?  How about three days from now or next week?  The flip side of that question is, "If I DIDN'T have some sort of training stress last week, will I have residual fatigue this week?"

So, now, with all of that in mind, let's look at your final race preparation.

I submit that you have already had your taper and you should be looking at how to peak for the race, not further reduce your fitness. 

Let me explain what I mean.  I noticed your post on 8-25 in which you said, "I'm feeling OK about my fitness for the 70.3. I missed nearly half my workouts in the last two weeks"  Since the doctors aren't currently letting me do much more than drag a mouse across a mouse-pad, I looked at your training log and created a little spreadsheet to do a quick analysis.  I ignored the walking - yes, walking provides fitness, however unless you are doing MASSIVE miles walking (20+ miles/day for weeks), it isn't something you need to "recover" from.  I noted a couple of strength workouts, which I also ignored as they were relatively brief.  The swimming I hold somewhat separate.  Unless you are swimming overwhelming volume - in excess of 10K/day - overnight recovery from swimming is sufficient.  You have been putting in sufficient volume that 1.2 miles at a race pace around [STP + (2/3)] will prove to be little more than a warm-up, which is precisely why you have been doing the volume you have been doing.  That leaves cycling and running.  Here is your run/bike training for the last 8-weeks with variation against previous week and max week:

As you can see, your volume was down significantly in each of the three weeks prior to last week.  THAT was your taper.  Looking at the run volume during those same weeks, you were well less than 50% of your typical volume so sadly, I suspect you also had some degree of fitness loss.  At this point, if it were me, I would be looking at something like 2-3 sessions per week in each discipline 30-45 minutes per session at race pace.  Something like:

Swim - STD WU, 12 x 100 @ STP + 3, 30 RI, 200 CD

Bike - 15' Z1 WU, build to 30' Z2 with 2/3 30" Z4 accelerations keeping cadence at 85-95

Run - 5' Z1 WU, build to 25' Z2 w/2-3 30" Z5 fartleks.

At this point, you are not going to be able to develop additional fitness without accumulating additional fatigue that will hamper you on race day.  Better to prepare your body for race day.  Get you body used to swimming at race pace, get your legs used to turning the pedals at race pace and get the legs used to running at race pace.

Hope that helps.  Good luck.

Hey Scott,

One other quick thought on the Kinesiology tape.  It is waterproof and can be worn multiple days during swimming and showering.  Of course, like anything else, before you consider using it on race day, try it out in training to make sure it performs as you expect.

Yes, life has gotten in the way of training in mid-August. There were a few days away at a wedding were I hurt my back, and my daughter has been in the hospital on a couple of occasions. Its not what I had planned but, in spite of that, my "race rehearsal" (1-day camp) on Sunday went pretty well. I did the full bike course and part of the run and swim courses. It was 4.5 hours of S/B/R and I still felt strong at the end!

Scott, your analysis is remarkably complete and I will follow your advice on the remaining workouts. No taper, just get my body used to race pace over the next nine days.

Thanks!

So much for summer.  As soon as the smoke covered our valley last week we lost all our warmth.  On race day the water temp of the lake was 22.5C (about 72F) but with the wind the lake turned over and by the next day the water temp was significantly colder and yesterday the same fellow that measured the water on Saturday and Sunday measured the temp at 13.5C (about 56F).  Thats a pretty dramatic drop in two days.  

Today, I walked into the lake (just mid-calf deep) and the water was glacial cold.

The last couple days I've been trying to get things done that I've neglected for a while.  I'm finally getting back caught up a bit.  My triathlon season is done but I am considering registering for a local 20K "Run to the Tunnel" November 1st. and I'm looking at a couple GranFondo fun rides to keep me motivated.

I finished my race report:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=535587&posts=2&page=1#M5138276

It is quite long so don't feel obligated to read it.  I always have a good time and this race was fun as well.

I still have to get caught up on the last weeks postings.  

First and foremost, hope your daughter is doing OK.  Everything else pales in comparison to that.

Truly it wasn't my intent to criticize your training over the past few weeks.  Life happens!  Especially to those of us competing at the age group level.  This is where having a dynamic plan that can quickly adjust to life's inconsistencies becomes so important.

Good luck on race day!  Let your body be your guide and you will do fine.