On Race Day Preparation

It's more than obvious that one must train sufficiently to be able to finish any endurance sporting event, from the lowliest 5K run to the Ironman World Championships to the Race Across America. But what about the little details that make the difference between champions and runners-up, or steal seconds and minutes from the middle-of-the-pack competitor?

It's said that one of Lance Armstrong's strengths in his seven Tour de France victories (recent French press reports notwithstanding) was his attention to detail in his preparation. As his coach, Chris Carmichael, pointed out on Cyclingnews.com before the 2002 Tour:

He's ridden all the decisive stages of this year's Tour de France, at least once if not more. Mont Ventoux, the two time trial stages, the team time trial, the other mountain stages - Le Deux Alpes and La Plagne.

Lance Armstrong almost lost the Tour in 2000 on the La Plagne climb, and that was an important reason why they went to the Dauphine. In 2000 if Lance Armstrong had bonked 3 km earlier he could have lost the Tour.

There's some pressure on Lance Armstrong's team to keep him in close enough striking distance going into the mountains. His opponents will try and take suicide breaks to gain as much time on him as possible. [Andrei] Kivilev did a remarkable ride last year [he gained 30 minutes in break only to gradually lose it in the mountains]. If you just sit and wait and calculate out how much time you can gain each day - that's fine unless he has a bad day. If for some reason he has a crisis and he can't do it, you start to run out of stages.

Most of us don't have the time to go out and pre-ride every race we compete in, but we can usually make a good assessment of the conditions that will face us. Is the course flat or hilly? Is it wide open and windy, or forested and still? Are there lots of straight roads, or is it winding and technical, with plenty of turns? Is it likely to be crowded at the start? If swimming is involved, is it an inland lake, or is it in the ocean?

My goal race is in four days, in Ottawa, Canada. Pre-riding the course is obviously out of the question, but I have had plenty of time to consider the conditions I'm likely to face. It's in the city, so it's likely to be fairly still when compared to the countryside. The course borders a canal, so it's likely to be flat. All of those things favor a fast time. The only adversity I'll face is the course's multiple out-and-back segments--for my race, six times over a 56 mile bike leg. That means I'm expecting to face 10 180-degree turns on a two-lane road.

Now, 180-degree turns aren't the worst thing one could face, and yet, if done poorly, especially if you do it poorly 10 times, they could be costly. So with blogging compatriot Josh, who has attended bike camps focusing on the time trial, I put myself through a turnaround clinic to get better at it. Ideally, I would have been practicing for the last month, but as it is, I think I'm getting pretty good. As Josh points out, the difference between doing a 180 well and doing it poorly is worth 10 seconds. Gaining a minute and 40 seconds for no extra work during the race other than proper execution seems to be more than worth the investment of time I've put into it so far. So far, it's been about a half-hour or so spent over two sessions. I believe that preparation time will pay dividends on race day.

Rolling With The Punches

... and I do mean punches. Tuesday night, just 11 days before my A race for the season (read about the race here), I was taken down by an errant soccer ball while bicycling home. The damage: Whiplash, small bits of road rash on my left leg and left elbow, and a significant patch on my left hip. In the meantime, what I thought were allergies blossomed into an upper respiratory infection. Yesterday, soreness and respiratory issues kept me home from work. Now I know that the most important thing for me to do over the next eight days is to heal, both the infection and the injuries. So rest is paramount. Wednesday was a pre-planned day off. Yesterday I decided to take off to assist in the recovery from the upper respiratory infection, and I'm pretty sure I'll take today off also. The only thing that panics me a bit is that I have a freshly glued tire on a new front wheel, and I need to get that out on the road a bit before I'll be confident. In addition, I do need to be practicing bicycle handling, since the race will include 11 180-degree turnarounds. Rain appears to be moving in for a few days starting Sunday, so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll feel OK tomorrow for an easy spin and some turnaround practice.

Updated

It could be worse. Reading this report from Powerman Zofingen makes me feel a little bit better about my current status. To wit

The bike course of Powerman Zofingen is a 50 km loop that we have to do 3 times. The normal training day leading up to Sunday for most everyone is a lap of the course. Friday was no different for me and after rolling around most of the course I couldn't help but wonder how I would do. In fact, I was so nervous I had a hard time handling my bike! As I flew past a field at 30 mph I found my daydream suddenly interrupted by a curb scraping my wheel! In a few milliseconds I was catapulted over the bars, on my side, and slid to a stop use my own skin. In what seemed like seconds later my bike finally landed beside me in a heap. I guess I made quite a sound because the farmer in the field nearby shouted to me in German. I just waved my hand and inspected the damage, which was pretty bad. I managed to climb aboard my bike, which was surprisingly in good shape, and drag my sorry butt, or half my butt as it turned out, the remaining 10 miles to the house.

End of the story? The writer in question finished third overall.

What are intervals?

"The Finishing Kick" in the October Running Times has an interesting point of view on how to run intervals (can't link to it because it doesn't appear to be on the RT web site). In the article, Roy Benson cites the example of Woldemar Gerschler, the "father of interval training":

In the late 1930s, Dr. Gerschler used his refinements to develop Rudolf Harbig into the world record holder at 800 meters with a time of 1:46.6. As an expert on cardiac output and blood volume pumped during exercise, Gerschler's contribution involved using pulse counts to determine the length of the recovery period. According ot Dr. Gerschler's calculations, a runner was ready to run the next segment of the workout when his pulse had dropped down during the recovery interval to 120 bpm.

Leaving the obvious imprecision of the 120 bpm calculation as being "recovered" (what about older athletes with lower maximum heart rates, or those who have naturally occurring lower max heart rates? 120 bpms might not be low enough to indicate adequate recovery), I think Benson's large point is valid: Recovery should probably be measured by cardiovascular data, not by the very imprecise measurement of time or distance jogged during a recovery interval. After all, who reading this blog right now doesn't set out to do 12 X 400 meters with a 200 meter recovery jog between, or 2 X 20 minutes on the bike with a 10 minute recovery spin? A tired athlete might not sufficiently recover in that time period.

But on the other hand, some interval workouts are designed to not allow total recovery as a way of training athletes to duplicate race-day conditions. An 800-meter runner, Harbig's race was mostly an anaerobic battle of fast-twitch muscles and lactate tolerance. For Harbig, to duplicate race conditions, 400 meter intervals should have been done at nearly top speed to stimulate the fast-twitch muscle fibers and test his ability to continue running with a high lactate load, for which a long recovery period is necessary. But for a 5,000-meter specialist, or a marathoner, the distance requires the ability to function under moderate lactate load and at a steady heart rate. In this instance, I believe a shorter recovery period is called for to duplicate the length of the race.

An example: Last summer, my nephew, at the time a high school cross country runner, was visiting, so we went out to the track to do some intervals. I was training for sprint duathlons (5K/30K/5K), so I was training as if I were a 5K/10K runner. He was training for the 5K distance. I did my intervals as a 400 meter run at race pace with a 200 meter recovery (about a minute or a minute and 10 seconds). After two or three, he was feeling very whipped, because his coach had never given his runners that short of a recovery period. In essence, he was having them go all out and then giving them two or three minutes to recover. That's great training for an 800-meter runner or a miler, but not ideal for the 5K(in my opinion) because it doesn't train the body to go near continuously at race pace.

This Running Times article probably best explains how to approach interval workouts as a runner. Most importantly, it notes

The two types of speed training most critical to distance running success are: VO2 max training and technique training.

VO2 max training is designed to improve your maximal aerobic capacity. Your VO2 max is determined by the maximal ability of your heart to pump oxygen-rich blood to your muscles, and of your muscles to extract and utilize that oxygen to produce energy aerobically. By improving your maximal aerobic capacity, this type of training will help to improve your sustained speed, which is most important for distance running success.

The most effective training to improve your VO2 max consists of running intervals of two to six minutes duration (typically 600 to 1600 meters) at your 3K race pace. Your recovery jogs between intervals should take about 50 to 90% of the time it takes to run each repetition. (emphasis added) The stimulus to improve your VO2 max is provided by the amount of time that you accumulate in the optimal intensity range during a workout.

Given that over 90% of your energy in races of 5K or longer is produced aerobically (and the proportion gets higher the longer the race), it is this sustained speed that you need to improve your racing performances. Running your intervals faster than 3K race pace will reduce the stimulus to improve your VO2 max by building up high levels of lactate in your muscles and shortening the duration of your workout.

Yes, heart rate should be a factor in determining your recovery period, but achieving total recovery can be counterproductive, depending on what your goals are.

Nike Free 5.0 Review

Over at Duathlon Blog, I've posted a review of the Nike Free 5.0, which I've been wearing for two months now. More thoughts on interval training coming up, including my reactions to a Running Times article on this topic.

Quality Rest, or When Is Enough Enough?

Last Tuesday, I had on the agenda a workout that consisted of two intervals of 20 minutes apiece, with a 10-15 minute recovery. It was threatening rain, so I chose to do it indoors on the trainer rather than deal with the thunderstorms. After a 15 minute warmup, I started the workout and found I could barely exceed my anaerobic threshold (AT), the point at which the muscles cannot get enough oxygen to produce energy in the normal fashion, and begin to produce lactic acid (the legendary "burn" that indicates high-powered training). I know lagging heart rate to be a sign of fatigue, and yup, looking at my training log confirmed why I should have been tired. The preceding Sunday had consisted of a six-plus-hour run-bike workout, and the following day was a one-hour, twenty-nine minute running workout in which I had pushed myself above AT for a couple of miles, just to test myself. I was tired, and in a normal week I would have delayed that workout later, except that I was leaving the next morning for a four-day business trip and wouldn't be able to ride the whole time.

Essentially, I was overtrained, if only for a short time. I've learned over time as I've gotten a little wiser and a little older that overtraining is worse than undertraining (you can always rely on adrenaline to get you through some races). And it's particularly important as one ages, because the body's ability to heal itself declines with time. So I'm always gratified to see articles like this one in Triathlete magazine that talk about the dangers of overtraining. This author points out:


"This is a common problem seen in many athletes who are beginning their training. Contributing factors include a desire to see continued improvement, the sudden weight loss that occurs after a couple of months of regular exercise and a mistaken belief that skipping a day or two of training will result in a loss of previous gains. Experience and research has shown conclusively that overtraining has marked effects on physical and psychological wellbeing. Immune system depression, difficulty concentrating and sleep disturbances are all recognized complications. Furthermore, it is also well understood that recovery periods and rest are as important to a successful training program as are periods of intense exercise. Recovery allows for muscle remodeling and adaptation and allows for more prolonged and intense exercise afterwards. Important components of a successful recovery period are: adequate time, (depending on the athlete and the duration and intensity of the exercise in the period just prior), proper nutrition and rest (including sleep and entire days without exercise)."


How did my workout end? I called off the first intense interval after three minutes, recovered for about 10 minutes, and then focused on pedaling form with a series of high-cadence intervals (110 rpms and higher) and slow one-legged pedaling. It was the best way to get value out of the workout without causing any more damage.