Velocity Stage Race Report

I've always considered myself a cyclist, and was on the bike racing other unsuspecting riders on the roads since I was probably about 14 years old. But I never formally raced a bike race other than the races that come after a swim and before a run until last weekend in Edmonton at the Velocity Stage Race (I raced Cat 5). And here is how it went...

The Time Trial

If I had to consider myself any sort of specialist I would say it would be a time trial specialist. The type of training triathletes typically do lends itself very well to time trialling and there is something about the simplicity of just being you, the bike, and a clock that I love. In a time trial you bring yourself to your upper threshold and hold on for dear life until you finish the race, if it doesn't hurt you're not doing it right.

So at 8:42:30am I pushed off the start into a brutal headwind and went all out for 10km. About 4km in I caught the two riders ahead of me (30 second increments) and was feeling pretty good. Looked down at the powermeter and I was pushing about 290 watts which was roughly where I wanted to be. At around 7km I passed two more riders and was starting to feel the burn. The beauty of such a short time trial is that there's very little mental endurance required, so 3km more just meant one last push.

Finished the 10km TT in 14:25 with an average heart rate of 183bpm, and average power of 299 watts. That was good for fourth place overall out of 54 riders and would have been a top 10 time all the way up to Cat 3 that day. 14:25 seems a little slow for that power but the winds that day were a force to be reckoned with... But we had no idea what was in store for the rest of the weekend.

The Crit

So crit racing is tough. This was my first crit and I knew it would be technical and very challenging. My number one goal was to keep the rubber side down, and finishing in the peleton would be my second goal. I achieved only the first goal.

The first few laps I managed to stick with the group but was acutely aware of the fact that I was working when others were taking it easy, and ending up too gassed to work when others were attacking. It was probably the fifth lap where in one fell swoop I was passed by about 15 riders because I just wasn't pushing hard enough. After that I was relegated to a chase group of seven riders where I stuck it out til the end of the race.

It was another brutally windy day and the closing stretch was always right into a headwind so when you rounded the corner it was like hitting a wall and then standing to sprint. I thought I had a strong sprint but I just couldn't hang onto the wheel of some of those other guys even in Cat 5. In the end I was about a minute back from the main group of finishers. Not bad for the first time out, but not great, I really wanted to stick with the peleton.

The Road Race

It was a 70km road race with a peleton of 55 riders in the category. We knew it would be a windy day but no one had a clue of what the wind would do once the race began. The course was essentially 3 loops of a 23km square starting eastbound and going clockwise. The wind was coming out of the southeast which meant that at least half the time we would be going into it.

I was nestled in the middle of the peleton and stuck with it for the first 15km before the attacks started. I managed to keep with the group until then but after that things started fragmenting with the winds pushing guys into each other, and even off the road in some cases. Around 20km with a tailwind there was an attack and I fell about 10m behind which was enough to lose the draft with about 15 other guys. I was leading the group and motioned for someone else to come up when I started to fade but no one wanted to do any work which really pissed me off. As a result the 10m quickly turned into 100m. After a rest I tried to bridge but got swallowed up by the chase group I'd previously been leading.

After the first lap we were a ten man chase group about a minute behind the main group. But pretty early into the second lap, 10 guys turned into four which wasn't nearly enough horsepower to deal with the strong winds. The course was prairie flat with little or no coverage to offer respite from the wind. Halfway through the second lap the guy in front of me flinched, so I flinched, so the guy behind me crashed. We stuck with him to make sure he was fine, and then he told us to go ahead. Down to three, it wasn't long before we lost one more guy who couldn't hold the pace.

So into the last lap it was me and one other guys from Mud Sweat and Gears. We worked together as well as we could in the winds and eventually he dropped me (oddly though I finished before him). I was exhausted and couldn't keep my HR up during the last lap. I took in the gels that I had and just pushed through til the end.

I came in 28th out of 54 in the road race about 18 minutes after the first guy across the line. We found out after the fact that winds were sustained 45km/hr with gusts up to 70km/hr. I have never ridden my bike in that kind of wind, some of the gusts slowed us down to 10km/hr. Cat 5 had 11 DNFs and 7 DQs from centreline infractions. It looks like Cat 4 stuck together pretty well but had about 1/3rd of the field DNF, Cats 1/2, and 3 showed the real attrition though with about 60% of riders DNFing.

The End

I came in 25th in the General Classification which wasn't bad for my first outing I think. I was very happy with the TT, came away safe from the crit, and finished the road race. I took solace in the fact that one of the more experienced riders said I'll probably never race in conditions that like that again. New guys (like me) racing in Cat 5 (aka Crash 5) combined with high winds made for an exceptionally dangerous race for newcomers. All in all though it was a great learning experience for me and I've gained a new level of respect for road riders and the level of strategy and pacing that goes into that sort of riding. I've got the engine but there's way more to it than that. All in all, a great training weekend.

In closing, I leave you with a video a friend of mine sent me before the race, some inspiration for everyone riding this week.

The Best of You

Yesterday the cycling world lost a young and incredibly talented individual when Wouter Weylandt succumbed to the injuries he sustained during a tragic accident in the Giro d'Italia. I caught a brief glimpse of one of the images from the scene when I was watching the recap and its was just one of those moments where your heart sinks, your eyes water, and a lump swells in your throat.

I think that watching today's footage from today's stage of mourning at the Giro was even more difficult. In the rare display of respect and solemnity that occurs when a rider is lost in a tour, the stage started quietly and there was no racing as each of the tour's teams took turns leading the peleton through the stage. In the final kilometres towards the finish the members of the Trek Leopard team were summoned to cross the line at the front with Weylandt's close friend Tyler Farrar from Garmin-Cervelo. Arm in arm the eight men crossed the finish line, many in tears for the friend and team mate that they had lost.

Today the Trek Leopard team, as well as Farrar, all announced that they would withdraw from the race. Talking to some other cyclists several of them mentioned that they would have hoped to see Farrar, as well as Leopard continue the race and fight for a stage win in tribute to Weylandt. I honestly would have hoped to see that sort of a poetic triumph as well, I think any other athlete would have hope the same. Its because in them we would like to see what we hope that we would do ourselves. We would all love the strength and courage to look grief and loss in the eye and win one for those we've lost.

The truth of the matter is that no one knows how they'll react to the loss of a best friend or team mate. Its only human that facing loss the last thing we may want to do is ride, or run, or work. But once we get past that stage of emotion, what we can do as athletes and individuals to honour the memory of those we've lost, is give the people and the activities we love nothing less than our best.

Tragedies like this one serve as a sombre reminder of the value of life. I don't advocate sayings like "live every day like its your last", its hopelessly irresponsible, and if we all adhered to that advice there would be credit defaults and unplanned pregnancies galore. But in sport I find a moment in every day to give something the best of me and I think we can all find a nobility in that which honours those whose time has come to pass.

Triathlon Coaches: Part II- Choosing the Right Coach

In the first blog post in this two part series I talked about the importance of having a triathlon coach. In this second and final post I'll discuss some important considerations for when you decide that having a coach is right for you.

Different coaches will have different appeals, meaning that a coach may easily be suited to one type of athlete versus another. Personality and coaching characteristics aside I strongly recommend that any coach you consider have either a strong history of participation in the sport, or a strong academic background in human performance with a degree in a field such as Kineseology. There is money to be made these days in coaching and hosting training camps and there are individuals out there who are looking to capitalize on that fact who may have less than stellar credentials, don't be fooled, read this blog and then do your homework.

[Note: For personal preference at this point in my athletic career I would like to have a coach that has done well in the sport I'm looking to be coached in. However there are some truly exceptional coaches with no remarkable history as athletes in the sports they coach such as; Joe Friel, Bill Bowerman, Ian Pope, Lou Holtz, etc.)

Here are a few important things to consider when deciding which coach is right for you:

Desired Level of Commitment

There is no use whatsoever in hiring Chris Carmichael to push up those watts, or Jillian Michaels to shed those pounds if all you're looking to do is have some one write up some suggested workouts for you. On the flip side, if you're already a sub 12 or sub 10 Ironman and have reached a performance plateau, a coach may be exactly what you need to reach the next level. Your coach's commitment to you should be reflective of your commitment to goals and training. On the spectrum of levels of involvement/commitment you have;

• Free online training plans with literally no involvement from anyone but you
• Subscription based interactive online training plans such as those from Endurance Nation or TrainingPeaks ($10-$100 per month)
• A coach you interact with online that emails or uploads workouts to you via TrainingPeaks or some other software package, and then reviews them and makes necessary adjustments on a periodic basis. This would include Carmichael Training Systems, and LifeSport Coaching ($150/month and up)
• Local one on one coaches that monitor your training via email/TrainingPeaks, as well as work with you face to face and lead group sessions and host clinics ($120/month and up)

All of these options have their own pros and cons. The first two options benefit from being low cost/free, however you only have yourself to be accountable to, which can be a huge factor for some. On the flip side, the second two options have a living, breathing human being looking at your progress and giving you workouts- for a price.

So which is better? If you have the money and commitment, I personally recommend paying for a live coach for all the reasons I discussed in my first blog post. As for whether you should get an online coach or a local coach, I lean towards supporting the local coaches the way I believe its important to support the local bike shop (even if Bonktown can get you those bike shoes for cheaper). But there are some exceptional coaches online and I realize some people may not have access to local coaching due to things like geography or busy schedules, in that case online isn't a bad option.

Area of Expertise

When selecting a coach, ask them straight up what kind of athletes they generally coach. Some coaches focus on getting people from the couch to their first sprint distance triathlon, others will have a lot of competitive sprint, XTerra and Olympic distance athletes, and others will have a nice crew of Ironman triathletes in their group.

Its important you go to a coach who is familiar with coaching people to the distance for which you are training for two main reasons. The obvious first reason is that the physiological demands or a 1.5 hour sprint tri are vastly different than a 10+ hour Ironman. Getting someone from the couch to the start line of their first race can be a task fraught with obstacles that some coaches will be better suited to than others. Similarly, Ironman can introduce stress on the body orders or magnitude greater than what most people are used to, and if you're preparing for the big 140.6 then its best you have someone who knows their stuff.

The second reason to choose a coach who trains others to the same distance as you is simply because you'll likely be able to meet others who are on the same road as you (pun) and this is a great way to meet new training partners.

Know the Coach

Last but not least, its important to find out everything you can about a prospective coach. This is more than just visiting the coach's website, ask members of your local triathlon community, visit your local triathlon shop, check your provincial or state triathlon organization for a directory of coaches, and so on. Most good coaches will want to sit down with you before you commit to anything to make sure their coaching style and your personal goals and needs are a good fit. This is a great opportunity for you to ask questions and learn more about the coach's style and history. some good questions to ask include;

• How long have you been coaching and what are your qualifications?
• How many athletes do you currently coach, and is there a maximum to how many you'll take on per season?
• How many hours a week do you typically prescribe for athletes?
• Where do you fall between high volume/low intensity or low volume/high intensity?
• What classes, clinics, and training camps do you host?
• How often will you review and make revisions to my plan? Weekly? Monthly?
• How do you evaluate my progress? Qualitative feedback? Heart rate data? Power files?
• How do I provide you with my data? Training Peaks? Email?
• How many one on one sessions do we have? How much do I pay for more?
• What races to you typically attend? (if a coach has a number of athletes whose A Race is Ironman _______ then often they may attend as well).
• Can you provide insight on nutritional needs?

There is no real right or wrong answer to any of the above questions, each person should have a sense to what they would like, and how much they're willing to pay for it. Its important you find a coach that suits your needs and can help you reach your goals.

Conclusion

At the end of the day its its important you find a coach who is knowledgeable and adept at applying that knowledge to the needs of different individuals. Its critical that you find the coach who is right for you and that you are comfortable working with. Your coach should be an individual who can push you to excel to your personal bests when it is right for you, but also a person who can help you get through the challenges and frustration of being an athlete which can take the form of a bad race, poor training day, or even injury.

A good coach will know you as an athlete almost as well as you know yourself, so when you find him/her, trust them, be honest with them, train hard, and train smart.

Race Report: Calgary Police Half Marathon

Typically I wouldn't write a race report for a single sport race simply because they can seem relatively straight forward (one foot in front of the other, repeat 10 thousand times), but I know some of you are easing into longer distance runs so I thought I'd give you an idea of how it all plays out. Next post will be the second part in my series on coaches.

Pre-Race

The days leading up to the race I was looking at the weather forecast hoping that it wouldn't snow, figuring knowing more about being on the wrong side of the jet stream would reduce the likelihood of 20cm of snow. It snowed anyways but with a temperature only at -3C I still opted to run in my Zoot Ultra 2.0's race flats, 2XU compression tights and shirt, my Tricommitment jersey, and a Lululemon toque. As a general rule for running I like to dress like its 10C warmer than it actually is, and you'll be fine.

Woke up at 6:00am, had a bagel, a banana, and an Ensure. For the record, Ensure makes a great race morning drink since its loaded with calories, vitamins, protein, carbs, etc etc. But more importantly Ensure sits very well. Typically you don't need a very large breakfast before a race, since your body only needs to replenish the glycogen stores that its depleted while you sleep. You generally want to finish your last meal (that sounds ominous) about 12-14 hours before the race start.

Drove to the race start, listened to music, said hello to the awesome Lululemon 4th Street team, and chilled for a bit. I made sure I got to the start line early though so I could seed myself in the front 100 or so racers. Last year I made the mistake of seeding myself towards the back and struggled to get through traffic.

The Race

It snowed the night before, a lot. So the race started, and on the first couple corners people started going down. After about a km I looked at my watch and found myself about 10-15 seconds per km off the pace I set for myself at this heart rate. The snow was absorbing a lot of energy as though I was running in sand as well as causing slipping that was putting me off pace. I knew from that point on that my benchmark of a good vs bad race wouldn't so much be my actual time, as where I placed overall.

For the first 5k or so people were passing me so between that and my pace I really had to focus on racing my own race and listening to my body. But as we approached the halfway mark I heard someone yell I was in the top 100 so I figured if I didn't lose position from that point on I'd be happy since its a race of about 1600 people (typically about 2000). At 10k I took a Hammer gel at the aid station and Shirl told me I was looking good.

After the half way mark I started making up position again and it seemed people were falling off, and my pace was starting to pick up. I had planned to run a negative split but with the snow I figured I'd just be trying to hang on at that point. Past halfway you go into a part of the Glenmore loop called Weaselhead which is in a valley with steep hills in and out. Going in was challenging because you didn't want to bail, but coming out was even harder because you were running up a small ski hill. On top of that since I was now making up positions, I was also having to pass people off the race line of packed snow, which meant running in 5 inch deep fresh powder. At the top of the big hill out of the valley there were bagpipers, the Lululemon cheer squad with a sign with my name on it, and an aid station, all of which was very uplifting.

For a bit I actually thought I pushed too hard up that hill but I took my second gel (about 17km in now) which was the one with caffeine in it. I stuck out the next 2 or 3k, and then in the last km I was able to drop the hammer entirely thanks to another awesome triathlete who insisted I draft him into the headwind to catch a buddy. Oddly enough my HR monitor was maxing out with a reading of 220bpm, which I knew I wasn't at. My HR monitor strap had slid down to my stomach, and I think it was picking up my readings, and the readings of the other guy. So that was garbage, I just had to dig deep and listen to my body for a 1k push.

Crossed the finish line to be greeted by my awesome girlfriend Shirl, the Tri It team, and my family (who had run the 5k).

I ended up 78th overall with a time of about 1:39:12 (I think). The top guys were about 3-5 minutes off pace from last year, and I think that would be a fair estimate of what the conditions did. All in all a great, albeit wet Police Half Marathon.

Post Race

Its been a sore couple days with lots of tightness in my peroneal tendon which is the one that runs down the outside of your calve and through your ankle. Running in fresh snow can be a lot like trail running and I think I'm paying for for the race a little more than I normally would since it activated a lot more muscles than your typical half mary.

What I learned

A lot of this race was about adjusting on the fly. Typically I let my computer tell me what to do but with the adverse conditions and the HR monitor issues over the last few km I really had to listen to my body. I can't stress enough the value of using the information your body provides you as your number one data input. A lot of people use music when they're racing or training and that can be a great way to build focus, or it can be a huge distraction from the task at hand. For this race I specifically chose not to bring my ipod since there were just too many other things to think about that day. I'm glad I made that decision as it allowed me to focus on the challenging terrain, focus on listening to my body, and of course interact with other racers and have fun!

Triathlon Coaches: Part I- The Importance of a Coach

Last week I got engaged in one of those never ending forum debates (on Slowtwitch no less) that has you explaining to your significant other that the reason you can't leave the computer and get to bed is because "there is someone wrong on the internet". The debate was about coaches, and in the end the debate, like so many was more of a case of two people saying the same thing differently. The resolute conclusion was that coaches are an incredibly valuable resource for any level triathlete, and that they must be selected with care and attention.

Why use a coach?

Triathlon is an exceptionally demanding sport that requires you to at the very least be competent at three sports. In order to appropriately train for even a sprint triathlon its best that you be dividing a minimum of about 6 hours a week into swimming, biking, and running. As you get up into the Ironman distances an age grouper could easily be spending 20 hours a week training on top of a regular job and our life's commitments.

In my eyes, what a coach does is allow you to train smarter AND harder. Smarter in the sense that a coach can take the finite amount of time you have available for training, and optimize that time towards improving your weaknesses, building your strengths, and preparing you for your goal races. Harder in the sense that often in the endless weeks and months of training there is a tendency to get a little too comfortable in our training, believing that just having the volume is sufficient.

Training Smarter

I like to consider myself a student of the sport. I'm a numbers and data geek by nature and I can get into an informed discussion about a cyclist's watts/kg, or oxygen uptake and lactate thresholds, Training Stress Scores, etc. So for my first year of triathlon I didn't use a coach, I read a few books, consulted online resources, and spent time learning zones, periods, and swimming more efficiently. It worked very well and I had a great first season.

But now I train with a coach and won't turn back. Late last season after I committed to Ironman Canada 2011 a lot of people were asking me if I was going to get a coach. I was on the fence about it until someone who is a very experienced triathlete with a couple Ironman's under her belt asked me if I had a goal time in mind. She'd seen me race, but the time she pegged me at was an hour faster than the one I'd originally conjured up for IMC. I rationalized about it for a while and then realized I could reach that faster goal time if I spent a lot of time working out a very detailed 500hr/year plan for myself following Joe Friel's periodization methodology, or if I hired a coach to do it for me. At the end of the day I decided to leave the coaching/planning with a coach, and the training with the athlete, and I hired Todd Malcolm of No Limits Triathlon Coaching here in Calgary.

We sat down, went over my goals, went over my past results, and went over what my normal life schedule looked like. Then we worked 3 bikes, 3-4 runs, 3 swims, and a rest day into that schedule for a total of about 9-13 training hours per week. Every week I now receive my workouts through Training Peaks, and accordingly I upload to Training Peaks the bike/run data from my Garmin 310xt, along with whatever qualitative feedback I have on my performance for each workout.

Based on tests every 4-8 weeks, which could take the form of a B-race, or a time trial exercise during training, my coach establishes power or heart rate zones for me to train in. This is the core of what I mean by training smarter. If you follow a periodization plan like Joe Friel's you'll know that many months before your A races you'll be base building, when a lot of time will be spent in aerobic zones. Closer to race season base building turns to the Build Phase where you spend time between aerobic and anaerobic zones, basically getting faster. The zones I'm talking about (typically scaled 1-5) should be prescribed for each athlete by their coach depending on their individual fitness level, which in turn is established during the tests I just talked about. Zones should be prescribed in terms of heart rate, pace for the run, and watts for the bike if you train by power.

In summary a coach helps you train smarter by taking your goal races and breaking your season down into periods based on those goal races. During each period, your training should have a certain focus, and of course certain corresponding workouts. Those corresponding workouts should be done in certain zones based on your physical ability. If this sounds like a lot of detail, thats because it is, and when I decided I would take training seriously, I knew I could do this all myself but it was a question of how much time was I willing to dedicate towards learning how to train, versus actually just training. I value actual training time far more than learning to coach myself, and so I outsourced the coaching to a coach!

Training Harder

The risk that many endurance athletes face is falling into the trap of making your hard workouts too easy, and your easy workouts too hard. When you've got between 6 and 10 workouts a week this can lead to workouts where your body isn't well rested enough to perform at the level where it can make the significant anatomical and cardiovascular adaptations it needs to make you a stronger, better athlete. In this respect a coach can make you train harder by very specifically stating what zone you should be in for each workout.

If an active recovery workout your coach prescribes says you run for an hour in Zone 1 at a 5:15-5:30min/km pace, then keeping to that level is just as important as the next day's workout that says you're doing track intervals at 38sec/200m x 20. If you take a second and do the math you'll see that those are two very different paces, but thats what I mean by going easy when you're supposed to go easy, and going hard when you're supposed to go hard. It wasn't until my coach prescribed me variations like that that I realized how hard I could push myself when I was following a training plan designed to make me a better athlete.

The other side of training harder is consistency. I firmly believe that the age grouper has a tougher time being a better athlete than the pro simply because it's a pro's job to be a better athlete, its how they pay the bills. An age grouper will miss workouts because life or their actual job gets in the way, while a pro has the luxury of not having those excuses. But a coach offers a level of accountability that encourages you to manage your time better and ensure you aren't missing workouts unless you've got a pretty good reason. For the vast majority of age group triathletes, the key to improvement doesn't lie in track workouts or long sub-threshold intervals on the bike, the key to improvement is in consistency, consistency, consistency.

Conclusion

I think it was Lance Armstrong that said "the Tour de France isn't won in June, its won in January". I like this quote because it highlights the fact that its preparation and training months before competition that allows us to excel at our sport. A coach part resource, part mentor, and part drill sergeant and their number one job is to ensure that you have the mental and physical preparation to tap your full potential, get to that next level, and reach your goals. Thats why I believe anyone wishing to excel beyond their current abilities should take advantage of what they have to offer.

My next blog post will be Part II of this one, choosing the right coach for you.

Cheers.

Raf