Pieces of a Puzzle

Another Ironman has come and gone. Ironman Florida is now in the books. Chris did his second race as an Accelerate 3 athlete yesterday. You can read a bit of back story on him here.

Chris on his way to a sub 5:00 bike split.

After a slug fest that saw him exit the water 79th in his age group, well outside the top 20 guys he had to compete against, he put together a solid bike and run to move himself up. Into T2 he had moved up over 60 spots to 17th. Early into the run he dropped a few spots but knew that good things come to those who run smart and run steady. One tenet of IM racing is to slow less then anyone else. It wasn’t until the last 2.1 miles that he dropped off the pace of his first 10k. He still picked up a spot over the last half mile. This pass moved him into 9th in his age group and 85th overall. He finished the day with a hour IM PB going under 9:45. That’s putting the puzzle together, correctly!

The pass into 9th

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

We’ve all been out when someone wearing a one size fits all article of clothing proves that statement wrong. Most of the time it’s not pretty, even if the person wearing it is.

Meet Chris.

Chris B. exiting the water

He’s one of the newest Accelerate 3 athletes. He was training by an endurance group training plan. Sometimes when you get an athlete and look at their training it’s pretty easy to see where the changes need to be made. In Billy’s case it lots of volume but not race specific work. Once the race specific work started he started PBing his Olympic distance, 70.3’s and IM’s . In Chris’s case he was doing intervals but not at the right intensity levels. His FTP had actually stagnated about 4 months ago and he was doing a lot of hard workouts but not necessarily hard workouts. For him it was a matter of changing how he was doing his intervals, changing the amount of time spent in certain levels, and looking at the data to come up with a power race plan that was actually higher in watts then he would have targeted otherwise.

I’m rather pleased with Chris’s first race as an Accelerate 3 athlete. Some tweaking here, some changing things there and BOOM he is 3rd overall in his first race as an Accelerate 3 athlete!

Chris B – 3rd Overall!

Next Season Starts….NOW!

What the h*ll is he talking about? This season is not even over. Ironman Hawaii hasn’t even been raced yet. How can it be next season already?

If you are not thinking about which races to do, some of them will be sold out by the time you get around to it. Have a favorite race? Odds are others love that race as well. The smart racer is checking websites now, looking at when registration starts and making a note of it.

If you are thinking about switching coaches or finding a coach for the first time now is the time to start that process. I know coaches that have their rosters filled up for next year already. Gone are the days where you could just fill out an online form, pay your cash and get coached. Gone are the days where you interviewed the potential coaches and selected the one you thought was the best. The better to best coaches in the business will now interview you. If you meet their criteria, then you two can work together. There are so many bad coaches out there that the good coaches can turn away business. The good coaches are in demand, many have waiting lists. If you are thinking new coach, start acting.

This is the time to start thinking about how to make a big jump in one of the sports that you need to race a triathlon. Now is the time to figure out where you are weak compared to your competition. Most people favor their strength in the off season. If you like to run you tend to run a good bit. If you don’t like to swim you tend to find excuses not to swim. Those who are serious about doing well next season would be smart to focus elsewhere besides their favorite event. It’s ok to run or bike less and swim more if you are routinely getting your clock cleaned on the swim. It’s ok to have less frequency in one sport or two sports in order to favor your weakest link. It’s ok to take a few days off completely. It’s not ok to skip out completely on one sport hoping to make it up later. When later rolls around the racing season will probably have started.

Proper planning now coupled with the appropriate following action, will give you the best shot at success next year. That time is NOW!

At the Races

A couple of Accelerate 3 athletes put down some good results this morning.

Billy won the Hummingbird Triathlon this morning. It was a pool swim and just to make it somewhat close, he swam an extra 50 yards. By the time he hit the finish tape, he posted the fastest bike and run of the day to cruise to victory, well ahead of the rest of the field.

Kerry finished 5th in the women’s field while winning her age group at The Battle of Fort Desoto Triathlon in Florida. She had the fastest T1, bike and run in her age group to throttle her peers. Kerry used the fourth fastest overall female run to move into the top five, just missing out on fourth by :02