Slaying your dragon - Learning from ultra running!

I have to admit Ultra Running has been something I have admired from a far until more recently. Any event when pushing yourself to the limit of your capability can be unbelievably testing and requires robust levels of patience, discipline and emotional control.


I remember reading the autobiography of the great American sprinter Micheal Johnson 'Slaying the Dragon' as he described his quest to reduce his 200m time by 0.5 of a second...a journey that took him 10 years!


We live in a very fast world now, everybody is looking for results.. fast! Football clubs sack their managers after a handful of games if results don't go their way, the over weight look for pills or crash diets to loose those extra pounds and as athletes we expect every work out to deliver those vital extra seconds that will help us towards our PB's or personal goals.


In my experience anything worth having takes time, I know that probably sounds like the kind of thing your mum would say, my mum definitely did! Short cuts to getting good don't exist, when you ask those overnight successes about how they did what they did you find out about the years of work behind the scenes, see my April post on Triathlons rule of 3.

I have over the past 2 years observed and got to know an athlete who for me really approaches his sport in a way that gives him the best possible chance for success and he is I believe a remarkable and incredibly unassuming athlete.

He is an runner and his name is Pat Robbins and he runs for our local Triathlon Club, Zoom, where I coach. For the last 4 years Pat has focused on ultra long distance running and in doing so has targeted his efforts around 1 big race per year, for the last 3 years this has been the Grand Union Canal Race. A continuous 145 mile run along the Grand Union canal from Birmingham to London. http://www.gucr.co.uk

In his first year Pat competed in the GUCR he came a very creditable 4th in 31:46. (31 hours and 46 minutes) The whole experience was incredibly new for him, his preparations were limited to a few 20 mile runs and many of his fellow competitors found this most amusing in the pre-race discussions. Most of whom were experienced ultra runners and members of the 'I've done 100 marathons or more club'. Unencumbered from the conventional wisdom Pat surprised himself and the field by a stand out performance for a first timer.

Taking the learning from this first event Pat built on his experience, training consistently and patiently. He maintained the things that had clearly worked well, interval sessions and short road races to maintain his speed. He added to this some race specific long weekend runs and course specific simulations.

He does seem to have remarkable powers of recovery but showed time and time again great emotional control in managing his recovery at club training sessions, not getting dragged into competitive intervals with other runners, leaving his ego behind and focusing on what was important. The result last year was a win and a new course record of 27:01.

Last weekend Pat won his third GUCR this time over the slightly longer distance of 148 miles (A few detours due to road works!) Again he broke the course record 26.24, with his closest competitor almost 5 hours behind him.

This year the consistency of his training has again been a key component in his success. He has avoided over training by mixing the science of Garmin technology and good old listening to his body. His patience has allowed his fitness to develop layer by layer like skins of an onion. Maintaining his speed was again key, in the winter Pat was running 5k's in a respectable 17.15 not bad for an athlete who's 'A' race will be over a distance 140 miles longer than that. Observing Pat's humility and almost ego free approach is a great lesson for any aspiring athlete wishing to develop the emotional control needed to get to the top in any sport or area of life.

Slaying your dragon might be over 10k or 100k, whichever it is remember your fitness onion takes time to develop.
Rob

The Season is open

For me I can tell that triathlon season is near just by the smell of the sea air! For the last 4 weeks now a few bold souls have be braving the initial chill of the sea off Durley Chine in Bournemouth. Every year for at least the last 5 or 6 we have swum twice a week from the end of April into mid October.

We have developed an almost clockwork pattern of arriving at around 6:50am on Wednesdays and Fridays, and like most humans we maintain our habitual patterns of behaviour. When we arrive we start to get into our wetsuit and the banter starts. ' Its going to be really cold in there today!', 'Do you think its going to be as cold as last week' and so it goes on, the musing of what the water temperature will be like, as if by some miracle its going to reach a balmy 24c, (it's 11c).

With wetsuits and silly neoprene gimp hats doned we make our way slowly down to the sea, adjusting goggles and hats as we go. On first entering the water the only thing I notice is that I can no longer feel my feet, no change there same every time and then it all starts up again 'Agghh! This water is so cold', 'Its just going down my back now...aagghh!', 'Its even colder than it was last week!'

We are in, I am anticipating the first few strokes as they are always the most challenging of the swim. Trying to swim with a burning sensation as the water bites my face and takes my breath away. I 'm away and a few strokes later the 'ice cream' headache starts, by the first groyne its abated and we are all back together gathering ourselves after the initial body shock.

After the second groyne the stroke is finding a rhythm. Its starting to feel like swimming..hoorah and whilst its not exactly a bath, the appreciation of what I am doing begins to dawn.

Another groyne gone and I am back in the groove, cold.. what cold this is fantastic!

Walking out of the sea and onto the beach and the conversation weaves its well trodden path ' It wasn't that cold', 'Its great after you get in..isn't it?' 'Its definitely warming up now!'

We are funny creatures of habit. I treasure the moments I have on everyone of those swims, I look left to Hengistbury head and the Isle of Wight, I look right to Old Harry and the Purbecks and am surrounded by a merry band of idiots just like me talking the inevitable gibberish. It just does not get better than this :-)
Enjoy it Comrades, every second counts!
Rob

Coach Di Newnham - Supports the Womens Novice Camp in Tidworth

Over the weekend of the 25th & 26th April 23 women ventured out of their comfort zones with a common goal of learning more about the sport of triathlon and completing a multi sport event.

Janet Whiting hosted the fourth camp at Tidworth with the help of the coaches Nadia Saba from BAD Tri, Pam Ellison, a seasoned racer who has had the opportunity to represent Team GB in triathlon and myself.

The women travelled form all over the country to attend the weekend providing an enthusiastic group who all had a goal to achieve.

On the Saturday they were taken through the safety and maintenance checks for the bike including the scary issue of what to do in the event of a puncture! Simple...mend it or replace the tube! The damsel in distress was not an option this weekend.

Bike handling skills was next on the agenda so the coaches split up to cover the technical sessions. I had the cycle proficiency award section where all the girls went back to basics and learnt to pedal, corner and mount and dismount from their bikes. Lots of laughter and trepidation as i talked and coaxed them round the obstacle course turning through tight turns and changing direction. All you could hear was me " Pedal, pedal, pedal. Look up and forward. Don't look at the ground as that is where you will end up! Look up." facial expressions changed from anxious and worried expressions to smiles and laughter as they realised they could do their cycling proficiency award! Eventually we had our first perfect circuit where all the cones were left intact, Good job!

I packed up my box of tricks and wheeled it down to the poolside for the first of two swim sessions. The aim of this session was technique improvement and learning drills. We focused on number of key swimming drills that were demonstrated and then worked on by the group.

The session was adapted to suit the groups abilities and combinations of single arm drills and the less traditional kick drills were utilised to correct screw kicks. Bi lateral breathing patterns were introduced having explained about the need to do this for open water events and for physiological reasons to balance the neck and shoulder muscles on each side. The girls were surprised at how natural breathing on three strokes was and were determined to persevere.

A welcomed break and lunch was next and the group were really gelling by now and the noise in the room was buzzing. A great spread was provided which satisfied all and ensured they were ready for the transition sections.

The girls were split into two groups and Nadia and I provided the transition session. Hints and tips were given in what to consider in setting up your transition paying attention to equipment, the rules and how your brain is affected by chlorine and salt water rendering your ability to function logically severely reduced :-)

Suggestions of starting from head to toe to put your helmet on first and finish with your shoes was adopted and used. Each set up their transition for T1 and then practised a real transition running from the pool to their bikes and leaving via bike out. So we tried it again to make sure it wasn't fluke they had done so well. This time I introduced the "What If? " card and moved shoes, helmets and numbers around.

"5,4,3,2,1 GO!" and they all sprinted from round the corner into transition and realised things had moved but all got on with it and retrieved their equipment. Great to practise and deal with the unexpected so if it happens on race day it does not upset you and put you off.

Nadia went on to talk through T2 again emphasising when you can take your helmet off. They practised T2 and then they were off to recce the bike course for the race on the Sunday with Pam and Janet.

The day was rounded off with a Q & A session covering the sessions from the day and clarifying any burning issues. Most of us then went to the Boot Inn a great local pub which has the most amazing number of choices on the menu to informally chat and tell tales!

Sunday started with the sun shining and some still not sure whether to take part in the race practise or not. Before long all had been cajoled into it by each other. The run route was jogged round and memories started to shred in panic as nearly everyone thought they had forgotten the bike course. Pam and Janet quickly maintained order and put the wheel back on by talking the route through.

After the jog round I led the range of motion exercises with the whole group which produced some comedy moments and giggles with 26 women doing their impression of Morecombe and Wise across the green. But comedy knees and the low lunge probably had the biggest laughs with coordination becoming a bit of a problem and bodies moving in a gawky uncontrolled fashion. But the last laugh was on me as two days later DOMS got me and walking was slightly uncomfortably!

Onto the race which was a run bike run locally to the leisure centre. Everyone entered into it and raced hard thinking about what they had been taught about bike handling skills and transitions. No one dared undo their helmet strap until their bike was racked! No penalties here.

Even the most apprehensive women returned to cross the finish line with a smile and the big finish for the camera. Some great effort was shown.

But no reward of lunch yet...into the second swim session to practice open water drills and mass starts and turns. My group had the surprise of blind swimming to show the which side they favoured and therefore prove the need for sighting drills. The looks of "you are joking...swim with my eyes shut!" were evident but they all had a go and had some fun yet learning something. An impromptu game of bull dogs with footballs got rid of the inhibitions of invading personal space with mass starts with everyone getting stuck in. A fun session with practical hints and tips thrown in.

Onto a late lunch which again was excellent. The group were really talkative now and conversations about the race was the number one topic. The day finished with a further Q & A session regarding planning a season, nutrition, where to find races, who to train with, equipment and clipless pedals. Handouts and a manual werer handed out to all the triathletes providing further references and websites to use. I took up a number of books which were female specific and Joe Friels TrainingBible which were thumbed through by quite a few of the athletes . Orders are being placed for Joe's new edition as they found it informative and easy to read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and the group were great fun to work with. It again proved to me that the sessions we often think of as basic can be so useful, fun and provide new learning. The enthusiasm of a group of new comers was fantastic and I really do believe thay will continue with the sport.

Thanks to Janet Whiting to organising the weekend and to all the coaches and athletes who attended. And I look forward to seeing you on the tri circuit!

Di Newnham

Emotional Intelligence in training and racing

'Emotional intelligence' is one of those terms that suddenly finds itself as part of every day language many of these types of phrases come out of the corporate world. Some people might call it Corporate bull*^it, I like to think of them as a neat way to package up ideas :-) Although in the academic communities there is much debate and controversy about how it should be defined, what it is and if indeed it is an 'intelligence'

Lat Year Joe wrote and interesting blog article about athletes and their temperament, you can read it here http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008_11_01_archive.html
he highlighted his observations about athletes that displayed and even temperament and its benefits.

In lay terms Emotional intelligence (EQ) refers to our ability to understand and manage our emotions and those of others and groups around us. In the corporate world the need for strong levels of EQ and well as IQ (verbal reasoning, problem solving etc) in managerial and leadership roles is becoming more and more recognised. In my view this is an area that is only just starting to get the level of understanding and recognition it deserves in sport and in particular in endurance sport. Sports psychology is a relatively new field of exploration as it has only been with us in a more formal sense for 30 years or so, quite a short period of time in human evolutionary terms.

So why is developing our EQ ability important to us as athletes? I can really relate to this question, when I was in my teens and an aspiring squash player, I used to lose my focus and find all sorts of reasons to blame other things and other people for hitting the ball into the tin or out of court. My competitive nature would take over to the point where I lost perspective on the bigger and more important goal like...d'oh! 'winning the match'. My McEnroe like outbursts at referees only helped me get to greater levels of frustration and my opponents to greater levels of confidence in getting the better of me.

In endurance sport we will often see this emerge in different ways, athletes that race every training session and leave their best efforts on the training track whilst under performing at their key races, athletes that do everybody else's training sessions except their own and wonder why they just don't perform on race day or maybe they just need to do a 'few more miles' in the week before their big race because 'I don't want to lose fitness'. As a coach I see these as regular themes that emerge with athletes and in particular with age-groupers. We tend to look at the elites or the best in our club for our inspiration, taking on those really tough sessions that the pros recommend in all the magazines. We sometime manage to convince ourselves that those sessions are the ones we should be doing regardless of our conditioning, recovery time or the fact that we have other things like...work to fit into our lives. External motivation from these kind of sources can be very positive when we keep in mind the key goals that we are aiming at and that the sessions we do are purposeful and focused on those goals.

One strong predictor of success according to a number of psychologists is a persons ability to 'delay gratification' to put our impulses aside for a period of time in order to gain an even greater reward. There were some famous experiments undertaken at Stamford University by Walter Mischel in the 1960's with children being given a marshmallow and told if they wait to eat it for 20 minutes they can have another 2. These children were then observed through there school years and those that managed to delay gratification in the tests turned out to be significantly more successful. Similar results have been reported by others researchers.

I was chatting with Chris Jones the former British Triathlon Federation Head of Performance last year and we were discussing this subject, he was explaining that for him one of the most critical factors that determines an athlete's ability to make it at the highest level is 'emotional control'. Not just the athletes ability to perform under pressure at the big events although that clearly is ultimately what its all about, but the ability focus on their day to day training consistently and professionally. Some good athletes find this extremely challenging, and you can hear conversations that go something like this ' how did your last two sessions go? I was down to do 5x3 minutes but I did 8 x3 because I feeling really good... and how did the session go today...well I felt really tired when I got up, and I was down to ride for 2 hours but ended up doing 60 Min's and coming home. Maybe those situations are indicative of the reasons why some athlete's remain good and never reach their true potential.

Can we improve our EQ or is it just how we are? Nature or nurture.. one of the ultimate questions, its my belief that its both nature and nurture, some athletes have a natural gift in understanding themselves and controlling their emotional impulses, whilst some of us have to work at it, so its something we can all improve. Becoming more self aware is a great first step, start by reminding yourself before your workout of the purpose of your session. Sense check it as you go along, if its meant to be a steady run check that's what you are doing? If not hold yourself back even if that means letting others go ahead. Use technology to help, heart rate, power meters are all tools that can help. Record your workouts, not just the numbers but how you are feeling, did the session end up as you intended? Did you go as hard as you needed to? If not what got in the way? What could you do next time?

Do we get better at it with age and experience? For sure but like many things its something that demands our attention or before long we end up stale, ill or injured.

Keep training smart comrades !


Refs
Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 978–986.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books

Triathlon's rule of 3

I am often approached by aspiring athletes and asked how long will it take for me to get to a good level at Triathlon? Like most coaches I try to start to answer that question by firstly trying to understand by what they mean by 'good'. Like many things 'good' is a relative term, what's fast to one person will seem positively pedestrian to another!

If you read Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers' he believes the amount of time it takes to get you to a Mastery level at any skill based activity is 10,000 hours or 20 hours per week for 10 years. That could be playing a guitar, riding a bike, or learning a language. The old adage that their are 'no overnight successes' comes to mind. In the case of sport, sure sometimes people burst onto the scene with seemingly little background its then we start to find out a little more about them and it reveals years of background work in a different but compatible sport, or just the fact that they are now placing a good deal more focus on that area of their life but have been competing for a long time. Chrissie Wellington and Rebecca Romero are two such examples.

In taking on Triathlon we need to understand what we are getting into as the requirements of the sport are different and varied. We we are competing in 3 different sports one after each other, all with very different physiological and psychological demands.

If we use the example of a standard distance event (1.5k/40k/10k). In the swim we are horizontal for any where between 17 min's and 60min's depending on the event and our swimming ability, we are often immersed in really cold water that chills us to the bone and disorientates us, then we quickly have to get ourselves upright, run to our bikes where we then spend anywhere between 55min's and 2+hours hunched over a set of tribars stressing our lower backs and hamstrings, finally we are off our bikes and upright again running as hard as we can, for anywhere between 29 min's and 1hour+. So even if you are already an accomplished athlete in one sport its going to take time to get you up to speed in the others.

How long? in my experience their is a rule of 3 that applies in Triathlon to which their is few exceptions. Physiologists tell us that the body takes 3 months or 12 weeks to really adapt to exercise, that why coaches often produce 12, 24, 36 week training programmes. Each 3 month period allowing the body to adapt. In my experience to get 'good' or really competitive as an age grouper typically takes at least 3 years. If you come from a predominant running background as many triathletes do, it takes 3 years to master the swimming technique and the power development and handling skills on the bike. If you are from a bike background, again the swimming development and running skills will take the 3 years of improvement. Those from a swimming background have the double edged sword, good swim technique and a well developed cardio-vascular engine that really helps, the drawback is often recovery from lower limb injuries that can plague swimmers that start in the sport because they are now spending so much more time stressing those parts of their body. 3 years again seems to be the time band that it takes to overcome these issues.

I am sure we can all think of a few examples of athletes that are performing well after 1 or 2 years in the sport, but are they at their potential yet? Probably not. Improving at triathlon is about small incremental gains produced almost unnoticeable from session to session of consistent and progressive training. Each session providing another layer, like skins on an onion. Too much work and we get ill and injured, too little and we are not stretched enough to develop our physical and mental capacities. So patience is the key my friends the rule of 3 demands consistent, quality work to make those dreams of a podium finish or a Hawaii spot a reality.

Rob

TrainingBible UK's Official Launch at TCR

Apologies for my lack of blogging recently, January has proved to be a very busy month for TrainingBible Coaching and we have just had our official launch at the TCR show at Sandown Park. Many thanks to the hundreds of people that came up and said 'Hello' at our stand and enquired about coaching and training, we are busy processing all the information and will getting information and details of coaching plans out this week. Our Head Coach Joe Friel was over from the US for the week and was really impressed by the buzz around endurance sports in the UK.

Joe is one of those guy's that every time I spend time in his company I come away feeling a little wiser, he has a gentle and understated way that really allows his great knowledge to be accessible to all. Coupled with that he has a rare ability to explain complex concepts in a way that everyone can understand without loosing the real meaning of the original thoughts. Over the last few days we have had numerous discussions about coaching and mentoring and as it works out we both had great role models to shape our thoughts, beliefs and behaviours as coaches.

I feel fortunate to have been coached by another legendary athletics coach when I was a young middle distance runner (Many years ago now!), Frank Horwill at 80+ years old remains one of the truly great athletics coaches.

Both Frank and Joe have many similarities whilst being very different personalities. Both are endlessly curious, always asking why and what if questions, They both research extensively and use that research to experiment, always looking for ways to improve their athletes performance.

They are both prepared to stand up and speak out against the received wisdom of the time even if that is not popular or flavour of the month. They are both systematic and use data intelligently to back up their intuitive feel with their athletes. Many similarities indeed, if you are fortunate enough to get to spend any time with great guy's such as these my advice is take the opportunity to listen carefully and ask lots of questions, as no doubt you will walk away feeling the way I still do feeling just a little bit wiser each time.
As Frank says 'Keep going Comrades, Keep going! :-)

Winter sessions, Christmas cake and my beloved Turbo trainer!

Wow.. I looked around and it's Christmas already, where have the last few months gone?!

The long cold nights are drawing in and the dawn of the new season looks a long way off! As any coach will tell you, now is the time to get into that base building that will support all the more intensive work in the build period. Sounds like good solid advice, so what does that actually mean?

Well most of us know this is the time of year (at least in the Northern hemisphere) that we build our endurance levels by longer duration or distance of sessions, controlling our heart rate and power numbers so we are not over stressing the body, but we are getting it used to developing our aerobic capacity. Its also worth considering the other elements that will provide a great return on our time investment next year. All workouts regardless of the time of year need to have a specific purpose, it will help to include a little variety to keep things interesting but not at the expense of the purpose of the session.

Quite a few years ago I had the great fortune to be coached by the athletics legend Frank Horwill, as many who have met the great man will tell you Frank is full of fantastic stories and has a fabulous way of describing what needs to be done. He was a real inspiration to me and fired my love of all things athletic. I remember an anecdote he shared with us on one frosty morning at Battersea track, when none of us were looking forward to the work ahead. It was his way of explaining basic periodisation to us. If you want to bake a Christmas cake there are certain ingredients that need to be included for it to become a Christmas cake. Miss some of them out or add something extra and whilst you might end up with a cake it probably won’t turn out they way it was originally intended. The point was well made, and 28 years I still remember it now.
So apart from developing our endurance profile there are a couple of other important elements to work on. Notably, skills and technical improvements are best worked on now. Movement patterns and the way our muscles fire have been being developed since we first began to move. These are driven by the vast neural networks in our brain and throughout our bodies, these systems take time to adapt and adjust. This is why so much emphasis is placed on developing the technique of our younger athletes. Learning the complex muscle patterns of the kind we find in swimming take longer to develop in adults. Great technique means economy of movement and saving vital energy; regardless of the distance we are racing we can all do with improving our economy.
The third element that we should be focusing on right now is developing our strength in order for us to push a bigger gear, run into a headwind or swim in choppy water. Joe calls these ‘Force’ workouts and can involve various activities and equipment simple examples of these types of sessions involve running or riding up hills, or swimming with paddles.

So the question is...What are you looking for in terms of improvement next year? If you work with a coach, one of their key roles is to help you identify the things you want to improve and set up a plan for you to go to work on them. They might also suggest a few ideas of their own to add to the pot. If you are self coached in each of these areas of development it's helpful to identify small incremental gains, which you can continue to measure. These could be a treadmill session in which you are maintaining a 0.5% higher incline whilst maintaining the same speed. Riding a hill and staying in the saddle for longer each time.

Dave Brailsford the Performance Director for British Cycling has set out a clear plan with his team of coaches and athletes and calls this process ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’. These are small discreet improvements in key milestones that build over time. What are yours? Do you know what your next running or cycling goal is? What milestone you are now aiming at?

Getting regular cycling during the winter period is one of the most challenging parts of training for most of us that work regular hours. We are constantly trying to balance out our lives as an athlete with all the other stuff we want to and sometime have to do!

This is where you turbo training can become your best friend. (I know, I really do need to get out more!) I know many people find indoor bike sessions a real chore and take every opportunity to get outside. Which is great and in many respects much preferred if you have that option. If you have or can develop the mindset that will get you out of the door with the worst of the weather that is a real bonus. Indoor riding is safe, can be very specific and controlled and if you let it, can really add value whilst being very time efficient.

Here are my 7 key tips for your winter turbo sessions.

1. Add variety to the sessions whilst being mindful that you still want to bake a Christmas cake!
2. Make sure every session has a purpose, a specific workout set, time goal and outcome i.e. what will make it a successful session?
3. If you are going to add some entertainment to your ride, i.e. music, video etc. make sure it fits the session your doing. If you’re doing interval repeats on a big gear is Celine Dionne going to do it for you? Make it work for you; small things make important distinctions to the quality of the session.
4. Join a group cycle session at a gym or health club, invite other athletes to your place for a session, the act of riding together provides a greater sense of unity and makes the time go quicker as you focus on your work out together. This also allows everyone to work at their own level unlike the usual group rides outdoors.
5. Identify ways of measuring or at least gauging your work out intensity. This could be as simple as giving yourself a sense of how hard you are working, like a scale of 1-10 and adjust throughout the session accordingly (RE: Borg). If you have a Turbo trainer or bike with a heat rate monitor or Power meter so much the better. There is lots of current research on the benefits of using both heart rate and power (Watts) as measurement of performance (Include research paper web links in here) in aiding individual performance. The GB Cycling squad are great example of know the numbers that need to be achieved for success.
6. Use the indoor sessions to drill technique and develop muscle memory, ‘perfect practice makes perfect’ get some feedback from other athletes or coaches, look in the mirror and check out what you are asking your body to do. What we do in training is more often than not repeated in racing.
7. Create a positive frame of thought about your turbo trainer workouts, think about the benefits that they will deliver in a few short months, and where ever possible surround yourself with the right positive messages. Your race goals, pictures of you achieving and breaking through barriers that have been in your way in the past, finishing a tough race, beating a PB. Also spend some time to appreciate how far you have come along your athletic journey, value the process that you are using as you tick off each of your key milestones.
   
   So what are the kinds of sets that would help me love my turbo a bit more? Click here for our free resource section and see the kind of sessions that will help you build part of your base profile this winter.
   
   HAPPY CHRISTMAS
   P.S. not too much Christmas cake…even if does have all the right ingredients ;-)