Energy Pacing your Ironman

One of the most difficult aspects, when it comes to pacing a triathlon is the fact that it is a multi-modal activity. It is very easy for an elite 10,000m track runner or 1500m swimmer to ascertain how ‘evenly’ he paced his event. He and his coach simply sit down and look at lap splits.

In the world of triathlon racing, however, it is a little more difficult. What’s the running equivalent of a 200W bike? For the pointy end of the field, is the all-too common 5:30 bike/4hr run an optimal way to race an Ironman? What if I’m a strong biker and a crappy runner? Does that give me carte blanche to take advantage of my ‘strengths’ on the bike, or vice versa for that matter, if I’m a 2:30 marathoner, how much will I slow down for my Ironman run split?

The guy pictured above, James Prescott Joule has some answers.

The first thing to realize is that, by and large, for both bike and run, the body is pulling energy from a single, finite energy pool. A fixed amount of calories or kilojoules, stored as fat, glycogen and protein.

The second thing to realize is that Ironman is an energy limited, not a fitness limited event. In other words, just because you can run a 40 minute 10K or bike 300W for an hour doesn’t mean that you have the ability to fuel this rate (or an arbitrary percentage of this rate) of performance in the context of an Ironman.

No, your best Ironman performance will come from a conscious, even, metering of your energy resources with only slight regard given to your personal strengths and weaknesses.

So, let’s get down to it. What is the run equivalent of a 200W bike split, or the bike equivalent of a 4hr marathon? The numbers may surprise you.

I have prepared a table below, comparing the energy equivalents of a 140-300W bike split for a 60, 70 and 80kg athlete.



The numbers are based on ‘average’ economy numbers of 21% gross economy on the bike and 210 ml/kg/km on the run. In other words, if you have extraordinary run economy due to superior technique &/or muscle composition, your optimal splits may be marginally different, but marginal is the key word.

So, assuming a flat run course, the above represent equal energy splits for bike and run. To put it bluntly, if you are a 75kg athlete, you have no business biking 200W on the bike unless you’ve proven your ability to run <4:00 off the bike. How do you ‘prove’ this? By exceeding these standards in your Ironman.

Truth be told, there is a speed advantage to a slight negative bike:run split (more so for bigger athletes!!) due to the energy on the bike that is ‘wasted’ overcoming aerodynamic drag. Put plainly you get more speed bang for your energy buck on the run where extra energy goes to increasing speed rather than overcoming additional aerodynamic drag. So, the athlete should seek to slightly exceed these run standards.

Looking at the table, it is clear that body type comes into play, with smaller athletes expecting a faster run for a given bike power split. Thus smaller athletes need a better speed reserve/run fitness than larger athletes.

So, what about the ‘strong bikers’ who make the argument, “Well, I’m not a fast runner so I need to make my gains on the bike?” 3 points to these guys:

1. You’re drawing from a common energy pool for both bike and run and if you’re a crappy runner, that is even more reason to leave some ‘gas in the tank’. I’ve seen good runners coast at <8:00/mi on fumes. Sub-par runners don’t have that luxury.

2. Speed benefits decrease as power rises on the bike, due to aerodynamic resistance, while you always get good speed benefit from increasing energy on the run.

3. If you’re a big, strong guy, you don’t have to be a ‘good runner’ in order to pace appropriately. An 80kg guy biking 200W need only pull off a 4:14 marathon (9:40/mi). In other words, enough energy to jog (not walk) the marathon.

And what about the flipside, a very strong runner, say a 65kg, 2:27 marathoner. Let’s name him, Kyle . Obviously, Kyle has the fitness to run a very fast 26mi. But what bike+run distribution will give him his best Ironman time? Or put another way, how close to his open marathon time should Kyle expect to run?

Let’s take a look at some of his test data for some more info we can use to structure some race simulations. ….

As I have previously stated, I generally find that top age-groupers can fuel 11-12kcal of carbohydrate per minute over the course of an Ironman. From Kyle’s previous FUEL test we see that, with his exemplary FUEL profile, this point occurs at 220W(NP) of power on the bike (see below).



Looking at the table, an even distribution of energy from a 220W bike split would result in a marathon time of ~3:10. More than 40 minutes slower than his open marathon time!! And this is a best case scenario assuming optimal fueling on the bike and a marginally better lactate curve than the last time we tested him.

Clearly, there are many athletes from a running background who have more run fitness than they have the energy to use (ditto for the swim, btw). This has big time implications on training – specifically, the amount of training devoted to improving run fitness.

When it comes down to it, if you are looking for your best possible race performance don’t listen to Mr. Hellriegel or Big Jurgen Zack and ‘make zem suffer on ze bike’. Nope, if your overall time matters to you, take the lead from my bearded friend at the head of this article. Use your energy wisely.

Race smart,

AC

The Protein Bonk

“After competing in the Hawaii Ironman in 1980, I was intent on racing the Ultraman (3.1mi swim, 156mi Bike, 32mi Run). I was one of the first athletes to compete in an Ironman back then and there were no specific guildelines to follow so my training was largely trial and error. To get in shape for this race, I trained 3 times it’s distance every week – 15mi swim, 450mi bike and 150mi running each week. Plus, since I was on the SEAL team, I was required to do SEAL training 5-7 days/wk. I went from a strong 175lbs to a sickly 138lbs…..

One night I went to take a bath but I had trouble standing and walking, so I crawled to the tub and eventually passed out. My wife took me to the emergency room, where all kinds of troubles were revealed. When asked to lift my head for a spinal X-Ray, I couldn’t do it. My vertebrae in my neck and back were compressed causing a restrictive range of motion. The blood tests revealed that my liver and kidneys were on the verge of shutting down. My left rotator cuff was torn and my left quadriceps was torn. There was severe plantar fasciitis in both feet. My body was literally eating itself for energy.”

- Don Mann (Adventure racing legend) from the book ‘The Complete Guide to Adventure Racing”

If you’ve been involved in this endurance training game for some time now, chances are that you have, at one time or another, gone a little too far, on too little carbohydrate and experienced the sensations of the dreaded bonk - when you call down to the power-house in the legs and Scotty replies back “I’m givin’ her all she’s got Cap’n”. If you haven’t experienced it, no doubt you’ve seen the results via Julie Moss (pictured above), Paula Newby-Fraser or the dramatic crawl off between Wendy Ingraham and Sian Welch. Either way, it becomes readily apparent that when blood glucose becomes dangerously low, the body will shut you down – quickly! Considering that the brain can only function effectively on glucose, this is an important protective mechanism.

There is, however, a different, far more dangerous kind of bonk for the endurance athlete – the protein bonk. This ‘bonk’ doesn’t possess the same drama or protective mechanisms as the glucose bonk and therefore has more long reaching, dangerous effects as described by Don Mann, above. Fortunately, most of us do not possess the same resolve as a Navy SEAL. However, even the serious recreational athlete can do serious (athletic career ending) damage if the warning signs of a protein bonk are not observed.

A little background physiology: When you take in dietary protein it’s initial fate is to be broken down into an amino acid pool that lies in wait within the blood and muscle tissue (see below).



This pool of amino acids can basically undergo 2 basic fates:
1. It can be taken up by the muscles to aid in rebuilding of muscle structures.
2. It can be broken down into an energy source to supplement the body’s energy needs.

Obviously, it cannot do both and these 2 objectives are somewhat antipolar. One is an anabolic (building up) process, the other is a catabolic (tearing down) process.
Additionally, if this amino acid pool becomes low (due to stress or inadequate dietary intake to meet energy needs) the body can break down muscle tissue into it’s amino acid constituents to supplement this pool. This is catabolism at its finest. It should be noted that this is hastened by stress hormones which are released in response to physiological OR psychological stress. Or put another way, it is very difficult to grow and improve if you are swimming in work related, sleep deprived cortisol.

However, even if you are the coaches pet and do all of the little things that hasten recovery (as outlined in my last blog on Serious Recovery for Serious Athletes) there will always be a gap between the time required for metabolic recovery (refilling glycogen stores) and structural recovery (repairing muscle). In fact, muscle recovery can take 3-5 times as long as substrate recovery. Or, put another way you cannot afford to rest long enough between sessions for the muscle to repair itself structurally 100% after a hard session. After 2-3 days, you will have the energy to ‘go again’ even though the muscle is not 100% repaired. And so, there is residual ‘structural fatigue’ that is carried across from session to session and week to week.

This residual fatigue places progressively greater demand on the amino acid pool and thus less amino acids will be available for energy within the plasma, as more is going to the muscle for re-building. However, with sufficient motivation, you can rally the troops for a period of time by calling in Mr Caffeine, Mr Work Stress, Mr Family Stress to join your tug of war team and give some additional strength to the “break down amino acids for energy side”. However, this is a short term (ultimately destructive) solution. Eventually, the body calls on a weak but eventually effective protective mechanism to shut you down.

It’s actually a pretty neat protective mechanism. As it turns out, the same blood-brain transporter that carries essential amino acids also carries an amino acid by the name of Tryptophan. The same Tryptophan that makes you sleepy after a Turkey dinner. So, less transporters being devoted to Essential Aminos and more devoted to Tryptophan = Alan sleep now.

Put more succinctly, when available amino acids start to run low, you get sleepy – The Protein Bonk.

The extent of this lethargy can range from mild, for the astute athlete who recognizes the warning signs and incorporates a recovery period, to chronic in the case of the athlete who pulls out all the stops to ‘keep it rolling’ in spite of being tired. In fact, while Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is still largely a mystery, the 2 most pervasive markers are an increase in plasma Tryptophan concentrations and a decrease in plasma Glutamine (one of the essential Amino Acids) concentration. While scientists have discovered this correlation, some have been surprised to see that glutamine supplementation, while bringing the amino acid pool back to normal does not immediately abate the symptoms. Duh! While a relatively ‘deep’ amino acid pool is needed for muscle recovery, if you allow your body to drop 30lbs of lean tissue, like Don Mann, it will take a long time before there is enough amino acid surplus to bring plasma tryptophan levels back to normal. Or, in other words, you’re going to be tired for a long time. Even dropping one or 2lbs of LMM can create sufficient disruption to alter energy levels for a long period of time. For this reason, monitoring bodyweight over the long term is an important preventative overtraining strategy.

So, what can the intelligent athlete do to ward off the protein bonk?

1. Recognize that even with appropriate energy replacement, residual fatigue will be carried across from session to session and week to week. Therefore long term mesocycles and macrocycles that incorporate longer recovery periods are necessary.

2. Monitor bodyweight (and anthropometry) and learn the difference between short term fluctuations (day to day) related to glycogen depletion and hydration and long term changes (week to week) that indicate structural changes.

3. Be proactive in utilizing recovery strategies to assist the muscle repair process (see Serious Recovery for Serious Athletes)


4. Eat more protein. Elite ultra-endurance athletes experience a lot of muscular damage, both energetic and impact-related, therefore, high protein intakes are necessary, somewhere in the vicinity of 1.6-2.0 g/kg of bodyweight.

5. Pay attention to your body. If you are already tired (via training or work, travel etc) don’t reach for the caffeine and dig a deeper hole. Stop. Revive. Survive. 

Train Smart,
AC

Serious Recovery for Serious Athletes

"Ignoring regeneration techniques can have an adverse influence on supercompensation. In fact, without adequate regeneration, it will be non-existent"
- Tudor Bompa

It’s been a little while since my last blog post. I’ve been jet-setting across the U.S. from a training camp in Tucson to a vacation trip in San Francisco. Somewhere along the way the calendar ticked over one more click to initiate the start of my 33rd year on this Earth. As my own age advances, one aspect of my training is beginning to become more important – Recovery.

My hunch is that this attention is going to need to become ever more vigilant as I approach my 40’s. Gordo has certainly seemed to pay more mind to recovery over recent years and he is not alone. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to chat a little with Greg Bennett at Gordo’s 40th birthday party. Of course (like most of you would, I’m sure) I did my very best to segue, as quickly as possible, from pleasantries and commonalities (primarily related to our motherland) to the ‘secrets’ of his training. Unsurprisingly, as Greg will more than happily point out, while there is some very intelligent planning, there are few secrets, just executing a very good plan over a very long period of time.

If there were any ‘secrets’ or ‘short cuts’ that seemed to keep cropping up in the conversation, they were not directly related to training but instead to that oft skipped over chapter in the training books – Recovery.

If there is one lasting impression that you get from Greg, it is that of a professional athlete – in every sense of the word. He points out that while he may only be training 3 or 4 hours a day, he is an athlete 24/7. I would go so far as to suggest that it is this attitude that has contributed to his athletic longevity and performance level that he has built over many years. A key component of this professionalism for serious athletes is active recovery.

As my brother from another mother (and father :-), Josh, pointed out to me , while lip service is paid to the benefits of active recovery in the various training texts, serious practical instructions as to ‘what to do’ and ‘when to do it’ is lacking. In this blog I want to point out some of the things that have been shown to work to hasten recovery and when and how to do them in the context of your training plan.

First a quick primer on fatigue and recovery:

Generally speaking, fatigue in long duration endurance sports is the result of energy depletion. This energy depletion takes several forms. To name a few:

- Metabolic: Running out of hepatic glycogen, blood glucose, intramuscular glycogen or (possibly) intramuscular lipids.

- Structural: Muscular damage that decreases contractile ability and elasticity of the muscle

- Neural/Central Fatigue: Depletion of dopamine and an increase in tryptophan (the ‘sleepy’ amino acid), depletion of electrolytes that slow neuromuscular firing.

- Neuroendocrine: Recent research has focused on reduced catecholamine uptake or production following long term stress that may adversely affect energy liberation and neuromuscular drive.

In any of these situations there is both a limiting amount of good stuff (an energy medium) coupled with accumulating bad stuff (waste products) that must be set right before the athlete is ready to go again.

Thus, a good portion of recovery is about getting good stuff (glycogen, oxygen, lipids, anabolic hormones) into the muscle and getting bad stuff (lactic acid, muscular waste, catabolic hormones) out of the muscle.

Now, the anatomical superhighway to our muscles is blood. To a large extent, specifically blood plasma. Plasma carries a lot of the good stuff into the muscle and all of the bad stuff out. Thus, one of the things that can slow recovery down is if your plasma is not where it should be. Two things that can dramatically affect how much plasma you have in your blood:

1. Dehydration
2. Increase in intramuscular fluid during exercise.

Mission critical is rehydrating. Fluid intake after key sessions should begin immediately and not finish until bodyweight reaches pre-session values.

Mission #2 is decreasing intramuscular fluid:
During exercise we lose fluid volume from the blood due as fluid is pushed into the muscles from the increased arterial pressure gradient that comes with exercise. In other words, our capillaries ‘leak’ fluid into our muscle. So, first step in recovery is to get blood volume back to where it should be as quickly as possible, via rehydration and normalizing the intramuscular pressure gradient, i.e. decreasing muscular swelling. While swelling may not be obvious (like it is following more serious injury), any blood that is not circulating through your circulatory system is ultimately slowing the process of recovery.

Means of mitigating swelling are well known:
• Rest
• Ice
• Compression
• Elevation

The latter 3, in particular can also be used in recovery. A fourth modality that is particularly useful is hydrotherapy, i.e. submersion in water. The hydrostatic pressure of the water weight can greatly assist in normalizing the intramuscular pressure gradient and get blood fluid back where it should be. Combining this with modality #2, we get the best of 2 worlds in every athletes favorite recovery tool – the ice bath :-)



For those with access to the appropriate facilities, e.g. cold pool + hot tub, an alternative, marginally better protocol is a contrast bath, i.e. alternating hot and cold submersion. This adds using alternating vasodilation and vasoconstriction as a pumping method to assist the hydrostatic pressure in ‘pumping’ the blood back into the central cavity of the athlete. There is good research support to the efficacy of both cryotherapy (ice baths) and contrast baths (French et al., 2008, Kuligowski et al. 1998, Burke et al., 2001,2003)

Compression (via compression garments) is a new increasingly popular recovery therapy that has received mixed research reviews. It seems to have good support in attenuating muscle soreness but the jury is still out on performance benefits for endurance athletes(Pro-Ali et al, 2007, Gill et al. 2006; Against – French et al. 2008). My opinion is that compression therapy makes good intuitive sense as a recovery aid (esp when coupled with elevation), however less so than those modes that utilize thermodynamic means to hasten the process. Sorry, in my mind and the literature, the ice baths win out.

So, that’s step #1, clean up the super highway. Step #2 is fill the delivery trucks with the good stuff. Namely:

• Carbohydrate
• Minerals
• Protein/BCAA’s
• Oxygen
• Anabolic Hormones

The most important recovery strategy bar none is rapid restoration of the body’s glycogen stores via quick carbohydrate replacement after exercise. Numerous studies have shown a maximal glycogen resynthesis rate of ~45g/hr by consuming 0.8-1.2g/kg/hr in small meals every 15-30mins for the first 3 hours after exercise (Van Loon et al., 2000, Burke, 1996)

Additionally, protein synthesis is enhanced when it is taken close to exercise (Rasmussen, 2000). It appears there is an optimal quantity of essential amino acids (Glutamine, Phenylalanine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Valine), that leads to the highest rate of amino acid uptake without compromising glycogen resynthesis. This appears to be in the vicinity of 6-20g/hr of EAA’s for the first 3hrs after exercise. Amino Acid uptake, like glycogen uptake, is elevated by ~3.5x the normal rate at this time (Borsheim et al, 2001).

Oxygen is an interesting one. In the grand scheme of things it is best enhanced by getting blood volume back to normal. However, additional techniques such as supplemental O2 and hyperbaria have been shown to be advantageous under certain conditions, notably high altitude training. Under most endurance training conditions oxygen saturation is not limiting, however, if SpO2 is compromised, the time required to fill the EPOC can be decreased with these strategies.

Finally, and probably most important, is the impact of stress hormones on recovery. In order for growth to occur, whether it be actual growth of muscle in the form of hypertrophy or growth of muscle structures that are advantageous to endurance performance such as mitochondria, a pre-requisite is that the muscle is ‘primed’ for growth via the growth hormones HGH and IGF-1. These hormones are particularly enhanced during sleep and particularly suppressed during periods of stress, whether physiological or psychological. For this reason, both naps and sport psychology strategies that promote arousal control can play a valuable, often overlooked, part in recovery.

So, putting the above together, what would a serious athlete do after a key training session (TSS>~150)?

1. Perform a 15 minute cooldown at a very low intensity (<60% max HR)
2. Have sports drink mixed to 75-90g of Carbohydrate and 10-20g or protein at the ready.
3. Finish your session at the health club and head for the deep end of the cold pool (or prep an ice-bath if at home). Continue to sip sports drink for 20-30min while ‘flopping’ around in the pool.
4. If not excessively sore, do 2-3 cycles of alternating 2mins in the pool w/8mins in the hot tub.
5. Get changed, put compression garments on and head home, continuing to sip sports drink
6. Drink a smoothie when you get home containing 40g CHO/10g EAAs
7. Do 20mins of self massage, 20mins of supine yoga and 20mins of meditation/progressive relaxation, incorporating inverted/semi-inverted postures (see Gordo’s post workout stretch routine in Going Long for a good starting point).
8. Eat a snack of 75-90g of CHO and 20g of Protein with a high water content and mix of sugars (e.g. fruit plus yogurt)
9. Take a 1-2hr nap with legs elevated and compression gear on.
10. Eat another snack of 75-90g of CHO and 20g of Protein with a lower glycemic index (mainly fruit & veg) and some healthy fats.
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3-4hrs (including nap). Ideally completed by 4pm.

Following this, relax with family and friends for a few hours, eat a hearty dinner w/an additional 100g of CHO (assuming you took in 400 during breakfast + workout & 200-300 during recovery) and 40-80g of protein.

Then finish the evening with a hot bath, hot tub or sauna (if you have the means ) as a further impetus for Growth Hormone release, before retiring prior to 10:30pm.

For most working athletes, such a routine will be limited to a post workout routine on their biggest training day of the week (for a professional athlete like Greg Bennett, such a routine will be ‘the norm’). However, this frequency does not discount it’s usefulness. Many super-busy working athletes go day to day, week to week without recovery, changing from their running gear to their business suit, slamming a coffee after their long ride to keep up with family obligations. Under these conditions, stress hormones are always prevelant, the body never adapts to the training and growth (on many fronts) is compromised. If not given, the body will take recovery in the form of frequent illness or burnout irrespective of training load. If the athlete allows it to get to this point, fitness has already been sacrificed. There is much to be gained for all levels of athlete, in all life roles, by simply resolving to devote one day per week purely to training and recovery (sharpening the saw), while paying as much attention as possible to fitting in recovery means wherever possible through the rest of their busy week.

Train (and Rest) Smart,

AC