As the end of year approaches, it’s time to do a ‘state of
the nation’ assessment of what worked and what didn’t in coaching this year. 2012
was by and large a great year for my athletes, with more Kona Q’s, Ironman and
70.3 podiums and life best performances. But, as always, some athletes had a
challenging season. Here’s a quick round up of some of the factors that led to
a less satisfying season.
Note: The 2011 edition can be found here . http://alancouzens.blogspot.com/2011/09/learn-from-my-mistakes.html
Happy to say we didn’t repeat these (with the possible exception of 1)
Multiple Peaks
Not so much a mistake, but yet again a confirmation that
multiple peak years are at best, maintenance years for the majority of
athletes. With 2 Ironman peaks, getting fitness back to the level of the first
peak is a challenge. Exceeding this level is bordering on impossible for all
but the fastest recovering athletes.
Racing 2 Ironmans too close together
Related to the above, an alternative strategy to multiple
peaks is to try and hold one peak for 2 closely spaced Ironman races by going
in a little undertapered for the first and a little overtapered for the second.
While not necessarily a mistake in and of itself, this is a high risk strategy & a very tricky one to get right. We tried it this year with one very
fast recovering athlete who had pulled off a great result on a 4 week gap before but we tried a 3
week gap this year and it didn’t work. The optimal seems to be 4-6 weeks but
there is a lot of individual variation between athletes and for some it just
isn’t a viable strategy.
Racing too early (esp for athletes with a
winter)
Every year Kona qualification becomes a more and more
competitive undertaking. Age group athletes are becoming more serious, more
intelligent and, frankly, in most cases it takes nothing short of season best
fitness just to get a slot(!) With Southern Hemisphere athletes becoming
willing to travel for races and Northern Hemisphere athletes becoming more apt to
plan a number of ‘escape camps’ early
season, it is becoming very tough for an athlete coming from a normal winter to
qualify.
Lack of 'real' race practice (esp. Open Water swimming)
Another thing that I’m seeing; as the competition for slots
increases, every leg has to be relatively strong. In a couple of instances this
season, very fit athletes with decent pool speeds had a poor swim due to
conditions, poor sighting or lack of shoulder to shoulder ‘argey-bargey’
experience and were unable to make up the difference. The top AG race is in
general becoming more like the elite race and if your pack is missed the gap
will often become insurmountable.
Too much life stress late season.
A corollary to the point on racing too early, athletes with
a peak race late season need to be aware that in general life stress tends to
increase as the year comes to a close. Athletes who have a successful late
season race often have alternative ‘work seasons’, i.e. their busy work period
is antipolar to their busy training period. When the 2 coincide, getting
through unscathed (i.e. with target training load in tact and without getting
sick) is VERY tough. Late season ‘escape’ camps, in this case escaping life
rather than weather (!), are especially useful here.
Race efforts in training
An error a little too close to home here… My best
performance this season came in training rather than a race. In an effort to
attack my life best 2.5hr mark I was rested and ready to go. A little too
rested and ready to go! With strong watts at 2.5hrs, I decided to push on for a
5hr best. It was a great ride, a ride that took me 2 weeks of lighter than planned
training to come back from! I’m not alone here. I commonly see a few ‘spirited
group rides’ with a higher than planned training load leading to a lower than
planned race day fitness due to extended recovery. Note to self & others:
Manage the training highs, exercise self discipline & save those efforts
for the race.
Course/event selection. Some are significantly more
competitive than others.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, qualifying is
becoming VERY COMPETITIVE so competitive in fact that just being fit doesn’t
cut it. You need to be fit & be selecting a race that offers advantage to
someone of your morphology. I was amazed this year by one athlete in particular
who was putting out incredibly strong training numbers & had a great race
on a rolling course but still didn’t hit the qualifying standard. Move him to a
flat race, even with a little less fitness & he dominated. Race selection
matters!
Also a bit of research on relative competitiveness of the
various races will show that not all are created equal. There are some very
competitive races out there and some significantly less competitive races.
In the interests of ensuring that my
athletes get the pick of the bunch, I’ll keep the details to myself but suffice
to say, a little bit of research goes a long way.
Address muscle issues before they become
problems
High volume endurance athletes are always at risk of overuse
injury. Athletes over the age of 35 significantly more so. Inccreasing training
before (or without) increasing ‘prehab’ strength and conditioning work is
inviting trouble. Nothing sucks more than going through an entire season build,
being in fantastic shape and then succumbing to the weak link of a dodgy
tendon. Take care of ‘niggles’ before they become season-ending problems.
And the big one: “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”.
I’m a bit of a hard ass when it comes to training
load of my athletes coming in on plan. Athletes who deviate more than 10% from
plan typically have a limited life span in the AC squad. Turns out, I might not
be hard enough. The 10% rule of thumb works out well over the short term, but
if athletes are chronically under the mark, the end of year gap between actual
and planned is nothing short of a chasm. More on that here… http://alancouzens.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-double-whammy-of-missed-workouts.html
Similarly, athletes who are chronically a little over the
mark on every session wind up carrying fatigue from block to block and,
invariably, it catches up with them in the form of illness, injury or burnout
before they’re due to taper for the race.
The lesson here is to be inherently aware of your natural
tendencies (& those of your athletes). If you know that you typically
overshoot the mark, be especially conscious of not ‘adding extra’ especially
during the early season when volume is low and you’re feeling good. Similarly,
if you’re someone who is typically under the mark, 2013 is the year to raise
your standards and make a commitment to show up for every session. If
attendance requirements are good enough for 10 year old swimmers…..
For those with a more variable schedule in which things tend
to ‘crop up’, early morning sessions are the rule of the day & camps in
which you have nothing to think about but train, eat, sleep have exponential
advantage.
#####
I don’t want you all to think that I’m a complete idiot who keeps
making new mistakes every year so in my next post, I’ll share some of the smarter things
we tried this year that did work J
Until then…
Train smart,
AC
Spoiler Alert: In the
list of things that DID work, early season camps are close to the top. It’s not
an exaggeration to say that the folks you’re competing for a slot with are
going to use their vacation time this way and have a significant head start on
those who stay put for the winter.
Nicolas Theopold (9:04 age-grouper) and I will
be hosting a small escape camp on the island of Mallorca from March 31-April 7. It’s
reasonably priced and a great opportunity to learn from and put in some big
miles witha great group of folks with a common passion for endurance sport.
Details can be found here http://mallorcacamp.wordpress.com/ Don’t hesitate to drop me a line for any
additional info – alan ‘at’ endurancecorner.com
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