A friend of mine asked me how he should approach a 4 week taper to an IM (Placid in this case). I responded with an outline of a four week taper block. It should be noted that this is for a well-trained, fit athlete that is accustomed to high volume training.

Also, if it seems Friel-esque; that’s because it is.

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A standard four week taper/Peak period for an IM includes key workouts every 72-96 hours while allowing recovery and reducing duration; not intensity; throughout).

Something along the lines of:

Week Four

Monday-Thursday: easy to recover from Build you just completed (in your case; four solid weeks)

Friday: Long run; duration should be the longest you completed during your build (but no more than 2.5 hours). The idea here is to log as much steady state time as possible. It might be a good idea to do a 60-90 minute easy/steady ride to get the most our of your run time. I run nearly the entire duration within my IM HR ranges when  I do this session.

Friday: recovery day

Sunday: Key long ride; 5 hours with 4 hours or work done at IM effort; 15 min run off bike

Week Three:

Monday+Tuesday: Recovery days

Wednesday: 90 min steady ride; 1:45 run off bike; (75 minutes steady; 30 minutes very easy).

Thur and Fri: reco days

Saturday: Good one hour swim with quality; 4 hour long ride with 3 hours of IM work done within; 15 min run off bike

Sunday Recovery

Week Two:

Monday+Tuesday: recovery

Wednesday: 90 min ride with 60 min steady; 75 min run off bike; 45 min steady; 30 min easy

Thur + Fri: Recovery

Saturday: Solid one hour swim; 3 hour ride with 2 hours of IM work done within; 15 min run off bike

Sunday: OFF

Race Week

Monday: Normal duration swim; 60 min ride with 1,2,3,4 minutes @ IM effort on equal rest duration (i.e. one minute off; one min easy).15 min run off bike

Tuesday: 45 min run with 5 x 90 seconds at HIM effort on 3.5 min easy jog recoveries; 45 min recovery spin

Wednesday: Swim only; include 5 x 90 seconds (100s -150s based on fitness) at HIM effort with 3 minutes of easy swimming in between.

Thursday: 30 min easy run. 45 min ride with 1,2,3 minutes at IM effort on equal recovery

Friday: Swim only; very easy

Saturday: Prerace SBR of 15/30/15 with a couple pickups in each sport

Sunday: Win your AG.

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You might be wondering what to day on reco days. Here’s what I suggest.

Place the normal frequency of your running, cycling, and swimming within those extra days of the week (peak workouts count for a session in each). The only caveat is that you keep the duration shorter and the intensity lower (swimming excepted). The only times you want to pick it up are on your ‘peaking’ days (aside from swimming). I would keep your frequency rides in the 60-90 min range and make them spins. The runs I would keep at 40-50 minutes in week three and 30-40 in week two (assuming those are normal durations).

I wouldn’t think of your final four weeks as a time to do “speedwork.” Your primary goal is to strip away fatigue (by lowering volume) and maintain peak fitness (with peak workouts that don’t back off the intensity).

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JD

Its not fun to write the third blog in five weeks that announces me pulling out of another race. Unfortunately that is the case again. I tried to quickly rehab my knee before the race this weekend, but by Thursday it was still not 100% when I lifted the effort when running or cycling. As a result, I decided to pull out of this weekend’s event for fear of doing something worse to my knee.

I visited several doctors, a PT, and a chiropractor about my knee this past week. The consensus is that I whacked it hard enough to merit a long recovery, but I likely/hopefully didn’t do anything “major.” The primary risk is if I damaged any cartilage behind the patella because of the direct impact. It was suggested that I take some rest off my legs for a few days and try to build my training back up from there. If I still cannot exercise without pain, the next step would be to get an MRI to see if there is something going on they cannot see (already got X rays and they are cool).

It has been a frustrating six weeks and nearly all of my early season racing has been scratched for reasons that are out of my hands. I have eight weeks until Ironman Canada and right now I’m just focused on getting myself healthy, training smart, and racing fast in August. As long as I don’t run in the cold, eat the wrongs things, and watch where my feet land I should be good to go.

Best of luck to everyone in Lubbock this weekend,

JD

That little incident I mentioned in my last blog (about crashing on the Mesa Trail) has turned into a bit more of a nuisance than I originally anticipated. Apparently breaking my fall with my knee on a Boulder has consequences that have to be faced. After battling a serious virus, several days of food poisoning, and this bruised knee (in the past five weeks); I’m ready for some good fortune. Coincidentally, I tend to race Half Ironmans quite well when something unexpected happens the weekend before, so perhaps that will be the good fortune I seek. We’ll have to wait and see.

More later this week,

jd

Unfortunately my well-thought-out blog post somehow got lost. Not surprising, given my IT skills, but I still thought I had the whole blog process under control. Instead of sharing those thoughts I’m going to simply complain about how Thursdays have it out for me.

Yesterday while running on the Mesa Trail (which is really more like power hiking) I ate s**t and crashed both knees into two ridiculously big boulders. I spent the rest of the evening icing my knees and this morning they are very stiff (but not ‘worse’ thankfully).

Last week, on Thursday, I had the pleasure of dealing with some sort of stomcahe ailment that was likely food poisoning. Several weeks before that, I went out for a run and got caught in a drenching downpour when it was 39 degrees. Three days later I began my miserable May illness which I believe I contracted on that particular Thursday when my immune system was depressed.

So 3 of the last 6 Thursdays have tried to take me down, but I’m still standing. I might not leave my bedroom next week. Fortunately I’ll being rest up for Buffalo Springs by then so at least it won’t affect too much training.

I love Fridays though,

jd

I enjoy all three disciplines of my sport, but I have a passion for riding a bike. Going places, riding fast, climbing mountains… ….these ‘things’ make riding a bike truly enjoyable.

However, the athlete in me is primarily concerned with riding a bike from point A to B faster than everyone else. Having that goal sometimes turns cycling into a means to an end, but that is not the way cycling was introduced into my life.

When I began riding 100+ mile rides outside of College Station, Texas I saw them as adventures. I knew more about the surrounding areas and the countryside than all my non-riding peers. Even if they drove the same road a thousand times it would never look as it looked to me on a bike. The world slows down a bit and you notice what might otherwise go unnoticed. Sometimes when you pull over to fix a flat, and the wind no longer fills your ears, you can hear just how quiet some areas of the world are. That was always a bit relieving to me in world with a million mediums of information and noise. Every now and then I found an escape standing next to a watermelon field near Millican, Texas.

All those long rides certainly made me more fit (and a better athlete), but I did them because I wanted to and not because I needed to. I love to ride my bike, but these days I often saddle up with an agenda at hand. I don’t often find myself saying “I wonder where that road goes?”

Well, I’ve decided to bring back some fun into my training. After my Monday morning workouts are completed I embark on “Mountain Monday.” Basically, I will find a new route that goes over some of the gnarliest, steepest roads (paved and dirt) in the Boulder area. Every Monday will be somthing new that I have never done and I will go to some place I have never seen.

My buddy Chris McDonald is one of the most dedicated long course athletes I know, but even he admits that he has to have sessions that are simply “fun” for him. Otherwise, he reckons, he would just go crazy.

I think he’s absolutely right.

Bring on the fun,

JD

A few years ago I was sitting in the backseat of a friend’s car driving to Miami for a race. We were talking about everything we could think of (its a long drive from Orlando) including the normal training blah blah blah. At one point my friend was telling me about someone she knew who claimed to train “10 hours a day” while getting ready for an Ironman.

My Response: “That’s not training, that’s touring.”

To this day that one expression seems to ring a lot of bells in people’s heads when I mention it. I hear about BIG training all the time (i.e. more hours than I train), but it has never been overly concerning to me. When I hear that someone is training a ridiculous number of hours I rest easy knowing that they are ultimately having to go “slow” to accomplish it. I can also bank on them most likely being exhausted on race day (when it actually counts). (And keep in mind that I train with a solid amount of volume; 27-30 hours when getting ready for IMs)

I think I can confidently say that many people hope that hard work will be rewarded fairly. Unfortunately working lots is not the same as working effectively. I always remember hearing people complain about how much they studied for a test, but ultimately scored poorly on the test. Clearly they put in their time observing the material, but perhaps they did not engage the material (and sometimes the test was just stupid hard).

Tying this back into triathlon and training hours is easy.

If I cannot train at an intensity that creates a training stimulus (steady and above) then I am doing nothing more than burning calories and making myself more tired. Do not confuse this with allocated easy training; i.e. recovery swims rides and runs. I am speaking in terms of easy training replacing quality training based on the justification that one’s training volume is high therefore easy training is OK.

The next time you find yourself in a position where you are forced to go easy you should ask yourself this:

Is this the best session for me or my training log?

jd

p.s. I’m finally over my illness and I am building my training towards Buffalo Springs at the end of this month.

Unfortunately pulling out of races has been the trend in the last two blog entries. I am finally recovering from my illness, but it took quite a pounding on my body. Sometimes I don’t hesitate to race regardless of setbacks, but in this case I have decided it is best for me to pull out of the race. My next official event will be Buffalo Springs 70.3 on June 29th, but I could possibly have another event pop up before then depending on my training.

Illness can be tough to handle. As an athlete, I have never banked off of anything more than the previous day’s work. What I mean by saying that is I believe I am only as good as my preparation. This is not to say that other athletes roll with nothing other than their natural born talent. It just means that my ability to prepare and execute is what I believe to be my strength.

Illness, injury, and offseasons all pretty much set us up to improve over the long term (assuming neither of the three becomes chronic). Once we bounce back and move forward we usually surpass the last height of our progression/fitness, but its crucial to patiently wait its return (in my opinion). Forcing old fitness will only make you as good as you were, and not as good as you could be.

Its also naturally frustrating to find yourself ill or injured. Often times it comes at a point when you feel unbreakable and unstoppable. Two Sundays ago I finished my long run along Magnolia Road and consciously acknowledged my good form. I was looking forward to hammering it out at Ironhorse and Boise, but 12 hours later I had a bloody nose and a fever. Breaking through and breaking down are sometimes separated by a very thin line.

To good health,

jdb

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