Project Ironman – The Fundamentals Part 2

Photo Credit Ed Rechnitzer

In Part 1 I addressed some big picture aspects of IM preparation. In this segment I will touch on five other important areas that are often overlooked but will enhance your readiness come race day.

Mindful Training

To achieve quality IM training with the limited time most AG have, you must invest yourself in every session, 100%. If you have a 30min easy spin scheduled as a recovery, engage yourself in the process mentally, physically and emotionally, channelling all your energy to accomplishing the aim – in this case, promoting restoration. If you get on the bike and just go through the motions, checking your e-mail, Twitter and FB feeds, then you are putting in the famous “garbage miles”. Likewise, if you do the same during rest intervals in an intensity session, you just compromised that “quality” (see my point in the previous article reference the term.)

The point to underscore is the importance of deliberate practice no matter how hard or easy a session may be. The degree of physical effort prescribed should not devalue the importance of a session.

It is helpful to set up the best possible training environment to support the training objective. If watching a re-run of IM Kona helps you engage in the process, great. If music helps you chill and keep a relaxed rhythm, great. However, there is a difference between watching/listening to something passively and actively interacting with a device. If an easy 2hrs ride is to be used as time to check and respond to work e-mails or SM posts on your iPhone, then it is effectively a waste of time…because when that next text message pings or email flies in from stage right…….

So use every training session to practice staying on task. Focus, concentrate, be fully engaged in the process without compromise. If you let the mind wander the body will follow. Ironman is an agonizingly long day. Make each moment count and you will save time and energy.

Recovery

While it is essential to listen to your body for signs and cues expressing fatigue it is also important to anticipate the need for scheduled rest. Remember that recovery is training. Consider it as a discipline. The body becomes stronger when allowed to absorb the preceding training. With the higher volume demand of IM training, especially as one approaches the race itself, and as one moves up in age, recovery and regeneration become ever more important. Ignore it at your peril.

Work Your TOP

Suffering is part of IM. There is no hiding from it. Therefore as part of your physical and mental preparation you need to work your pain tolerance, or Threshold of Pain (TOP). This may include a once in a while session that takes you well outside your comfort zone.

That also means being able to endure in solitude. While you may be “racing with 3000 of your closest friends” the fact remains that IM is a lonely solo effort. Those in particular who need the companionship of others to get their homework done should incorporate long solo sessions into their regime. The mental resilience and tenacity gained will help through those dark moments that will inevitably taunt you to quit or feel sorry for yourself. Likewise, those who prefer solo training exclusively may benefit from a long strong group ride or run that will push them.

So don’t wait until race day to discover it. Practice it in training to help you develop coping mechanisms and will also enhance your judgment and decision making when under pressure and fatigued.

Pacing

This is probably the biggest downfall for some of the most talented athletes. Correct pacing in an IM is key. Rehearse in training what you will execute on race day. Then on race day, have the discipline to stick to your pacing plan.

Cramping is a common phenomenon in IM racing, and is always addressed under nutrition. I chose to tackle it here as it is more the result of improper pacing than dehydration and electrolyte deficiency. More often than not participants get caught up in the electrifying ambiance of race day and lose all self-discipline and sense of judgement, hammering out of the gates, pushing their muscles to work at an intensity and duration they are unaccustomed to. The muscles become exceedingly stressed subverting the neuromuscular pathways and causing spasmodic contractions. Bottom line - rehearse your pacing, groove it, execute it, stick with it.

Nutrition

 Nutrition (including hydration) is the fourth discipline of IM. It can be quite controversial and perplexing given the regular bombardment of contradictory information from the “latest research”. For this blog I will only refer to nutrition preparation for IM competition vice daily dietary recommendations.

Like S/B/R you need to train it. Train your gut to ingest the quantities you need, and do so often under race pace duress, not just during a comfortable rest interval. The best approach is to micro-dose frequently rather than gulp or chew bigger portions periodically.

One thing to be attentive to is the difference between ingestion (the quantity taken in) and rate of absorption (that which is can actually be taken up by your digestive system). The two are not the same and what is recommended in mainstream literature may not be suitable to you. There is no magic formula, only your individual requirements. So adhere to these two simple principles – know what you need per hour based on what you can tolerate and absorb, and ingest those calories in forms that suit your palate, and satisfy you physically and psychologically. There is no right or wrong only what works for you.

Know ahead of time what will be supplied on race course and try it to ensure that your stomach can handle it. If not, then you know you need to plan around that limitation. If yes, then train with it so you have the flexibility to safely supplement on course when needed.

In training practice your nutrition and hydration timing. Rehearse it. Drill it in. Make it habitual. But be flexible. Practice and assess your nutritional decisions in training to minimize hesitation on race day.

A cautionary note on caffeine. If you plan to race with caffeine, train with it as well. Not every session but periodically when doing race specific (long) sessions. Caffeine can also lead to cramping - indirectly. Caffeine tempers our sense of perceived exertion, masks pain and stimulates us to perform. Often people reserve caffeine for their races, and in higher quantities than accustomed to, to get that extra turbo charge, inducing them to push harder to a level and for a duration the muscles are not accustomed to. Add this to an already over-excited environment and the risk of pushing one’s muscles beyond what they are able to handle goes up significantly.

Fuel for performance. We have control over our nutrition (and pacing). Therefore there should be no (controllable reason) that bonking occurs, in training or racing. Plan your nutrition to optimize each training session especially on multi-session days. Avoid looking at each session in isolation. Always assess what came before, the demands and aim of the actual session and, what is to come after and when. This way you remain proactive in fuelling and replenishing appropriately. This habit will preserve you on IM day because when you start reacting to nutritional needs you are already behind the 8-ball.

There is a lot involved preparing for an IM. But before you focus and obsess on the sexy marginal gains promised by the latest gadget, widget or elixir, follow these fundamental principles as the underlying foundation to your Ironman S/B/R training and ultimately your race day success.