Almost every year I go down to watch our city’s marthon, the Chevron Houston Marathon, I inevitably see and hear first timers making simple mistakes that can, and often do, cost them their goal of a successful day.

I’ve made all of these mistakes and more in the various marathons that I’ve run. So I would like to pass on some advice in the hopes that I save some people some heartache this marathon season. Below are some simple tips that will hopefully make your day a little easier.

Nothing New - For most of those who read this site, the ‘nothing new’ rule is a common one. For the newer members of the endurance world however, this rule might not have set in just yet. “Nothing new” is in reference to your race day habits and equipment. Don’t wear a new shirt, don’t wear a new pair of shoes, don’t grab some gels you’ve never eaten or drink something you haven’t trained with. If you do, you are gambling with your day. Some of these things are obvious. New shoes can cause blisters, as can a new sports bra or pair of shorts. But the smaller stuff can be an issue as well. Same goes with your race day habits. A new hat might drive you crazy. Trying a new nutrtional product on race day might not work for you like it does your training partner. I’ve been in a race where the sports drink on the course wouldn’t digest for me. So I got a big gut full of fluid and got sick. If a gel has ingredients your not used to you could be logging some time in the port-a-cans along the course, or even worse, the dreaded and always feared ‘poo leg’. And no one within a 100 yard radius wants you to suffer poo leg.

Have a good, bland meal the night before. Or at the very least, a meal that you’re familiar with. Spicey indian food is not what I would recommend the night before a race. You want something that won’t irritate, cause heart burn, keep you up at night or having you spend more time than you planned waiting in line for the restroom. Often we travel out of town to race, so a home cooked meal is not always an option. If this is the case, find a restaurant that you know well and are comfortable with. In this situation eating healthy takes a back seat to eating a known food. I often will get a cheese pizza or a burger the night before because I know how my body will react to it.

Don’t let your enthusiasm ruin your race. I know this sounds easy to avoid, but most runner’s go by feel (or RPE) on race day as opposed to heart rate. Not a big deal, with the exception of that wonderful little drug known as adreneline. At the beginning of the race, excitement is in the air and your goals are at their height. So the gun goes off and you feel great. Yippee! All that training paid off and you are going to have a banner day. You feel like you are running an easy pace….until that adreneline wears off. No biggie at first because you knew the race would have it tough spots. By the time you roll through mile 16 though, you know that you’ve screwed up, but at this point it’s too late. Dragging home is the best option you have.

The best way to avoid this is to have a plan for the first half of the race. Pick a pace that’s conservative and stick with it regardless of what the rest of runners are doing. This can be harder than you might think though. It’s called a ’pack mentality’ for a reason afterall. It’s not always necessary to have a plan for the later miles, as at some point you shift from holding back to pushing through, and digging deep doesn’t come with a plan.

Don’t over dress. It’s 5 am and 31 degrees outside. You step out of your car and realize it’s dang cold. It’s only natural to throw on a jacket or some warmer tights so that you’re comfortable. The problem comes later in the day, when it’s 9am and now 48 degrees. You went from comfortable to overheating and sweating through all those warm clothes. So rather than start your day comfortable, trying toeing the starting line a bit cold. Even a little shivering. Your body temperature will elevate within a matter of minutes of starting and that cold air will feel pretty refreshing soon after you start. If the weather is too cold to do this, then start with an outer later that you can throw away as you get going. For instance, you might notice a number of people wearing gardening gloves at the start. The reason is that they cost about 50 cents and won’t be missed when they’re tossed in the trash at mile 5.

Breathe. I usually get a blank stare on this one, but it’s the most overlooked and perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give here. With the start of a race, with all the people and all the noise, racers get so distracted that they often begin a very shallow breathing pattern, even to the point of a pant. In a triathlon if you do this it usually ends up as an anxiety attack in the water. It’s certainly not as severe on land, but can wear you out in a hurry. Get yourself into a ryhthmic breathing pattern right from the get go.  Ask the top runners what they focus on while racing and the majority will tell you it’s their breathing. There’s a reason for that.

Take care of your business before you head to the starting line. Yes, that is what I’m referring to. This one takes more planning than you would think. I’ve never seen the cost analysis for this so I’m not really sure why, but one thing races never have enough of is port-a-cans. The lines can be enormous. Because of that, I do everything I can to avoid them. I really don’t want to stand in line for 30 minutes right before I race. My suggestion would be to do a little recon and see if there are any restraunts, hotels, etc. nearby that you can sneak into. If there are no options (like the Boston Marathon for instance), then get in line early and often. Better to take care of your business before the race then scrambling to figure it out at mile 15. 

Best of luck, and say hello to ‘the wall’ for me at mile 20.

This is the time of year in which athletes and non athletes alike take some time to endulge in all the wonderful things that the holidays have to offer. With that brings a bit of guilt, and that rolls right into New Year’s and the infamous New Year’s Resolution. Year in and year out the number one resolution in this country is to workout more or to get in shape/lose weight. For many (including myself), this means committing yourself to an event such as a marathon (or an Ironman).

Gone are the days that you could decide to enter a major endurance event such as a marathon 30 days before the race. Marathons are filling up 6 months to a year out and Ironman races can sell out in as fast as 25 minutes, a full year in advance.

The drop out rate for the very popular marathon training programs are ridiculusly high. People sign up with great intentions, hit the ground running with some big runs early on and then burn out just as fast. The success rate would be much higher if people just approached it differently. They’re trying to eat an elephant in a few bites and we all know that’s not how  it’s done.  If you want to finish a marathon, you need to do it one mile at a time.

Here in the Houston area, where I live, most of the marathon programs start in early to mid July for the Chevron Houston Marathon that takes place in mid January. For the average recreational runner, 6 months is plenty of time to ramp up for a marathon, but many of those signing up are starting from stratch in July. Not a good idea, because you have to start covering some pretty big distances in a hurry, and that can be quite overwhelming.

I would suggest that if you think you want to run a marathon, start the training now, but start in very small doses. The key to success in any endurance event is consistency in your training, not how early you can go big. So, instead of trying to kill the world right away, spend the first few months just getting into a habit. Telling you to get out 3 times a week and run 1-2 miles each time for the first 4 months sounds a lot more palatable than to tell you that in just a few weeks you must be able to run 8 miles.

Same thing goes for intensity. There is no reason in the world that you need to hit the track and do wind sprints or interval work if you are trying to finish your first marathon. No one out there walking/jogging in the final miles on race day is wishing that they had done more speed work instead of endurance work. Plus, the rate of injury goes through the roof when you add intense workouts to your training program.

The same philosophy holds true with any endurance event, not just a marathon. If you decide you want to do the MS150 or local 100 mile bike ride, an adventure race, or the Ironman, take small bites from very early on. Because if you start too big, you are going to start to hate the training and there’s a good chance you won’t even make it to the starting line. What ever ‘mountain’ you decide to to climb, remember that it’s small steady steps that get you to the top, and that, “Joy is found in not finishing an activity, but doing it”.*

Happy Training.

*Author Greg Anderson

I know that in our perfect, robot-like, utopian Ironman race it seems to make sense to put the biggest focus on the bike ride. It is longest event of the three afterall, so by improving your time on the bike will yield the best improvement overall.  To some degree I can buy into that theory. It’s the biggest chunk of the race, so training for it should take up the biggest chunk of time.

The theory starts to fall apart however, when it’s greeted by the reality of the day. Unfortunately, the Ironman is not performed in utopia, so things will start to deteriorate at some point in the race. Even the overall champions admit that at some point they are out there surviving and not racing anymore. Often you drop into survival mode a few times during the race.  So with that mindset, which event do you want to be most prepared for?

Many people I have listened to point out that the stronger and more prepared on the bike you are, the fresher you will be for the run. I won’t disagree that you need to be prepared, but I’m not sure that this translates into fresher legs on the run. People who prepare more for the bike still exert the same effort as they would with lessor legs, they just finish the ride a little sooner. (And if that was truly how this whole thing worked, why wouldn’t everyone prepare like crazy for the swim, as that really will set you up to be fresher on the bike, and then so on). Look at some of the top pro’s in Hawaii. Almost every year we see some of the strongest cyclists in our sport melt down on the run and finish well back of the leaders. Not exactly fresher legs from their bike preparation. This leads me to my point of the importance of the run.

 Let’s say you didn’t prepare as well as you would have liked on the bike ride and have some rough stretches. If  you are averaging 20 mph on the bike,  hit a wall and drop to a 15 mph average, you will lose 1 minute for every mile. While this isn’t a good situation to be in, you know your focus has been the run and just need to get off your bike to turn your day around. We get to see this often on tv. Someone has a tough day on the bike, but they are able to run themselves back into the race. Remember Dave Scott in the 1996 Ironman? He got off the bike in 26th place and ran his way into a 5th place finish. There are dozens of examples just like Dave.

On the run however, if the goal is to hold 8:30 per mile and you hit the wall, you’re walking, which is typically around 18+ minutes per mile. Now you are losing 9:30 per mile. If a good placing was the goal, your competition will eat your lunch in a matter of a couple of miles. If a good time was the goal of the day, tacking on 9 and a half minutes every 5280 feet will kill that personal best in a hurry. To put it another way, in the hour and a half it takes someone to put up 30 minutes on you on the bike, you will only need about 31 minutes to get all that time back on the run.

Of course the key to any race is to prepare for all aspects, so I am not suggesting that you slack off the other sports and just go run. What I am suggesting is that the greatest swing in performances comes on the run. When people wither on the run the impact is exponentially greater than the other two sports. The fact that the run is last, which increases the probably of hitting the wall on the run course over the other two legs of the race only strengthens my arguement.

Training for an Ironman is a long and grueling process. Whatever your goals may be on race day, make sure that all that training is done in a manner that is well thought out and in step with your raceday plan.  Even if that means you still want to focus on the bike.

Good Luck.

I see the base phase of training much different. I think base building is the most important phase for endurance athletes. It is a very focused training period in which you train almost 100% of the time in a very narrow window of aerobic effort. This window doesn’t include easy aerobic training nor does it include anything at anaerobic threshold or above. Basically (outside of warm up and warm down) you keep your effort right at or just below your aerobic threshold(AT). For those who use a heart rate monitor this means constantly keeping your heart rate in a range of 10 bpm where your upper ceiling is your aerobic threshold and you never get to your anaerobic (or lactate) threshold . So lets say your AT is 155bpm, then you want to train between 145-155 for your entire workout. Note: this doesn’t mean that this is your average for the workout, this means that if your heart rate hits 156, you slow down. Likewise, if you heart rate drops to 144 you must pick it up. For those who train without a heart rate monitor, this is roughly your Ironman race pace.

Now some (especially those who love interval training) will disagree, as they don’t want to forego the winter track workouts or swallow their pride and get dropped on rides. Science can probably prove either side of the argument as well, so I usually look to who applies any principal and their results.  If you look at the training of endurance athletes, it’s pretty easy to see that the majority of those who are successful implement a targeted base building phase. Take Mark Allen, the winningest triathlete of all time, who began his career running a mile aerobically at over 7min per mile. Toward the peak of his career he could run a mile at 5:25 without ever going anaerobic. Mike Pigg, another one our sports all time greats, once stayed in his base phase of training until September because of the improvements he was making. Legendary running coach Arthur Lydiard preaches the same, stating that one should train between 70% and 100% of your maximum aerobic effort during this time. Even Chris Carmichael, who coaches Lance Armstrong, talks at great length of the benefits of training just below your lactate threshold to build your aerobic foundation.

Here are just some of the benefits you’ll see by training more specifically during the base phase.

Aerobic economy – 99.9% of our racing is done aerobically which is almost 20 times more efficient at producing energy than anaerobic exercise. Chris Carmichael has said, “Endurance cycling” means any event lasting longer than one minute. Even the kilometer time trial on the track is an endurance event because, although much of the early power is produced anaerobically, the event is won or lost in the last eight seconds as competitors with the best aerobic system slow down less.” Just as the best way to be a better sprinter is to sprint, the best way to improve your aerobic economy/ability is to train aerobically. We as endurance athletes need to increase aerobically produced power. This means burning more fat for our calories and not accumulating lactic acid. The more you train aerobically the greater the recruitment of slowtwitch muscles, the better they become at using fat as a fuel source, the faster you get at the same effort level and the more efficient you become at burning fat for your caloric needs.

Stress acclimation – This applies slightly more to the age-grouper and newer athlete than a seasoned vet, but the base phase is the time to slowly increase the volume and therefore stress levels on the body so that it can adapt and later be able to do high intensity with out becoming overstressed (i.e. injury and or overtraining). Bloodflow really determines the rate of how fast different body parts adapt. Your heart and lungs receive a great deal of blood so the adaptation to stress is relatively quick. Muscles adapt a little slower but still adapt in a timely manner. The limiters are the tendons and ligaments. They receive very little blood flow, so when they are stressed, it can take a while for them to adapt. I that they’re also the most important to get built up for the season because when you overdo it and tendons or ligaments get injured, it takes forever for them to heal. So a long and consistent base phase to build up the tendons/ligaments is important in order to have an injury free season.

Muscle memory – This applies to all sports but more specifically to swimming. Repetition helps the nervous system “remember” specific movements so that those movements require little thought to repeat over time. The base phase offers a time to hone in technique and break bad habits. If you are always adding intensity in your workouts then your body will revert back to previous habits ,or “memories” in order to accomplish a performance goal that you have set for the day. If you remove the high intensity you are able to focus exclusively on the desired technique until it becomes the default habit. This is why stroke drills are never done at a high intensity. Once the season kicks in, you should be able to apply the new and better technique to the high intensity workouts without reverting back when you get fatigued.

Not everyone will agree, but like I stated in the beginning, I look at how the best of the best train, and what themes are recurring among that group. The other side to this coin is enjoyment though. The base phase can be very boring, so if some speed work keeps you interested and motivated, then go out and do it. The need to enjoy the journey can far outweigh the need to follow a strict schedule if you end up losing interest in the sport.