Gary’s Fitness Blog

I just found a gps route at motionbased.com that was done of the loop section at Ironman Wisconsin.

Here’s the link: Ironman Wisconsin Loop Route - gps is of 1 loop

Last year I did 2 complete race simulation rides as I prepared for Ironman Wisconsin and chose a route around Lexington that I felt was comparable to the IMMOO route. The significant part of the IMMOO bike course is a loop that you do twice (link above).

Here’s the link to our route: Race Simulation Loop Route - gps is of 2 loops.

Here are the links to the two race sim rides I did: Race Sim Ride 1 - Race Sim Ride 2

Comparison Thoughts

The IMMOO loop is 39.69 miles with 2,695 feet of elevation gain and loss. The race simulation loop is 36.2 miles with 2,926 feet of elevation gain and loss. That is about as good as it can get in a practice situation. When we created this route we thought is was close, but we didn’t use a gps to map it out. Sometimes it pays to get lucky.

I’m not doing Ironman Wisconsin this year, but I know a few local triathletes that are, so this might boost their preparations. Who knows, maybe it will be a testing ground for future Ironman preparations too.

One thing that I love to do within a training program is use a set of fitness tests that are done regularly. The value that fitness tests offer a runner or triathlete is an honest understanding of where they are are in comparison to where they need to be to meet their goals.

What is a fitness Test

There doesn’t have to be anything extremely technical about the tests, but they need to be repeatable. A few posts ago, I talked about getting my VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold analyzed in the lab at the University of Cincinnati. Those test are informative for a geek like me, but they are often not practical for the average runner due to the complications of getting into the lab often enough (not to mention, the cost).

A few of the fitness tests that I use in my triathlon season are the following:

* –> 3 Mile Aerobic Run w/heart rate
* –> Thursday 6.3 mile group run w/heart rate
* –> 10 x 200 yard main set
* –> 4000 meter time
* –> North Middletown Bike Ride w/out and back, heart rate/time
* –> Valley View Ferry Climb time (2mile climb)

I have written about these test previously here. As you can see there is nothing extremely difficult in setting these tests up. Some of the tests are routes that I normally run and I just track specific data with each workout.

The one that I pay a lot of attention to early during a training program is the 3 mile aerobic run workout. Currently I run outdoors at a specific heart rate (+/- 3 bpm) and monitor the time it takes me to run the same route. What I’m looking for is a faster time while having a similar heart rate. You might say that I’m trying to get more “output” for the same “input”. One thing to pay attention to is other variables that can impact heart rate that could skew results; things like weather and nutrition can influence heart rates too.

The North Middletown route that I ride is a similar situation, although it is a much longer duration. What I like to compare here is not only results and data from time to time, but the data from the first half of the ride to the second half of the ride. A fitness test ride like this would be incredibly valuable if you are a rider that trains with a power meter.

The one suggestion that I have is that you don’t use the routes and tests as your everyday training protocol. I like to include them every other week or every third week. This time period keeps an athlete from being too encouraged or discouraged by a single workout and keeps the workouts available for monitoring periodic improvements.

How the fitness test may change as the season progresses?

The tests that are listed above are targeted at testing the development of swimming, cycling and running fitness. Knowing that your fitness is improving is important, but at some point during the training program an athlete that has performance goals needs to test their current performance ability.

In a half-marathon or marathon program, I normally insert shorter test races to measure performance. It is important that the athlete treats these races like they would their main race. That means they use a similar nutrition pattern and pre-race schedule.

In Louisville, Kentucky, they have a series of races called the Triple Crown of Running Series. It includes a 5k, 10k and 10 mile race. Those races build very naturally to the Derby Festival Half Marathon or Marathon. One thing that a runner can do is take their race times in a series of races and insert them into a VDot chart to estimate their predicted race times.

While the charts are not infallible, they do provide a good sense of what your expectations could be as you start to prepare your race strategy. A good sign that I like to see in the results of these races and the resulting “predicted time” is as the test race distance increases, the closer to your desired race goal time it is.

I have written about predicting race times before. You can see that post at - Predicting Running Performance.

In triathlon, it is just as important to have race simulation rides and brick workouts to base your race strategy on. This past summer, I shared a series of 3 simulation workouts that I completed in order to establish my Ironman Wisconsin strategy. Here are links to those workouts:

1. Race Simulation and Nutrition - 2007 #1

2. Race Simulation and Nutition - 2007 #2

Why it is important to have this knowledge before you start your race?

If you have read my “Einstein, Relativity and Triathlon” post then you know that I believe it is important to ground yourself in reality and not fantasy. It is also valuable during a race to know what you are able to do so that you don’t get caught up in the excitement that surrounds a race and try something you are not prepared for.

Sometimes this can be a difficult thing for an athlete to do. All summer last year I worked hard to improve my fitness and skill on the bike. Using the fitness tests I mentioned above (North Middletown Ride and Valley View Ferry Climb) I saw improvements. So when it came time to insert my simulation rides and brick workouts, I was frustrated to discover that I wasn’t going to be able to ride as fast as I was planning on.

Heading into the final phase of race preparation, I was hoping that I would be able to ride in the mid 5 hour range on the bike. During my test rides, I was consistently at a 6 hour to 6:20 ability, with any ability to run off the bike.

While this knowledge was disappointing, it was a key factor in setting up my race strategy. It also allowed me to remain sensible during the Ironman and left me with the ability to have a decent run.

Summary of the key points

1. Fitness tests are a great way to evaluate your training in order to make sure it is benefiting your development. Fitness Tests don’t have to be elaborate.

2. Test races and simulations are valuable to creating a sensible race strategy and race expectations.

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you along your journey of endurance!

Yesterday (7/29/07) I completed my second race simulation ride, this time I included a short transition run following the ride to drive home the idea about pacing mistakes (if I was going to make them).

If you have not read the summary of my first simulation ride, go review it first and see the mistakes that I was trying to address this time: Race Sim and Nutrition - 2007 #1.

The Stats:

Lap 1 - 36.2 miles, 2:17:29, 120bpm ave, 152bpm max
Lap 2 - 36.2 miles, 2:09:18, 128bpm ave, 158bpm max
Lap 3 - 36.2 miles, 2:06:19, 134bpm ave, 158bpm max
t run - 2.5 miles, 20:01, 158bpm ave, 169bpm max

Lap Descriptions:

Lap 1 - I ended up going really easy to begin with which was similar to my first lap the first time I did this workout. One of the major differences this time around is that I really focused on keeping a limit on my heart rate peaks. This lap I was trying to keep it down below 145bpm, as you can see it crept up on a hill climb once so it ended up maxing out at 152bpm. This change in the peak “limit” seemed to slow my overall pace down quite a bit, but it was worth it by the end of the ride, from my analysis.

Hour 1 - 20oz regular gatorade, water. Hour 2 - 3 egel’s, water. 575kcals total.

Lap 2 - I changed the peak limit on this lap to 150bpm, but was very concious about keeping things as steady as possible during the flat areas (not many of those). At times it required backing off on the longer climbs quite a bit as I noticed the heart rate responding (increasing) quicker. This could have been due to the heat / temperature. The ride didn’t feel much harder than the first lap, but you can observe the changes in effort by keeping the focus on being steady.

Hour 3 - 20oz regular gatorade, water. Hour 4 - 3 egel’s, water. 575kcals total.

Lap 3 - My hope was to decend each lap, but unlike the first attempt at this workout I kept the cap on the efforts for this lap too. In other words, I still didn’t allow myself to “push it” through the hills and climbs. I kept the peak at 155bpm (or tried). The entire loop felt very comfortable and the major difference was that I could actually take in all the calories I wanted. Again this lap I focused on keeping everything as steady as possible. You can see a little increase in the heart rates, especially the averages. By this time in the day it was getting pretty warm (mid 80’s) so I think some of that increase was in response to my body trying to remain cool.

Transition (before lap 3) - 80% of Iced Honey Bun - appox 400kcals

Hour 5 - 20oz Mt. Dew, water. Hour 6 - 1 egel. 400kcals total.

Total Kcal Consumption:

575 + 575 + 400 + 400 = 1950kcals

1950kcals / 6.5 (approx) hours = 300kcals per hour.

That is a respectable amount of calorie consumption. I had set a goal of 350 kcals per hour, but for no other reason than intuition (i.e. nothing scientific about the 350 number).

Transition Run:

The great thing about this ride opposed to the first attempt was that I felt strong when the ride was over. I got off my bike, threw on my shoes and visor, changed shorts and was off on a short run. My plan was to run 10 minutes out and back. My cadence was quick and comfortable, my heart rate was sitting just over 150bpm, I walked 30 secs at the 11 minute mark (as always) and it all seemed to be going well.

The one thing that I really noticed once I started the run, that I hadn’t noticed so much on the bike, was the heat. The temperature felt hot and the sun was beating down on me… good lesson. I should have used the salt tablets on the bike as I usually do, even though it didn’t seem “necessary”.

All-in-all, a great day!

Last Sunday (7/15/07) was my first race simulation ride (in 2007) as I prepare for Ironman Wisconsin. The ride was a workout that I took from Gordo’s bike workouts within his “Coaching Ironman Athlete’s” document. The specific’s of my workout were:

Lap 1 - 36.2 miles, 2:10:18, 125bpm ave, 159bpm max
Lap 2 - 36.2 miles, 2:03:58, 134bpm ave, 165bpm max
Lap 3 - 36.2 miles, 2:01:47, 135bpm ave, 169bpm max

Lap 1 description: made sure to ride what I thought felt “easy”, used my hr monitor to keep it in check too, tried to not let hr spike on climbs/hills. Nutrition: 3 egel’s, 1 bottle of xtra strength gatorade (1 bottle = 200kcals), 2 salt tabs, 2 bottles of h2o.

Lap 2 description: rode a little harder but never felt like I was pushing it, as the Gordo workout says, I tried to ride at Ironman effort/pace, let myself ride a little bit harder on the hills. Nutrition: 4 egel’s, 1 bottle of xtra strength gatorade, 2 salt tabs (I use salt stick), 2 bottles of h2o.

In transition: ate a honey bun.

Lap 3 description: rode the loop backwards, primarily to see Nikki and check on her and b/c Jeff couldn’t ride entire loop again. Tried to push and “work” the hills. It didn’t feel easy, but as you can tell from my results, my body didn’t seem to react much differently… (more later on this, see: fatigue below). It was very difficult to eat any calories! I felt like burping or vomiting for about 20 miles of the 36. (I think a really good perspective on this was written by Jeff Shilt, MD titled, “Tips to help prevent Gastrointestinal Breakdown“)

What I Learned about Nutrition last year:

So I don’t repeat too many things, I’ll share two posts I wrote last August in my attempt to straighten out nutritional plans for the Runovia Triathlon:

1. Figuring out a racing nutritional plan #1 - 8/6/2006

2. Racing nutritional plan #2 - 8/15/2006

Here were the highlights of those lessons:

- eat more than you might think you need (in most cases)
- monitor fluid intake; h2o and sports drink
- drink early in ride
- eat early in ride
- comfort food is good when used wisely (re: Ale 8 and oatmeal cream pies)
- move back and forth between sports drink and food by the hour

My current thoughts based upon this past workout; I forgot about the concept of moving from gel’s one hour to sports drink the next. I will definately try that option again b/c eating seven egel’s in 4 hours was easy to do, but left me feeling like I was unable to eat more. The other issue I feel I had was using the extra strength (not too much extra) gatorade. I’ll just use the regular strength gatorade.

A major lesson for me on this ride was that the extra spikes in intensity / heart rate changed my ability to digest the calories I was taking in. - (really go read the post by Jeff Shilt, MD)

A couple changes that I have made are changing from oatmeal cream pies to honey buns. The pies seemed too sweat and actually became hard to eat, while the honey buns go down really quick and are packed with calories… (the jumbo’s are over 500kcals and they take about 20 seconds to get down!). The second change is using gel flasks. It seems a whole lot easier to manage than using so many packets.

Fatigue.

So this race simulation ride came at the end of my biggest (duration wise, not counting Brevets) week of training this year. I could definately feel it in my legs and noticed it in my heart rates. The highest my heart rate climbed to was 169bpm on the third lap. This was while I was pushing as hard as I felt possible at a couple points, once during a climb and once at the end trying to fly home and go under 2 hours.

In a normal rested state, my heart rates will easily reach the upper 180’s and stay in the 160’s for several hours. (Running they’ll stay in the 170’s for hours.) An example of this was during our 300km Brevet from Atlanta back in May, when we hit a climb in Alabama my heart rate got up to 186bpm and stayed above 180bpm for a good 20 minutes. All of this shows me that there is probably a level of fatigue setting in. (Other signs show this too.)

So yesterday (7/17/07) and today I’m taking it easy, trying to put down a little of that fatigue and come back to have a big training cycle Wednesday through Sunday. While the extra day (today) of less training was unexpected, I hope the rebound will be quicker and I won’t end up overtrained.