Treadmill, anyone?

Merry Christmas!

es!

Fatigue and running faster

At the six-week mark, I am adjusting to the `challenge' of ironman training. It's an opportunity to refocus on my form, which goes straight out the window as fatigue sets in.

At least now I can recognize fatigue earlier and I can cut myself a bit of slack so I don't - in this case - fly off the treadmill!

I had an interesting discussion this past week with Coach Kristian about run cadence and the 96 target that lies ahead of me - months ahead.

Here's the ironguide line on run cadence:

"The 96 stride rate we suggest you run at in training is to ensure that each person, no matter who, focuses on increasing their stride rate during run training.

As a rough estimate, I'd say about 90% of AG athletes neglect to focus on training stride rate, and most run well under 90 steps per leg per minute. 96 is not an arbitrary number and it is important to understand that this is a training target, intended to be followed consistently over time, in order to assist you in learning to run with a higher stride - but not necessarily always at 96!

It's a great target to "aim" for in training because you can count it easily, and low to mid-90's is a good target for racing.

In most cases, you will not be able to hold pace, rate or exertion levels late in a race as what you held in training sessions, but by race day you should have "programmed your red meat computer" to run at a higher stride rate.

96 is the target in training, you'll probably hit a little lower in racing, but because you have trained this way, it'll come more naturally and you will focus on it, rather than running at "any old" stride rate, which when we are tired and depleted tends towards "trudging aka the Ironman Shuffle."

And besides - 96 divides by 6, 4, and 3, meaning you can easily track the consistency of your strides per leg per minute over 10, 15 or 20 seconds at a time (ie multiply strides per 10sec x 6 and you get your rate/minute)."

--

What I take from this advice is that I need to speed my foot turnover. And I have some work to do.

During my long run a few days ago, I was running a cadence between 80 and 89.

Ouch ..

I suppose it was inevitable in the way that Kristian took out his age group at WA. And it was almost as dramatic too.

But I didn't get a trophy, didn't get to stand on a podium and don't - yet - have a ticket to Kona.

However, my calf is killing me.

It's week four and I've now determined what the heck it is that I'm supposed to be doing in the pool. It's not that I'm that slow, at least I don't think so. Though it's true swimming isn't - yet - my strength.

I did my swim set, and as often is the case, the lane starts to get crowded with others drifting side to side just as I get set to power through a 200m rep. Of course they don't know what lies ahead. They see me stopping after every 25m as if I'm desperate for air.

I catch myself in my mind. Whatever. Focus. Pull. Elbow high. Feel the water. Be one with the water ...

I do my sets and I'm on my cool down and I'm a bit impatient now as this is the longest I've been in a pool in a long time. I appreciate the recovery between each length and after each 200m rep but geez, I get cold too.

So I'm trying to keep my final four 100m reps at a steady pace. I'm on the third and turning after the first 50m when it hits me and stops me dead in the water. Ouch .. nasty cramp in my left calf. It is throbbing - really.

The drifting swimmer: I'm not surprised given how hard you were swimming. She smiles and drifts passed, right down the middle of the lane. Sigh. What can you do.

Well, I drag myself out of the pool, after the calf calms down. And then go hammer myself on the treadmill.

Ah, ironman training.

In the zone

I had my long run on Sunday - yesterday - and I'm still feeling great from it. It was one of those times when the effort was less.

I won't say it was effortless because I did work, especially during the 20 minutes of hard effort near the end.

As you may have seen looking back in my blog, I'm nothing if not consistent with my 1/2 marathon times. I have found a pace that ironguides has put into words: uncomfortably comfortable. It's a pace that I can maintain for a long time.

What I've not been able to do is to find an extra gear at say 15km or so - exactly when I need just that extra bit of pace to fend off fatigue.

I think though I'm in the process of discovering it, even at this early stage into my program. The key, in my opinion, is the treadmill.

I am running twice a week on a treadmill, no more than 50 minutes - though Kristian would have me on it for 90 minutes every second Sunday. (Until I determine how to put a treadmill into our garage, I can't monopolize the one treadmill to which I have access for that length of time.)

That said, running during the week on the treadmill has given me a sense of how to alter my pace, my leg speed and to better understand my ability to increase/decrease my forward motion.

I'm not trying to over think it. I'm enjoying it.