Coaching Smarter Triathletes

Resuming Training after a Big Race

Wildflower, nearly a month ago, was an "A" race for me.  I had tapered for it, and was pretty fried afterward.  It was my fifth race in seven weeks, and I needed a break (mentally and physically) from triathlon.  But taking a few weeks off from training can be tough, especially following a big race for which you've tapered--because tapering itself can be a mental challenge.  Here's a few tricks I've learned for enjoying down time and then re-energizing to start training again.

Post-Race Blues
A big race can be a very climactic finish to many months of hard training.  I find it hard to suddenly not have a focus for training, and can feel a little directionless.  It's a mixture of sad because the race is over, and also a sense of accomplishment over having finished something that I'm proud of.  Complicating this are mixed feelings over how well I may or may not have performed.  All in all, I can be a little edge.

To fill the sudden void, here's what I tend to do.

Be Nice to Your Body.  The first week after a big race is a great time to lay low--go for walks and let your muscles recover.   If you just can't stay off the bike or out of the water, keep things at a very easy effort.  After Wildflower I had a severely sore left glute--I could barely bend over, and walking hurt.  And then I caught a cold.  In short, I was miserable.

Indulge.  Take a week or two enjoy the indulgences you might otherwise limit during training.  For me it's donuts, pastries, and french fries.  Yes, I always gain a couple of pounds after a big race, and I'm fine with that.

See New People.  This is a great time to catch up with friends and family you might not see as much as you'd like while you're training.

Take a Vacation.  I've found that getting out of town--for a week or even a weekend--can be a great way to refocus after a big race.  A couple of years ago I scheduled an end-of-season vacation to the Caribbean.  Warm waters and rum-based drinks were a great transition to the off season.  After Wildflower I took a 10-day camping trip up the central California coast.

Stay Mentally Stimulated.  Keep the mind busy--start a new book, catch up on emails, or find something new to learn. 

Be Careful with Alcohol.  With reduced training comes reduced endorphins, serotonin,  adrenaline, and all the other exercise-induced chemicals that make your brain feel good.  This really is a chemical withdrawal, and you'll want to be careful about substituting other chemicals (like alcohol).

Resuming Training
When you do pick up training again--whether it's after a week or four weeks off--start slowly.  Remember that your fitness is probably at the lowest it's been in a few months.  Consider that the point of tapering is to sacrifice a some fitness to gain freshness--and then throw in a week or two of post-race recovery--and you'll be sucking wind if you try to pick up at race pace right away.

My standard training is in the 10-12 hours a week range.  My pre and post-Wildflower training hours looked like this:

2 weeks before:                        9 hours
1 week before:                         6:45 hours
Race week (including race)        7:30 hours
Week after the race                  1:30 hours
2 weeks after race                    7:00 hours
3 weeks after race                    7:30 hours
4 weeks after race                    9:00 hours

In the 2nd and 3rd weeks after the race, I was mostly doing light efforts, punctuated by a couple of epic hill climbs on the bike (there are some phenomenal ocean-to-mountaintop roads along the California coast that just couldn't be ignored...).  Regardless, it was all very unstructured and very fun.

This week, the 4th week after the race, I started doing tempo workouts again.  After 5 weeks of greatly reduced hours, I can definitely feel my lost fitness.  It was hard work to hold a tempo pace for 4 miles of running, and likewise for 16 miles of cycling.  And my "long" run of 7 miles felt like 12.  Ouch.  But I'll build those durations back up over the next few weeks.  Each week I'll a mile to my tempo-paced run, 4 miles to my tempo-paced bike, and 1-2 miles to my long run.

This is a conservative reentry into training--but a good way to avoid injury.  It also let me mentally recover.  I'm now excited about training again--something I couldn't have said a week ago.      

Analyzing Wildflower Triathlon Results

Last week I analyzed my bike results from the Wildflower Olympic-distance triathlon.  This post analyzes the entire race results, with an eye toward improving my weak points for future races.

This chart sums up the results.

Since I'm nowhere close to competing for a podium position in a race of this size, I'm most concerned with my percentage of the winners' speeds.  This is a very useful tool to track performance through a season, and from year to year.  See this post for more details. The 81% is faster than the 79% I did at last year's very competitive Boulder Peak Olympic-distance, but worse than the 85% at this year's Super Seal race in San Diego (which is not nearly as competitive, however).  In short, I'm happy with my time.

Of course, I'm happiest with my bike split--the top 9% of the field and 89% of the fastest person's bike split.  If you pick only one sport in which to do well, making that choice the bike will most help your overall time (almost half of the overall time is comprised of the bike leg).

On the other end of the spectrum, we can see just how terrible my swim time was. Two-thirds of the field beat me, and my speed was only 59% of that of the winners.  Note that even such a dreadful performance only cost me 13 minutes--while a top bike split still cost me over 8 minutes.  It's a good illustration of why swimming is the least important leg for non-elite age groupers.

My run was in the top third of the field, with my time over 14 minutes behind the winners. My speed, 73% of the winners, was a good bit slower than than 82% I raced in the spring's Super Seal race.

Analyzing Wildflower Triathlon Bike Results

Last week I showed how I made a strategy for the bike leg of the Wildflower Olympic-Distance triathlon.   My strategy foresaw a lot of short, steep rolling hills that I planned to take at  zone 5 power, and then recover on the way down the other side of the hill.  Here's how it all worked out.

Pre-Race Recon
We drove the bike course when we arrived at Lake San Antonio on Friday.  The first thing we noted was that--other than Lynch Hill (the first/last hill)--most of the hills were not that steep at all.  This was especially true of the ones near the middle of the course where I had hoped to coast for three to five minutes for recovery.  Eyeballing them told me I'd have to pedal at least at a tempo pace to maintain good speed.

What went wrong here?  One, I was rushed when I did the first plan and simply misread the elevation profile in a couple of places.  Second, and more importantly, I vastly overestimated the steepness of a 2% grade.  Looking at the mapmyride.com elevation profile (which is exaggerated vertically), it's easy to think you can coast down it fast.  Not so, and it was obvious once we saw it in person.

The New Plan
Knowing I wouldn't have a long recovery in the middle of the course, I switched my strategy to a much more conventional time-trial strategy of keeping a relatively even wattage.  I still wanted to go zone 5 on the first two hills, but otherwise stay mostly in zone 4.  Because there were a lot of short recoveries (steep downhills for coasting) at the start and end of the course, I planned on being in high zone 4 rather than a low-mid zone 4 like I would on a flatter Olympic-distance course.