Monday, June 21, 2010

Open water swimming and other random racing thoughts.

Hey TTL... I’ve been a bit out of the loop this weekend! I raced on a k100 team on Saturday and it was tons of fun! (Well, apart from running 14k up a hill in the mountains it was a good time! I had leg 4 and I regret not looking at the elevation before I went! I might have taken a rest day leading into it because those hills hurt! Still... the experience was a good one and the Adrenalin Rush Women’s Team did great finishing 2nd for the day.)

I’ve been reading all the race updates, and will get around to responding and putting together the team update in the next few days! Thank you for letting me know how your race went. (If you haven’t yet, please do.)

I wanted to address what seems to be a common theme in the updates though, because it can really mess with your head

Open water swims are a dangerous place to evaluate progress. There are a few reasons for this.
1. You can never be sure if race directors have accurately measured the course. The only place for a true swim test is in a controlled environment which is the pool. If times are improving in the pool, you are a better swimmer regardless of open water swim performance.
2. The line you take can drastically affect your swim time in open water. A few extra meters here, a few extra there... all add on to make you slower. In the pool if you do a timed 1000, it’s a true 1000 meaning you swim 40 lengths as fast as you can. In open water, it can easily be more OR less for that matter depending on how accurate the course is.
3. Drafting... this is a funky one. If you get on “good” feet, you can swim faster with less energy. The goal is to find a swimmer who is pushing you, but you can work within a reasonable effort level to hold on. If you get on feet that are too fast, you could swim harder than your ability dictates you should, and there will be a pay off maybe on the bike, but for sure on the run. If you get behind feet that are too slow, you can very easily settle into a pace that is below what you should be swimming. This make RPE challenging to manage, and in the lake the only indicator we have of pace is RPE.

A few other things... if you are swimming hard, don’t feel guilty going to single side breathing. When you run fast, your breathing rate increases. When you cycle fast, your breathing rate increases. Why should the pool be any different? If you are swimming fast, your breathing rate will increase and you might need to single side breathe. In a long course tri like Ironman, maintaining the ability to bilateral breathe can be a good tool to prevent you from swimming too hard. In an OD, if you are “racing” it, you should need to breathe frequently.

Another thought on racing... “If” you “race” the bike, there most likely will be a trade off on the run. The goal is to bring your bike / run split down as a team. For example, at Wasa, Kelvin biked 1 min slower than last year, but he ran 3 minutes faster than last year which gave him a net gain of 2 min. So, comparing course to course 2009 to 2010, he improved even though his bike split was 1 min slower! That is a fair comparison barring weather issues that can affect pace like heat or wind. (Cold too I guess.)

On that note, I often tell people that you have 2 Olympic Distance Best Times! 1) Wasa 2) Every other race! Wasa is a super fast course. That’s why people love it. If you better your Wasa time on a different course, CONGRATS! That is a big pr! Resist the urge though to expect to see a comparable time to your Wasa PR on a slower course.

My final thought is this... “RACING HURTS!!! I’ve had a few discussions with athletes lately who expected their OD race to feel easy since they are training for Ironman! Well, if you did your OD race at your IM pace, it would be easy. You’re going short and relatively slow. Not much reason to visit the hurt locker if that is how you choose to tackle race day.

If, however, you want to see what you’re worth on a given day, and you push your boundaries for speed, you will hurt! Going fast is hard! Taking your HR up high creates discomfort. Learning to cope with that discomfort is a big part of racing successfully. In a long course tri like Ironman, the discomfort comes because you are going for a really long time! If you go “hard” on an Ironman day, it can lead to a long walk at the end, or even a DNF.

In a shorter triathlon, the discomfort comes because your mind doesn’t really like how fast you are asking your body to move! (Not to mention the physiological demands of going above threshold! That creates a great deal of discomfort!) There is a saying... “He /She who hurts the most... wins!” It is somewhat true. If you have 2 athletes with similar fitness, similar v02’s, similar training regimes, the one with the highest pain tolerance and mental fortitude to push through the pain of racing the hardest will likely be the victor on any given day. Your mind is key part of racing.

As you read this, you might think that I’ve lost my mind and want to remind me that we do this for fun! I agree... we train and race for fun, and that’s a great reason to healthy, and fit, and well! It’s our social outlet and our “grow old looking great” plan all wrapped into one! If you like to race in your comfort zone, that is 110% OK! If you like to race so you can push your boundaries and challenge yourself to be faster... test your mettle so to speak, then that’s OK too! We need to understand what drives us to the start line, and what defines success at the finish line. It is different for EVERY athlete! We should support, respect and encourage athletes at all levels, understanding that their journey is “their own”.

I’ll wrap this up by congratulating everyone on their races and their commitment to training this year. It has been a challenging one because of weather, but the sun seems to be holding up now, and training mojo is creeping back!

Thanks Team Tri Life! You are the most wonderful group of athletes EVER! Thanks for reading. Angie