Joe Friel's Blog

My Bike Fit and Wind Tunnel Testing

2010-02-08T10:54:00.002-08:00

I spent the morning in the A2 Wind Tunnel in Mooresville, North Carolina doing one-minute intervals into a 30-mph headwind to get my new Blue Triad SL dialed in for this next season’s racing. While I had taken clients to wind tunnels before, this my first opportunity to get my own time trial bike and position tested.

I’ve had many bike fits done and highly recommend that as a necessity regardless of whether or not your next step will be a wind tunnel. A bike fit will cost you from $100 to $300 depending on how much time it takes and the reputation of the fitter. I found the A2 tunnel to be rather inexpensive as wind tunnels go. I’m used to having my clients pay up to $800 per hour. A2 charges _only_ $390 for an hour. I spent the better part of two hours on the saddle in the tunnel. And that’s about how much time my clients have also needed. That’s still a fair chunk of change so you want to come away with positive results. “Buying” a minute for a 40k is very expensive.

Again, I recommend that everyone has a bike fit done by a professional fitter. I go to a lot of races and see horrible bike positions that reduce power and increase drag – the worst possible combination. With a few small adjustments I could do wonders for nearly all of these riders (the others need bikes that fit – you can’t do much to correct that). It would take hours of weekly training for several months to build more power in order to reap the same benefit as a few basic adjustments of the bike set up would take.

So here’s what led me to Mooresville… After the new Blue TT bike was built up I met with Chris Pulleyn at Bicycle Ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona for a fit. Chris has done this for every athlete I’ve coached for the past three years. He is meticulous and determined to get an excellent position. Accompanying is a picture of Chris setting the position right at the end of the fit. I liked the position we came up with and felt both powerful and aerodynamic.

But there is a big difference between pedaling easily in a fit studio and racing on the road. The wind tunnel showed me that. On the first of 15 runs (a “run” lasts about 90 seconds and includes about 30 seconds of both the rider and the fans coming up to speed followed by about a minute at functional threshold power while readings are captured) I felt a little high. Fourteen runs later we had the bike set for a position that fit my needs – which is mostly 20km time trials. Had I been training for a longer event, especially something like an Ironman triathlon, the position would have been altogether different. The biggest change is that we would have shifted the focus from aggressively aerodynamic toward being far more comfortable.

The before-after pictures you see here show fairly well the changes that Mike Giraud at A2 made in my position. He started by lowering the handlebars. This was done four times for a total drop of 4.5cm. Each time I became a bit more aero, but power dropped off a bit also. By the fourth time the trade off wasn’t good and so he brought the bars back up 5mm. Then he began bringing the elbows in, about 3cm at a time for three tries. The last was too much and so I ended up with the elbow pads 3cm narrower than when we started. This made for a bit too much discomfort in trying t hold on to the S-bend aerobars and so he rotate them I so that the bar ends nearly touched.

After a try at making my shoulders narrower by lifting them toward my ears, which didn’t achieve very much, he tried a different helmet. My Garneau Rocket Air helmet (blue in pictures) was replaced by a Giro Advantage 2 (black in pictures). The Giro helmet fit a bit closer to my back and also seemed better shaped for my head. I also liked the heavily padded ear covers, which quieted the 30mph wind. (Interestingly, this latter is suggested by John Cobb to reduce the sound of the air thus reducing one’s perceived exertion. Only he achieves it by using ear plugs.)

The bottom line is that I wound up with my bars 4cm lower, my elbows 3cm narrower, my hands brought together by rotating the bar extensions, and different helmet. The power and drag numbers are not available as I write this. I will post them at another time.

I’m now ready to race – except for the fitness part.

Read Any Good Books?

2010-02-03T18:49:00.002-08:00

I recently read a couple of books you may find enjoyable and informative:

Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald. Matt is a coaching colleague who I have always found to be level-headed with his training advice and have a firm foundation in research. Both qualities stand out in this book which hit the shelves in the last few months from Velo Press who also publishes many of my books. I never thought it possible to write an entire book on this topic. Writing a blog post on weight management for serious athletes seemed long when I did it some time ago. I was expecting a lot of meaningless fill with a book on the topic, but it is anything but that. I found every page to be sprinkled with ideas on how to manage your weight for better performance. And the book is extremely well researched. He often presents both sides of an issue and then explains why he sides with one of them. I find that an enlightening way to deal with topics so burdened with old wives' tales and misinformation. Matt has done a great job. I'd highly recommend reading it even if you don't need to lose any excess poundage. You'll come away with a better understanding of your physiology and also of food.

Trizophrenia by Jef Mallett. I don't usually read books like this but I have followed Jef's comic strips in our local paper (The Arizona Republic) and in VeloNews. In his comics he seems to frequently express something I've done or thought of myself while training. His book is no different. As a triathlete he has a good sense of what others in the sport are thinking. If you're a triathlete I'm sure you will enjoy the book. It's a quick read and will leave you contemplating what you do so seriously many hours a day while chuckling at the same time.

And a little bit of self-promotion... I'm currently working on a book which won't be out until next fall at the earliest (one chapter done!). I've received many questions from athletes over the years basically asking how to apply the principles described in my Training Bible books. This book does that. Based on a periodization model, you simply read the chapter related to the period you are just starting in your training and it will take you through all of the details including not only the period-specific workouts, but also testing, nutrition, mental challenges and common problems. And it will offer sample training plans for your race preparation. I think it's going to be a great book for helping you coach yourself more effectively.

Even More on Running Shoes

2010-01-29T07:24:00.002-08:00

I always enjoy reading the sportsscientists.com blog written by Ross Tucker, PhD of Cape Town University and Jonathan Dugas, PhD of the University of Illinois in Chicago. They have a level-headed approach to training that I admire and they seem to be open to new ideas. Many in sport science (as in any science, I suppose) are deathly afraid of change because it means rethinking the area of suggested change and its overlapping areas. Acceptance of new ways also suggests that nothing is above re-examining and possibly changing. Change is scary.

But being open-minded to the possibility of change does not mean that every new idea that comes down the pike should be accepted at face value. That would lead to chaos in science as in any area of endeavor. New ways of seeing the world of training for endurance sport should be viewed with some degree of skepticism while taking a hard look at the concept from both a scientific and a real-world perspective. Tucker and Dugas seem to balance this very nicely.

I bring this up because they have just posted to their blog a piece on minimalist running shoes, barefoot running and normally shod running. It examines the science behind the website I mentioned a couple of days ago on this topic. If you're considering running in a less supportive shoe or even no shoe at all be sure to read the Tucker-Dugas post before making the switch.

More on Running Shoes

2010-01-27T20:21:00.003-08:00

Here's an interesting view on running shoes and footsrike from a professor at Harvard University and colleagues (thanks for the heads up, Chad). The lead author, Daniel E. Lieberman, PhD, studies human bipedal movement from a paleolithic perspective. You may well find this interesting based on the comments that followed my previous posts on running shoes here and here. It seems there are some pretty strong opinions and even feelings on this topic among runners.

I should point out that the research leading to the website cited above was funded, in part, by Vibram FiveFingers, the makers of a minimalist foot cover (I hesitate to call it a 'shoe') for runners. While I always feel a bit of skepticism when I see that a study was funded by a business that may well benefit financially from the results, it doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusions are biased. You can read it yourself and draw your own conclusions.

More on Running Faster

2010-01-24T05:02:00.003-08:00

As mentioned in a previous post on running faster, I have the triathletes I coach do some form of the basic strides drill year round. As with swimming, it seems you can never devote too much time to improving your run technique. I once coached a pro triathlete who was an All-American runner in college and considered one of the fastest runners in triathlon. I still had him work on technique year round. You should too.

The downhill strides workout described in the original running faster post is very simple. All you do is run fast for 20 seconds several times on a soft surface such as a grassy park that has a very slight decline (such as 1%). If you do not have a history of calf, Achilles or plantar fascia injuries then I'd have you substitute “uphill strides” for the downhill strides workout after a few weeks.

This session will help you develop more running force. As explained earlier, there are only two things you can do to run faster - increase your stride length or increase your cadence. What you would really like to do is both. In that previous post I described how to improve your cadence. Let's now look at how to improve stride length which is just another way of saying improve force.

Developing greater running force will make your stride longer without even trying. Combine that with the higher cadence you have been working on with downhill strides and your running is sure to improve. But it won’t happen overnight. Your aerobic system must also improve to allow you to maintain the combined higher cadence and longer stride. And the nervous system must also adapt to the changes. All of this will take some time as the aerobic and nervous systems change slowly. By the start of the Build period in a few weeks, if you’ve been diligent about both speed skills and force training, you will be running faster at the same effort as when you started Base training. You must be patient and persistent to realize the improvement. In the mean time, don't try to artificially increase your stride length while running. Let it happen naturally.

Uphill strides workouts for force are done on either a short, very steep hill or on something like the stairs you find in a football stadium or basketball arena. If you have had some Achilles, calf or plantar fascia injuries then you are better off using the stairs - if you do this workout at all. The ankle flexion is significant when running up a steep hill and puts a tremendous load on those soft tissues. For this reason I prefer stairs for this workout for most runners but they are harder to find than hills.

The uphill strides workout is simple. Warm-up well and then do three sets of three intervals up the hill or stairs. Run as hard as you can on each interval – but not so hard that your technique breaks down. If running stairs you may need to take two or even three steps with each stride depending on the width and rise of the stairs. Count 12, right-foot strikes stopping on the twelfth. Turn around and walk back down the hill or stairs. Do not run down. Jog easily for five minutes after each set.

This is a very risky workout. Be cautious with its progression. Do this no more than twice a week with at least 96 hours between them. Once a week is better for most athletes. Start with one set and add another each week for three weeks. If you have “glass legs” you would be wise not to do it at all. In that case just continue doing the downhill strides for speed skill. Not all of the athletes I coach do the uphill strides workout. I’m very conservative when it comes to risky running workouts. You must avoid injury.

Indoor Intervals

2010-01-19T16:04:00.001-08:00

Someone asked me today what intervals could be done on an indoor trainer or treadmill to alleviate some of the boredom. Of course, what you do in training is more closely tied to your periodization, i.e., time until your first A-priority race of the season, than to your level of boredom. For example, some athletes, I know, are doing the Valley of the Sun bike stage race next month in Phoenix. If that’s an A race for you then higher intensity efforts are appropriate. But if your A race isn’t for a few months then lower intensity efforts are appropriate. Assuming you know what you should be working on in training right now, here are some workouts that may be done indoors – or outdoors for that matter, also. (If unsure of what you should be doing consult my Training Bible books – Chapter 6.)

Before each of the sessions described below warm-up by gradually increasing the intensity. The more intense the intervals, the longer the warm-up. Cool down after each interval session.

The intensity of these intervals is based on the following. Pick the one that suits you best…

• Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) on a 1 (low) to 10 (high) scale
• Heart Rate (HR) using the system found in my Training Bible books and Total Heart Rate Training book.
• Power zones are from Coggan’s system (Training and Racing With a Power Meter)
• Pace zones for running are found in my Triathlete’s Training Bible book

Note that the number of intervals and the duration of the intervals is not carved in stone. These may be changed either way to accommodate an athlete who is highly experienced or a novice. They are a starting point for someone who is moderately fit for this time of year.

WORKOUTS
Aerobic endurance intervals
Purpose: Improve cardiovascular system
RPE: 4-5
HR Zone: 2
Power Zone: 2
Pace Zone: 2
Workout: 3 x 20 minutes with 5 minute easy recoveries
Comments: Keep cadence comfortably high

Tempo intervals
Purpose: Improve muscular endurance
RPE: 6
HR Zone: 3
Power Zone: 3
Pace Zone: 3
Workout: 3 x 10 minutes with 3 minute easy recoveries
Comments: Cadence slightly lower than normal or 2% uphill on a treadmill

Threshold intervals
Purpose: Improve ability to process and remove acid build up and lift lactate threshold as a percentage of aerobic capacity
RPE: 7
HR Zone: 4-5a
Power Zone: 4
Pace Zone: 4-5a
Workout: 3 x 6 minutes with 2 minute easy recoveries
Comments: Cadence at comfortable level. May be done on a ‘hill.’

Anaerobic endurance intervals
Purpose: Improve aerobic capacity
RPE: 8-9
HR Zone: 5b
Power Zone: 5-6
Pace Zone: 5b
Workout: 5 x3 minutes with 3 minute easy recoveries
Comments: Keep cadence comfortably high, focus on technique

Speed skills intervals
Purpose: Improve economy
RPE: 8-9
HR Zone: not applicable
Power Zone: not applicable
Pace Zone: not applicable
Workout: 6-8 x 20 seconds with 90 seconds of easy spin/walk recoveries between intervals
Comments: Focus is entirely on one single aspect of technique such as run foot strike or pedaling through 12 o’clock position. Movement is fast at high cadence.

Anaerobic capacity intervals
Purpose: Improve power
RPE: 10
HR Zone: not applicable
Power Zone: 7
Pace Zone: 5c
Workout: 3 sets of 3 x 12 revolutions (count right foot 12 times) with 3 minute easy recoveries between intervals and 6 minutes between sets
Comments: These are essentially sprints. Form must be perfect or injury is possible.

Running Shoes, Part 2

2010-01-13T13:18:00.003-08:00

I've got a layover in Denver on the way to Salt Lake City today so have a bit of time to expand on my comments below on running shoes. There have been a couple of comments posted by readers and I received a few emails on the subject also. So far these have overwhelmingly favored minimalism in running shoes selection with a few preferring barefoot and a couple the Vibram Five Fingers product (I hesitate to call it a shoe).

When I owned the running store mentioned in the previous post I soon discovered there wasn't one shoe selection that would work best for all runners. But gradually I came to realize that runners are less likely to have injuries and to perform better if they use the least shoe possible for them. Note that 'for them' is quite a broad qualifier. A 115-pound woman with excellent running technique and years of training injury-free can generally get by quite nicely with the least shoe possible. Whereas a 220-pound runner with flat feet and awful run technique who is in his first year of serious running will need something far more supportive on his feet.

I wish it was so easy as to say that we should all just run barefoot. Had we grown up like Kenyan kids - barefoot and running to school every day - we wouldn't need heavy-duty shoes at all. Our feet and legs would be strong and our technique would be excellent. Unfortunately, that simply isn't the case. We grow up wearing shoes as soon as the parents can dress the baby. I'm afraid the feet of most of us are not well-conditioned. But we can do something about that.

I think it might help if you got out of your shoes during the day whenever you can. I'm not talking about running shoes here, but rather your 'street' shoes. Taking them off around the house is a minimal but first step in strengthening your feet. Athletes who do this can progress to doing what I call 'barefoot strides' a couple of times a week. I start them off with doing 5-6 x 20 second sprints on a clean, grassy surface (with walk-back recoveries). If not ready for barefoot running try using a lightweight racing flat, Nike Frees, beach water shoes or Vibrams. The idea is to gradually do more walking and running with little or no footwear.

I doubt if you will ever want to do all of your training and racing barefoot, although some do. The real advantage to doing this is not necessarily to run with a minimal shoe but to strengthen your body so injury is less likely. If that eventually involves wearing a minimalist shoe that's okay. I don't happen to see that so much as a goal as a means to training injury-free and eventually racing faster.

Running Shoes, Part 1

2010-01-12T06:11:00.003-08:00

January has so far proven to be a very busy month and is only going to get busier due to upcoming travel. Hence the gap in posts here which is probably going to continue. But with a small break in the activities today I found an opportunity to post on something a few people have asked me about recently – running shoes. Specifically, the questions have been on the advantages (or disadvantages) of wearing minimal shoes or none at all by running barefoot.

Let me provide a bit of background for this piece first by describing how I came to be a runner and the shoes I used back then. In Part 2 I will get into what I tell the runners and triathletes I coach now about their footwear.

I was a track and field athlete starting at age 12 in junior high school and then on through college. I ran the low and high hurdles in junior high, high school and freshman year of college. In my sophomore year (1964) U.S. collegiate track and field began the introduction of the intermediate hurdles. These were at a height half-way between the lows (which were eliminated) and the high hurdles. Hence the name 'intermediate.' The distance of the intermediate race was longer – 300 meters (330 yards back then in the U.S.). The lows were run over 200 meters (220 yards) and the highs at 110 meters (120 yards). The 300-meter race eventually became the internationally common 400 meters which is the distance now run in all college track and field.

Back then as a hurdler there was no difference between the shoes I trained in and those used by shot putters or milers. The shoe had a black canvas top with laces and a gum rubber sole. The sole was perhaps a centimeter thick from toe to heel. There was no built-in arch support. For competition we wore racing spikes that were leather uppers with a thin leather sole and five to seven replaceable spikes in the forefoot. The spikes were in the range of one to five centimeters long and were changed relative to the conditions of the track on a particular day. All of the tracks I ran on then were cinders over clay which made for a great running surface. But they were a hassle to maintain so were replaced by “all-weather” surfaces beginning in the 1970s.

I took a break from serious running after graduation from college in 1966 as the government needed me to help win the war in Vietnam. While there I jogged a couple of times a week around the airbase (Phan Rang – “Happy Valley by the Sea”) wearing “Chuckies” – white, canvas, high-top basketball shoes. They offered minimal cushioning and had no significant support for the arch.

After Vietnam I continued to jog occasionally but sporadically through the early ‘70s. By the middle of the decade I was still jogging but starting to get serious about running once again. By now I had morphed into a distance runner. I had a pair of Nike Cortez shoes with leather uppers and a wave-pattern, rubber outsole. They are still made to this day and look much the same as back then.

By 1979 I was running a lot, so much that I decided to leave teaching and open a running store. That was a pretty radical idea back then as there were only a handful of them in the country. In 1980 I bought a local running store – Foot of the Rockies in Fort Collins, Colorado. The sale was completed in the spring and I took possession in July. We carried the major and popular brands of the day – Nike, New Balance, Tiger (now ASICS) and Brooks. The only major brand we didn’t have was Adidas.

At the time I bought the store running shoe design had not progressed much beyond my Cortez. About the only big changes were the Nike Waffle sole and nylon uppers. In the early 1980s Brooks introduced the anti-pronation wedge in a shoe which proved to be popular. Soon other manufacturers were making changes in their shoes to control pronation. At my store we tended to shy away from “high-tech” shoes preferring instead to put runners in the older-style, more basic shoes. The Tiger “Montreal” was our best selling model. It was a thin-soled shoe with a nylon upper. I loved them, and probably still have a pair stashed away somewhere in the attic.

As the technology of running shoes became more complex the price of shoes escalated. Our average shoe sell then was about $35, about $10 below the industry average, and the most expensive was a New Balance shoe at $79. It came in widths which made people with wide feet very happy and they were willing to pay for the comfort.

In 1987 I sold the store to become a part-time coach (I had a day job as a fundraiser for a non-profit). By 1992 I was coaching full-time. During this time running shoes experienced continuing change as they became even more complex. I tried to keep up with the new shoe widgets but finally gave up by the late 1990s. Now when I go into a running store I’m amazed at how much stuff has been added to the shoe to “correct” a problem with the human foot and movements of running.

This may give you some idea as to the direction I’m going with my advice to athletes when it comes to running shoes. But I’ll leave you to ponder that until I get an opportunity to write again in a few days. Now I’m off now to Lehi, UT (Wednesday) and then Ballwin, MO (Saturday) for clinics at which I’m speaking. If you’re in either neighborhood I hope you can attend (see my most recent posts below for the details).

Louisville Clinic

2010-01-11T16:01:00.002-08:00

Click here for the website for that February 27 clinic mentioned below in Louisville, Kentucky. If you are nearby I hope you can make it. This will be a big day with a lot of training and racing ideas being shared.

Clinics and Camps

2010-01-08T21:06:00.003-08:00

I'll be speaking in the following places in the next few weeks. I hope one of these is near you and you can attend. If you do please introduce yourself. I enjoy meeting athletes who read my blog.

Jan 13 Lehi, UT (http://tinyurl.com/yg6mufx)

Jan 16 Ballwin, MO (http://tinyurl.com/yj59ohf)

Feb 13 USAT Seminar for triathlon coaches in Colorado Springs, CO

Feb 20 Freehold, NJ (http://tinyurl.com/yf68y43)

Feb 27 Louisville, KY (website TBA)

Mar 20-26 Triathlon Camp in Mallorca, Spain - 2 spots left (http://bit.ly/5knYmw)

If your club or group would like to schedule an all-day seminar as a fundraiser and to boost membership request info. The following dates are open on my calendar right now:

Mar 13-14

Apr 10-11

Apr 17-18

Apr 24-25

Base Period Nutrition

2010-01-02T05:29:00.004-08:00

One of the common objectives of the Base period is to improve aerobic endurance. There are many physiological benefits your body realizes as your aerobic endurance improves, such as an increase in muscle capillaries, greater heart pumping capacity and more plentiful muscle enzymes for converting fat to energy. Related to this last benefit is your body’s greater preference for using fat for fuel while sparing glycogen as aerobic endurance improves. This is an important change because it means a greater reliance on a fuel source each of us has plenty of – fat. Regardless of how skinny you are you have enough body fat stored to fuel many days of continuous exercise. The problem is accessing it.

If you were to stop training for a few weeks your body would begin to lose its taste for fat. It would, instead, gradually shift toward a preference for using carbohydrate, a sugar compound stored in the body as glycogen and glucose, to fuel exercise. So that after this time off, as you started exercising again, most of the energy used in your workouts would come from glycogen and glucose. And your body would not be very good at accessing its fat for fuel. That’s a problem. It means that you will need to continually feed your body sugar from sports drinks, bars, gels and other sources during workouts since you don't have much stored away. There’s a limit as to how much sugar your gut can process during exercise. So you face the double-headed problem of not being able to take in enough sugar to fuel your engine while beginning to slow your pace despite what feels like a high effort. This is an early stage of “bonking.”

In the Base period, assuming it comes on the heels of having had a break from high volume training, it will take your body many weeks of long, aerobic endurance workouts to train it to once again preferentially use fat for fuel. It will have slowly shifted to a preference for sugar. And the more sugar you feed it, the more it will want. In a winter Base period, the holiday season, with all of its pastries and sweets, may have compounded this shift. You want – actually, you need – to speed up the fueling changes your body goes through as you begin to increase the duration of your workouts. What you eat now plays a role in this change.

The body uses for fuel whatever it is given the most of. If you eat a diet high in carbohydrate, which at some times in the year is necessary (more on that at another time), it will prefer to use sugar for fuel. If you feed it more fat while reducing carbohydrate it will learn to use fat for fuel. That’s a good thing since it augments your aerobic endurance training.

I know what you must be thinking now: Eating fat is bad for your health. That’s an idea which grew out of the 1950s and refuses to go away. Like many “old wives’ tales” there is an element of truth to it. Some types of fat are definitely bad for your health and should be avoided. The worst is hydrogenated fat, often referred to as “trans fat.” This is a fat that nutrition science gave us as a gift 60-some years ago to avoid what they saw as a problem – too much saturated fat in our diets in the form of butter and as an ingredient in many processed foods. As is often the case, the scientific solution was eventually discovered to be worse than the original problem. Trans fat proved to be a better way to cause heart disease than saturated fat. Avoid trans fat. The label of foods that contain it will list it in the ingredients as a “partially hydrogenated” oil. Keep these foods out of your body. You’ll find them in some breads and most snack foods. Read the labels before purchasing.

The “good” fats are found in such foods as walnuts, macadamia nuts, avocado, fish, shellfish, flaxseed oil, olive oil, canola oil and the meats of range-fed animals and wild game. In the Base period slightly increase your consumption of these foods while slightly decreasing your intake of sugar and starchy foods. In this latter category are foods such as bread, bagels, cereal, corn, rice and potatoes. These are best eaten immediately following long workouts to speed recovery. Don’t make the mistake I often come across with some athletes who become so focused on avoiding starch and sugar that they shy away from them following exhaustive workouts. That’s a big mistake. We want to slightly shift your diet toward fat and away from carbohydrate during the Base period. Do not entirely avoid these foods.

By the way, it’s alright to “cheat” on your diet. In fact, you should. Having a small dessert after a meal will not have negative consequences for performance and may do wonders for your peace of mind. My favorite is gourmet, double-chocolate cookies. On days that I workout I’ll have one or two of them for dessert after dinner. Having an occasional baked potato or infrequent pasta side dish is also OK. What we’re trying to avoid in the Base period is a diet dependent on moderate- to high-glycemic carbohydrate foods while emphasizing fat. This dietary shift will contribute to your aerobic endurance fitness.

Base Period Body Weight

2009-12-29T04:42:00.003-08:00

During the Transition period after your last race season you probably gained some weight. That is expected. And it’s probably a good thing - depending on how much weight you gained. Trying to stay at your optimal race weight year round is not good for your health. It’s also not good for your psyche. Staying focused on maintaining race weight 12 months of the year, regardless of your training load, requires a monk-like lifestyle of continual sacrifice and near suffering.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed life a bit and gained some weight in the last few weeks. The Base period is the time to start trimming down any excess beyond your best training weight. Training weight is a bit heavier than race weight. Your training weight by the end of the Base period may be roughly three to five percent more than your race weight – the weight you will have on the day of your first A-priority race. The higher workload of the Build period should be enough to gradually bring your training weight down to your racing weight by race day.

The extra calories you are burning as you move into the Base period may be enough to help you accomplish this initial weight loss. If not then you need to become more aware of your eating habits and modify them appropriately. Keeping a food log is a proven way of doing this.

Athletes who have been through this weight-loss process before generally know what they need to do to shed the extra flab. What I have found works best with the athletes I’ve coached is to greatly reduce their intake of starch and sugar replacing these foods with non-starchy fruits and vegetables. Examples of starchy foods are pastries, cereal, bagels, bread, corn, rice and potatoes. Limit your intake of such foods to the first 30 minutes following your long aerobic endurance and higher-intensity muscular endurance workouts. This will compromise your recovery a bit, but it’s better to do that now than in the last few weeks before your A race when recovery is becoming increasingly important to race performance.

More Custom Midsole Cleats

2009-12-28T17:16:00.003-08:00

Here's another picture of a reader's custom midsole cleat position. The athlete is Ramon Alarcon and the shoes are Specialized. His comments follow.

Attached are a couple of pictures of a pair of 2007 Specialized S-Works Road Shoes that I modified to work with the midsole cleat position. In one of the pictures, you can see that because of the shape of the sole, I had to build up the platform to provide a load bearing surface for the cleat. I used a slow setting epoxy to build up this platform below the cleat. So far, I've put about 5k miles on the shoes with no problems.

The reason I chose to try the mid-sole position is due to a medical condition. In 2008, I was diagnosed with Exercise Induced Arterial Endofibrosis. For those who don't know about it, it's a narrowing of an artery located in the hip caused by repeated motion under load. The artery in question supplies blood to the leg. Basically, the millions of times your hip flexes while cycling can cause this condition under certain circumstances. This limitation in blood flow was not a problem during moderate training, but it was causing cramping in the quads and possibly calves during intense efforts during races. When I first read about the mid-sole position, I figured, hey, if my blood flow is limited, why would I direct any to supply the calves that aren't needed to move the bicycle forward. Since switching to the mid-sole position, I have had no cramping problems in races. I still notice a drop in power due to the blood flow limitation, but it seems like the mid-sole position has minimized this. I have been able to reach about 96% of the FTP I had before the diagnosis.

One final note. I have my EIAE monitored through regular testing. It has been stable for a year. For the sake of further investigation, my doctor had me participate in a test to measure Popliteal Artery Entrapment. It turns out that, even though I'm not a runner, I have that too. A fairly large percentage of the population may have this. It seems to me that the mid-sole cleat position would provide a benefit to cyclists, especially those who also run, and are thus more prone to developing this condition.

If you use midsole cleats and wouldn't mind sharing a picture of them and any comments on how they've helped you (or not) please send it to me by way of email. So far I've not heard from anyone who found this position to detract from performance. I'd like to see those comments also, especially if you have a sense of why. But there must be an accompanying picture of the shoes you used. Be sure to give me permission to use your picture, comments and name (it's ok if you prefer anonymous). Thanks!

Another Midsole Cleat

2009-12-26T15:50:00.004-08:00

A few days ago I suggested that if you use bike shoes with a midsole cleat you could send me a picture. I'll post some of them. Here is one from reader Jill Fry along with her comments (posted with her permission). The shoes appear to be Biomac with custom cleat placement. Biomac shoes are described here. Here are Jill's comments on her shoes:

I got these in Oct of this year. Riding in these shoes is NOTHING like riding with the cleats pushed back, completely different feel. My first ride out I was really worried about whether or not I was going to like them, they felt so different. I stuck with it , kept riding in them and after a while they felt 'normal' to me. One of the hardest things to get used to was clipping in! I notice a huge difference in the amount of work my calves are doing when I ride especially on the hills, I feel like they’re hardly working . An Achilles injury that I had been trying to get rid of for months went away within a couple weeks after I started wearing these shoes. I had taken a considerable amount of time off so I didn’t put my power meter on the bike when I first started riding. With all the time off I don’t think comparing with old data would have told me anything . I just started riding with the power meter again, it will be interesting to see the numbers once I get my fitness back and start racing again.

Custom Midsole Cleats

2009-12-23T11:34:00.003-08:00

Jim Vance, a pro triathlete who uses midsole cleats, just got his new D2 custom-made shoes. I thought you might like to see what they look like. This is a Speedplay pedal system with a 4-bolt cleat. If you have midsole cleats please send me a picture like this one. I'll post some of them here. Here is my email contact.

How to Modify Shoes for Midsole Cleat

2009-12-21T04:16:00.003-08:00

The first blog I ever posted nearly two years ago is still the most read. The subject was Cleat Position. That post has led to many questions on how to modify an old pair of cycling shoes in order to give it a try. I got another such query this week so it's probably time to explain how with a stand-alone post to save answering this question so frequently.

And to answer another common question on this topic: Yes, I do still use midsole cleats and have seen many others try it with good results, also.

If you decide to modify an old pair of your shoes you will more than likely need to use a mountain bike pedal with a two-bolt cleat as the arch area of most cycling shoes have a bit of a concave curve. That means there would be a gap between the middle of the cleat and the shoe if you used a three- or four-bolt cleat.

Here's how to modify your shoes. The pictures are of an old pair of Shimanos I changed over several years ago.

Step 1. Go to your local bike shop and in addition to mountain bike pedals and cleats get T-nuts and longer bolts than come with the cleats. Here is a picture of the parts you need. The T-nuts may be two, separate nuts instead of one, four-hole nut as shown here.

Step 2. After removing the old cleat draw a straight line from the middle of the toe of the shoe through the middle of the heel as shown in the picture. Measure to find the midpoint of that line and draw a second line perpendicular to the first.

Step 3. Drill two holes on the second line that are spaced appropriately for your cleat and centered on the shoe widthwise. This is the tricky part. It's a good idea to check your measurements again before drilling. The picture here shows those holes from the inside of the shoe with the insole removed. This shoe happens to be smooth on the inside. That makes it easy. My wife's shoes had a recessed pattern of reinforcing squares which had to trimmed in order to insert the T-nuts.

Step 4. Insert the T-nuts as shown here from the shoe's inside.

Step 5. Mount the cleats. Most of these two-hole cleats are adjustable for medial-lateral positioning as shown here. But I've seen some that aren't. If you can't slide it from side to side a bit then the position of the holes becomes even more critical. You could wind up with your feet too wide or too narrow once clipped in. So it's best to get cleats that are adjustable.

Be aware that with a midsole cleat you are likely to have a considerable overlap of the shoe with the front wheel. This makes slow turns a bit dangerous. If your shoe touches the wheel during a turn you may fall. You will eventually get used to this and learn to make slow turns with your outside foot out of the way of the wheel.

Also be aware that by drilling holes in the arch area you may well weaken the construction of the shoes to the point that they break under pressure when sprinting. The more massive the sole construction the less likely this is to be a problem. Thin-soled shoes should not be drilled. I'd suggest using the modified shoes with some caution as you gradually adapt to the new position. Ultimately, if you like what you find, you will want to get a pair of custom-built shoes with a midsole cleat. Perhaps some day a manufacturer will offer such a shoe so you can purchase them off the rack. But for now that is not an option.

Your position on the bike will need adjusting for a midsole cleat. The saddle will need to be lowered and adjusted fore-aft depending on a number of variables such as how steep or relaxed the seat tube is and how big your feet are. You may also need to adjust the handlebars for height and reach after the saddle is set. I'd highly recommend seeing a professional bike fitter to get this done right.

Force Training

2009-12-17T05:26:00.004-08:00

In the last several posts I've described various aspects of Base-period training including aerobic endurance, speed skills for cycling, and speed skills for running. Now I'd like to discuss a third Base-period ability - force.

The main message here is this: Endurance athletes who are deficient in force will never fully realize their capacity to swim, bike or run fast because they lack power. You also need power to climb hills and plow through rough water. Having a good level of force, the ability to overcome resistance (such as gravity or drag), is a critical aspect of power. Let’s examine power from a physics perspective and then tie it into our world of endurance sport.

In physics, power is defined as work divided by time. I’m sure you know what time is, but what is “work”? Work is force multiplied by the distance moved. Huh? Ok, let’s try to get a handle on this by thinking about riding your bike.

If you choose a high gear, something such as 53t x 14t, the bike travels a relatively long distance on every, single revolution of the pedals. Had you chosen a lower gear such as 39t x 18t the bike would not go as far on one turn of the cranks. So a higher gear means a greater distance traveled. That’s the “distance moved” part of the power equation.

If you are in that high gear it takes a lot of muscular force to drive the pedal down. That should be obvious. When you are in a 53t x 14t you have to push harder than when you’re in a 39t x 18t. (This, of course, assumes a lot of things such as you are on the same section of road with the same wind both times.) That’s a second part of the power equation – “force.”

The last part is “time.” This is how long it takes you to turn the pedals through one, complete revolution – from the 12-o’clock position back to 12-o’clock. A high cadence means you are turning the cranks fast so the time of one revolution is brief. A low cadence means the revolution time is long.

So the application of this equation is that the way to have great power on the bike is to have the capacity to drive a big gear at a high cadence. It’s the same for swimming and running only now we are talking about stroke or stride length instead of gear size. The bottom line is that you can go faster by increasing force or distance – or both. You can also go faster by decreasing time. This means a higher cadence, or higher stroke or stride rate. I explained stride rate in the last post on running speed skills. Any of these three changes will make you faster. In the next post (when I get some time again - more travel on the way) I will introduce the process I use to improve force in order to help the athletes I coach become more powerful. The key to force is greater strength in the muscles that you use in your sport.

Here's the short message for where I am going with this: There are two training routes to improving your muscles’ ability to produce force. The first is resistance training in the gym. The other is the sport-specific development of force while swimming, biking or running. I like to have athletes start with a short, resistance-training phase in the early Base period and then switch over to sport-specific training in the mid-Base period while maintaining the gains made in the weight room. While resistance training is not the same thing as swimming, biking and running, it gets your muscles ready for the sport-specific phase which is where the greatest gains are eventually made.

I hope to follow up on this with details in a few days. Check back soon.

Running Faster

2009-12-13T05:50:00.003-08:00

There’s a good chance you can lower your running times by simply refining your running skills. Speed skill is so important to running that I have the athletes I coach do drills and other skill-enhancing workouts every week throughout the year. The skills that need mastering are simple and few.

Biomechanically, there are only two things you can do to run faster. You can run with a faster cadence or you can run with a longer stride. The fastest runners in the world, such as the Kenyans, do both of these. The place for you to start in improving your running efficiency is with cadence. Let’s examine how you can do that.

The next time you go to a race or watch one on TV check the cadence of a few select elite runners. To do this count every time a runner’s right foot strikes the road for 20 seconds and then multiply by three. The Kenyans are running at a cadence of 94 to 98 even late in a long race such as a marathon. The others generally have a cadence of 90 to 94. So the only way these lower-cadence runners can keep up with the Kenyans is to lengthen their strides. That’s inefficient because it produces a bit of vertical oscillation. They bounce up and down just a slight bit too much. And since the finish line is in a horizontal plane, energy expended vertically is mostly wasted.

Count your cadence the next time you are out for a run. If you’re like most age group triathletes it will be in the range of 76 to 86. And the slower an age grouper runs the lower their cadence becomes. Elite runners tend to keep their cadence about the same even when running slowly. They’ve trained their nervous systems to fire at a set rate which isn’t appreciably altered by pace.

Besides reducing vertical oscillation, running with a higher cadence means the foot spends less time in contact with the ground. That means running faster. Until your foot comes off the ground you aren’t going any place. It’s like an anchor.

So let’s work the other direction now – from foot contact time back up the chain to cadence – to see how we can improve your running times.

To minimize foot contact time you need to reduce the angle at which your foot comes in contact with the road surface. If you land on the heel with your toes pointing skyward at about a 30-degree angle, which is common for slower runners, it will take a relatively long time for the foot to be lowered to the pavement and then to rock forward and finally come off the ground at the toes. This will take only a few more milliseconds than had you put your foot down flat on the pavement and then toed off. But those extra milliseconds for each footstrike add up by the finish line.

It’s alright to have a slight heel-first contact with the road. But it should be so slight that someone you’re running at would not be able to see the bottoms of your shoes. You can check this for yourself by having that person shoot a video of you running at the camera. Do you see black soles? If so, you have an exaggerated heel strike. Minimizing it will speed you up.

How can you learn to minimize heel strike? Or, to put it another way, what causes you to land on your heel with your toes high off the ground? The answer to this latter question has to do with your knee. The only way to land on your heel is to lock, or nearly lock, your knee out straight. This is what you would do if you were running fast and trying to stop abruptly. You would straighten your knee and land on your heel. So running this way is like running with the brakes on. No wonder it slows you down.

The fastest way to experience flat-footed running is to run with your shoes off. Shoes with their often thick, rubber heels seem to be saying to us, “land here.” As soon as you take them off you’re back to the way our ancient ancestors ran on the grassy plains of Africa. We’re also running the way the Kenyan kids learn to run – without shoes.

I have the triathletes I coach do a drill called “strides” almost every week in the Base period. If they can do this without shoes, all the better. Often they can’t because snow and cold weather in a winter Base period make this impractical. But whenever they can they are encouraged to do this drill shoeless. This may be on a treadmill during the winter. Another option is to do this drill in “water walkers” – light, slipper-like shoes that fit snugly around the foot and are designed for the beach. (Be careful at first not to do a lot of barefoot running initially as you may well develop tender tendons as your feet and legs adapt.)

The strides drill is simple. Go to a park or other grassy area that has a very slight downhill grade of about one percent for 150 yards or so. Warm-up for 10 to 15 minutes. Then take off your shoes (or put on the water walkers) and run down the hill for 20 seconds. Do this six to eight times in a session. This should be a fairly fast run, but you could go much faster. In other words, hold back just a little bit. Focus on a flat-footed landing with the knee slightly bent. Count every time your right foot strikes the ground. Your goal is 30 to 32. That’s a cadence of 90 to 96. Don’t try to go above 96. Note a landmark where you completed the 20-second stride. If you start at the same spot for each stride, during the workout, as you warm up even more, you’ll finish farther down the course indicating that your stride is also getting longer since cadence remains steady. You’re now running like a Kenyan.

Now for the hard part of the drill – at least for most type-A triathletes: Turn and walk back to the start point. Fatigue is the enemy of skill development. Walking will make sure you aren’t fatiguing as the workout proceeds.

As your fitness improves you can insert drills into the walking portions. Start by doing skips as you did when you were a kid. Do 50 total skips on the recovery. This will further ingrain the flat-foot, slightly knee-bent landing. Later in the Base period do these skips for height. How high can you skip? Skipping for height builds power in your legs which in turn increases stride length – without even trying.

When out for your normal Base training runs occasionally check your cadence. Try to raise it by two or three RPM. This will feel awkward at first, as if you are running with baby steps. And your heart rate will probably rise even though you aren’t going any faster. It will take a while for your nervous system to adapt to a higher cadence. During this time you may seem to be going the wrong direction. That’s common and necessary if you are to eventually run faster as your body adapts. Hang in there.

Another Pedaling Workout

2009-12-13T04:21:00.003-08:00

Here's one I forgot about for improving your pedaling skills. If you have a favorite drill not listed here please let us all know in a comment.

Mountain biking. This isn’t a drill, but riding a mountain bike off road on hilly courses is good for improving pedaling skills. When you ride a mountain bike up a steep hill on a loosely packed surface such as dirt or gravel you must learn to keep even tension on the chain. If you mash the pedals the back wheel will slip and you won’t make any progress. Learning to keep even tension on the chain is just another way of saying learning to pedal smoothly and efficiently.

Pedaling Drills

2009-12-12T04:58:00.004-08:00

One of the goals of the Base period is to improve your speed skills - the unique techniques of your sport. At first these are learned by isolating them and making the movements slowly. As the movement pattern becomes ingrained the movement becomes faster and more complex as it is combined with other critical movements.

Pedaling a bike seems like it ought to be simple and require little in the way of skill. That's not the case. In any group ride look around and you can pick out the riders who have good pedaling skills and those with poor skills. Efficiency - how much energy is wasted (or not) - is what this is all about.

Athletes who are efficient at pedaling a bike are especially good at the top, bottom and recovery side of the pedal stroke. At the top they transition efficiently from pedaling up and back to pedaling forward and down. At the bottom of the stroke they do just the opposite without wasting energy. Riders who are not very good at pedaling make these transitions too late. This wastes a tiny amount of energy in every stroke. In one-hour you may make 5,000 to 6,000 pedal strokes. That is potentially a lot of wasted energy.

Efficient cyclists slightly unweight the pedal on the recovery side, or backside, of the stroke. Inefficient riders let the foot and leg on the recovery side rest on the pedal causing the other leg, the one driving the pedal down, to work harder to lift the dead weight of the recovery leg. Again, this wastes a lot of energy.

Note that I’ve not said anything about the front side of the pedal stroke. This side is easy to get right. Pushing the pedal down does not require much in the way of skill. The problem is that inefficient riders focus only on the down stroke. They “stomp” the pedals typically with a lot of excess, side-to-side, upper body movement. This also wastes a tremendous amount of energy.

Let’s get rid of the energy wasters in this Base period. Drills will help you to pedal better. Following are the common ones I use with the athletes I coach. They may be mixed together in a single workout or each may be done by itself as a workout.

* Isolated leg training (ILT) drill. This is the quintessential pedaling drill, the one you should do a lot in the early weeks of Base. It’s done on an indoor trainer. Unclip one foot and rest it on a chair next to the bike so you are left to pedal with only one leg. With the bike in a low (easy) gear turn the crank at a comfortable cadence. The first thing you’ll notice is that getting through the top of the stroke, the 12-o’clock position, is difficult. Focus on smoothing this top transition. At first you may only last a few seconds before the hip flexors fatigue. When that happens switch to the other leg. When it fatigues clip both feet in and pedal for a few minutes applying what you have learned in the single-leg pedaling. Repeat the drill several times throughout the workout. A variation on this drill involves using Power Cranks™. These are cranks like the ones you have on your bike now, except they aren’t connected. So each leg pedals individually. If you get these it’s best to mount them on a spare bike so you don’t have to change crank arms when you want to do different workouts.

* Toe touch drill. In this mind drill you focus on your feet. Every time your foot approaches the top of the stroke imagine that you can push your foot forward in your shoe touching your toes to the front end of the shoe. Of course, you won’t be able to do this, but trying will cause you to transition more smoothly through the 12-o’clock position. Pedal in an easy gear going slowly as you learn how to make this movement. As you master the drill you’ll be able to turn the pedals faster.

* Top only drill. This is another foot-focused drill. Pedal the bike by keeping the top of your foot in constant and firm contact with the inside, top of the shoe. Try not to push down on the pedal at all. The actual pedaling is done just with the upstroke. Don’t apply excessive upward force. Make the pedaling movement gentle and smooth.

* 9-to-3 drill. As you pedal the bike imagine that you can drive the pedal forward from the 9-o’clock position on the backside to 3-o’clock on the front side of the stroke without going through 12 o’clock. Keep the gearing low so that you can pedal easily.

* Spin-up drill. During a ride shift to a low (easy) gear and gradually increase your cadence higher and higher until it is so fast that you begin to bounce on the saddle. Then return to a normal cadence. It should take 30 seconds or so for each “spin-up.” The bouncing is because you have reached and gone slightly beyond your optimal high cadence. You bounce because your foot is still pushing down at the bottom, six-o’clock position, of the stroke. And since the crank arm can’t get any longer, as you push down your butt comes off of the saddle. This drill is best done with a cadence meter on your pedal so you know what your top-end cadence is. The goal is raise your highest, optimal cadence by learning to transition smoothly at the bottom of the stroke.

* High-cadence drill. Throughout a workout insert high-cadence intervals of a few minutes each. During each of these intervals increase your cadence to a level which is just slightly uncomfortable and then maintain it for the length of the interval. Use a low (easy) gear. Recover between the intervals for several minutes while pedaling at your normal cadence. Over the course of several weeks extend the duration of each interval and the combined interval time for the workout.

* Fixed-gear drill. This requires special equipment – a fixed-gear bike. Your local bike shop can help you set up such a bike. This is a bike that has only one chain ring, one cog and no derailleurs or freewheel. When the wheels go around the pedals also go around. You can’t coast. When riding a fixed gear you must learn to relax and let the bike do the work. The first few times you ride it go to some place flat with no traffic and no stop signs. A large parking lot would be perfect. Keep the workouts short at first. Be forewarned that this is a dangerous workout until you master riding the “fixie.”

Ooops - Forgot to Add This

2009-12-09T19:17:00.002-08:00

Just posted but forgot to mention that I'll be doing a free webinar for TrainingPeaks.com on the annual training plan next Tuesday. Go here to register.

More Thoughts on Base Period

2009-12-09T18:27:00.005-08:00

I often see comments posted on my blog and receive emails from athletes implying that the Base period should be a time of very low intensity. Some seem to believe that is what I have athletes I coach do. That's really not the case.

This sort of training was called long, slow distance back in the 1970s when it became popular with road runners. It may actually be of some benefit for that sport since running even at very slow speeds is somewhat stressful. If runners were to walk for LSD training they'd be doing something akin to riding a bike or swimming very slowly.

There's not much to be gained for the serious athlete by a winter of noodling along at low effort in zone 1. This sort of low intensity is best for recovery, not for improving fitness. When the effort is down around 50% of VO2max then little is happening to boost cardiovascular or muscular development. The way to do that is to lift the intensity a bit. In recent posts here, here and here I've tried to explain that. But some how the message doesn't seem to be coming across as I expected it would.

As explained in the posts linked above, zone 2 is necessary to boost aerobic endurance. Going very slowly for a long time in zone 1 just won't do it. To improve your speed skills you need to include some very fast-paced swims, bikes or runs for a few seconds at a time with long recoveries. To build force also requires very brief episodes of high effort and long recoveries. And muscular endurance improves with moderate to moderately high intensities such as zones 3 and 4.

So winter is not a time to just cruise along taking in the sights and singing to yourself. Nor is it a time when you should be doing relatively long, high-intensity, anaerobic endurance intervals or fast-paced group workouts that are mini-races. (This assumes, of course, that you have a few months until your first A-priority race of the new season. If you've got an important race in February then high intensity now is the way to go.)

As I told one of my client-athletes yesterday, building fitness is like building a house (my father was a carpenter and sometimes it shows up in how I see the world). The foundation and framework (Base training) must be built carefully and diligently. Everything you do later in the construction depends on this. Training at very hard intensities (zone 5 with lactate/hydrogen accumulation) now is like starting to build the house by doing the finish work first and skipping the foundation and framework. It's not very effective.

So train with some moderate intensity - just don't overdo it. Save the zone 1 stuff for days when you need to recover from harder workouts.

The Gift of Fitness

2009-12-07T12:29:00.004-08:00

It was a busy weekend so I didn't find time to post anything. But there are a couple of ideas I've been toying with in my head and should have something up soon. In the mean time, a brief comment to help pay the bills...

Looking for a present for the athlete in your life? How about 3 months of coaching by one of my TrainingBible coaches? This is something nearly every athlete would love to receive as a gift to help them get ready for the 2010 season. Make your purchase before December 25 and TrainingBible will even give you a gift - we will waive our normal $150-250 Start Up Fee (with 3 months paid in advance). This offer is good for any of our coaching services. For a list of services and fees go to my site. To take advantage of this offer please email our Director of Coaching, Adam Zucco before December 25, 2009.

Thoughts on the Base Period

2009-12-04T04:52:00.003-08:00

All of the athletes I coach are now in their early Base periods. So I've been talking with them about why this period is so important. Here's the gist of what these conversations have been about.

In many ways Base is the most important training period of the entire season. If it goes well you will be able to train at a higher level in the following periods. If it doesn’t go so well you won’t be able to train to your limits later on in the Build period and you’ll be more likely to break down due to overtraining, illness and injury.

Training in the Base period has been compared with laying the foundation for the construction of a house. Build a solid foundation and the house will be sound and free of cracked walls and sagging corners. Do a very poor job of constructing the foundation and the house is likely to collapse as it is stressed by harsh conditions.

The Base period has also been described as being like an Egyptian pyramid: The broader the base of the pyramid, the higher the peak that can be built on it. I've always liked this analogy.

However you like to think about it, the bottom line is that the Base period is when you construct your season. Everything you do after this period is dependent on what you accomplish now. It’s certainly not an 'off season' in the sense that it is relatively unimportant. This is a time that is critical to your success later on. You need to have defined objectives for the Base period and a training plan for accomplishing them. The higher your goals are for your racing this season, the more important clear objectives and a plan become.

The biggest mistake athletes make in the Base period is by-passing the basic-ability workouts that should be done in order to get to the truly hard sessions of the Build period such as high-intensity intervals, anaerobic hill repeats and 'racing' with training partners. Athletes commonly skip the Base period because the workouts seem too easy. They come to the conclusion that they aren’t working hard (read 'intensely') enough. If that happens and you cut out Base training, your fitness will not be as great later on as it would have been following several weeks of laying down a solid foundation.

There are four 'abilities' I strive to improve in the Base period for the athletes I coach: aerobic endurance, speed skills, muscular force and muscular endurance. The last of these is dependent on the previous development of aerobic endurance and muscular force so is delayed until later in the Base period. These are described in my books.

The bottom line for the serious athlete: Know what it is you must accomplish in the next few weeks, develop a plan and follow it closely.

The Aerobic Base Ride - More

2009-12-01T04:53:00.002-08:00

This is just a quick addendum to the post I made yesterday on the subject of the aerobic base ride. In that post I commented that your heart rate should stay primarily in zone 2. This allows you to complete a long, steady endurance workout that boosts aerobic fitness. One of the athletes I coach did such a ride yesterday. Here you can see a chart which shows how his heart rate was distributed by zones. This is an excellent example of what the heart rate distribution should look like after such a workout.