Since You Asked … III

The final edition (for now) of my answers to questions asked by other triathletes.

Question: Anyone actively practicing mental skills? What do you do?  Visualization?  Relaxation exercises?   Positive self-statements?  I’m interested to hear how others are practicing these and building them into their training and racing.

Answer: This is an area of triathlon training that I find particularly fascinating. I think there are two separate “mental skills” which are of value to us. The first is the persistence needed to get through difficult workouts at the level demanded for improvement. E.g., how do you keep the effort level 35 minutes into a 40 minute all out time trial effort on the bike, or keep the pace going 2 hrs 15 minutes into a long run (to use immediate examples from my IM plan this week.) Second is the ability to “quiet the mind” during the actual race; this need is most apparent in an IM compared to shorter races, even an HIM. To some extent, these two skills are opposite of each other. One requires a supreme focus of all one’s consciousness. The other requires letting go of consciousness and let the body do its thing without excess meddling.

Can, or should, the skills be trained outside of the time one is actually swimming/biking/running? The acute focus skill is probably only honed during the workouts themselves, and also during shorter races or time trials. The skill can be reinforced through retrospection, reviewing how the workout went, whether it was successful or not, what might have gotten in the way of focus, etc. I’ve learned for myself that preparation and recovery are key. When I am too tired (mentally or physically) going into a workout, I give up more easily. If I don’t take all the time I need to set up my bike trainer properly, or get appropriately dressed and hydrated for an outdoor workout, I risk failing to perform effectively. If I don’t do a bit of mental preview of just what my goals are for the workout, I’m more likely to miss execution targets. So preparation and review are helpful for me to develop this mental focus skill.

Opportunities to actually practice letting go in an IM are few and far between. Long runs, rides, and open water swims might be times when it can happen, but our coaches’ protocols don’t lend themselves to it. In a race rehearsal, a six hour ride/one hour run, we’re focused on nutrition, watching our power or heart rate numbers, and doings things for ourselves that volunteers do in the race itself. The long runs in training are run at a higher intensity than in the race, and include a lot of variation in pace which must be attended to.

So what can we do to practice quieting the mind, apart from those few really long efforts we do in training? Some activities are specifically designed to lead to “letting go”, like yoga or some religious training. But I suspect that any activity which is not verbally oriented, which is done primarily alone (even if others are around) and which requires prolonged, intense attention to detail for performance is probably helpful. Like surgery, or musical performance, or detailed carpentry, or gardening, or cooking a complex meal for a lot of people.

Question: I want to try altitude training, but how does that work? Specifically, How long do you have to do this, how do you make sure it’s going to work, and how soon after you leave high altitude do you have to race?

Answer: First, the key concept is “live high, train low”. Like, camp out on top of Mt Pinos (7800′, north of LA), and drive (or coast) down to Bakersfield (1000′) to do your training. While Colorado has a lot of summertime camping opportunities at 10-11K, it’s usually a schlep to get down low enough to do any hard swimming or running intervals that will provide a training effect. My swimming experience over the past 40 years is that endurance or race pace yards at 8000′ are like meters at sea level (10% slower), and I can’t really sprint at all. For running, 10K or 5K speed work is hard to near impossible above about 5500′. Biking seems not to be affected much below about 10,500′, but then, I don’t do a lot of flat all out work, replacing it with climbs instead (cause there’s no flat ground.) So to get a training effect at the same time you are getting a physiologic effect just from exposure to thinner air requires either compromise on how you train, or daily driving to get to an altitude which allows a harder effort.

The reason to be at 8500′ to 10,000′, of course, is the lower O2 content per volume of air, and the adaptations the body makes to that. Not everyone increases his hematocrit, but most people will at least increase the size of each red cell. There may be some endocrine changes which are more subtle and esoteric, but there’s no question that at least 80% of athletes who are willing to live at those altitudes (either for real or in an altitude tent) will get a positive performance benefit if they stay for 2-4 weeks. Little to no additional benefit accrues after six weeks. The peak benefit will appear then 2-4 weeks after returning to sea level.

As to location, California in the spring and fall (Tahoe/Reno, San Gabriels/Antelope Valley, etc), New Mexico (Sandia Peak/Albuquerque), and CO from May-Oct. seem the easiest choices. MapMyRide.com, with its elevation info, can provide some clues about where some good locations might be. Another spot, is the Wasatch Front in Utah. Live at 7500′-9000′ (Park City, Alta) and drive down to 4400′ within 45 minutes, but the cycling around there is a bit more problematic. [I did not add a plug for my own current location, Snowmass Village, CO, at 8400’.]

Finally, a comment on the thread describing the teams’ long runs, ewhich are typically done on Thursday, today.

Q: [Not really a “question”, but from the original poster in this thread today.] Sounds like a rough morning all around.  Heat and humidity certainly make it harder.  Food for thought on that issue though is that the run leg of an IM takes place pretty much in the hottest and most humid part of the day.  1-3 o’clock right?  Most of us never run, let alone run long at that time of day.  Old school pro and prolific ST poster Steve Fleck talks about the need to do some running in the heat of the day to get used to it.  Not sure if that matters but it may be worth thinking about when developing a pacing plan.

There really are very few days when it will be more comfortable to run in the middle of the afternoon as opposed to the early morning.

Answer: For a number of reasons – I LIKE running when it’s warm; I live where it doesn’t get very hot (85 is sweltering, happens 1-2 weeks a year), I HATE running early in the AM, and I want to train as I will race – I’ve been doing my long runs around 1-4 in the PM. I don’t think it makes any difference in terms of how things roll out on race day, though.

Today, though, I broke my pattern and ran from 9 AM -12 Noon along the Rio Grande trail beside the Roaring Fork River, just about the most beautiful bike path in the world, in my opinion. Clouds, slight breeze, 61-71F, on a route which is on a 1-2% steady grade. It was the longest (time/distance) training run I’ve done in the past 2-3 years. Two hours, 35 minutes, 18 miles, 60′ @ my long run pace [LRP], 60′ @ “midway between LRP and marathon pace [MP]”, then 30′ @ MP. The LRP/MP was tough to do, as it was a new pace for me and I have no internal sensation package to link to it. For the first 30′, I kept bouncing between the two until I figured out how it felt (I generally use breathing as my cue for how hard I’m going). My average heart rate was 117, which astounded me, considering I did the run @ 6500′ altitude, and I usually do around 120-124 for my long runs.

This is the last long run before IM CDA, 3 weeks and 3 days from now. It was good practice, focus-wise, to experience grumpiness from my hip flexors and quads, and just run through it, basically ignoring those sensation, which is what one has to do in the latter half of the IM run.