Overkill. Is It Ruining Your Training?

Endurance athletes don't have a lot of spare time.  We accidentally eat up free moments by overkilling in many areas. There is efficiency and elegance in simplicity, and it can take you much farther in training than you think.  

To illustrate the point, there's an old saying for how women should dress for a party - "Put on only the jewelry you need. Now, remove one item."  It makes you look and feel like you have your act together.  In triathlon, this equals speed and success.

So let's get started.  Here's a quick list of the usual suspects in triathlon overkill.

• Too much gear.  People are happiest when they only have to choose between about three items.  More than that creates stress and indecision.  When you've got six road bikes, you spend a lot of time picking out the one to ride and then wondering if you made the right decision.  That stress weighs on you and slows you down.
• Dieting.  All that needs to be said is that most triathletes are told to eat more (of the right foods) to get their workouts done with the right vigor.  Overkilling the diet makes you weak.
• Too much junk on long rides, runs and races.  First, go find a pro or elite racer and scope out what they take with them.  It's surprisingly little.  No socks, no bandanas, no handheld GPS's, no excessive blinky lights, no gloves in races, or turning themselves or their bikes into water trucks.  To be fast, imitate the fast people.
• Eating energy food when you're not working out.  Unless you're out of base training mode and in the middle of an intense workout, you shouldn't be eating "energy" food.  If you are eating a powerbar, a gel, drinking gatorade or similar and you aren't in the middle of a very intense workout or race, then you're training your body to fuel on sugar instead of fat.  Fat has twice the potential energy of sugar, so save the sugar for when you have the accelerator pegged to the floorboard and need it.  Otherwise, you're putting on weight you'll have to burn off later.
• Excessive planning.  Until it happens, it's just guessing.  All that time spent trying to pick out the perfect route and coordinating people is wasted when it rains and you have to change plans anyway.  Just go outside and... just go.
• Excessive documenting and analyzing training data.  Just like some people don't document enough, some document way too much.  Athletes often spend valuable training time recording every watt from every split when what really needs to be recorded is not much more than how hard for how long.  I have my own coaching clients record effort level, time, distance (as an effect - not a goal), and comments about how they felt.  It keeps them extremely focused and teaches that training is training; nothing can take it's place.  Extremely detailed data is saved for key workouts and races only.

Have any stories about how you eliminated overkill in your training life?  Leave them in the comments and discuss!

Podcast - ZenTri in Boulder, Colorado!

 

Brett with Ironman World Champion Chrissie Wellington

Join in for a listen as ZenTri hits the road and heads to the triathlon Mecca of Boulder, Co. for a week of fun!  See what it's really like in the city with the highest density of outdoor athletes anywhere.  We swim, bike, run, and eat with the world's best! 

Shownotes:

• Black bean burger with a side of cigarettes.
• At Cracker Barrel, "veggies" means ham.
• Morgan is the man!
• Wind-meals!
• Trail running around the Boulder Reservoir.
• Made Emily a promise I can't reveal yet.
• I blew out a flip flop, had to walk barefoot down a mountain.
• Interview with Kate Brown of Dailyburn.com.
• Hanging out at the Boulder Teahouse.
• Interview review with Jessi Stensland.
• Encounter with Chrissie Wellington.
• Bouldering with Emily.
• On the bike, climbing up to Ward, CO., Elevation 9,000 ft.
• Another trail run experience.
• Full on double chipmunk, across the sky.
• 142 BPM at 4.7 MPH. = STEEP!
• Fix your back pain by strengthening your abs?
• What's great about Boulder.
• Spotted the Japanese women's Olympic marathon team.
• Cresting the climb into Ward.
• Soaking feet in a cold mountain stream.
• No cell phone signal for hours causes a little fear, but is also exciting.
• Hanging out downtown with Emily on Pearl Street.
• Morning swim in an outdoor meter pool.
• In Estes Park, heading into Rocky Mountain National Park.
• Kai has a pet slicing penguin.
• Our trip ends up being more epic than we bargained for.
• Double rainbows, everywhere.

Click here to listen!

Character - What is It... in Triathlon?

Character is the difference in believing something and actually doing it.  Plenty of people believe in saving the planet, eating right, or standing up for the little guy, but far fewer actually do it.  

People with character put their words into action.  They take that extra leap and bridge that gap of fear and stand up for what they believe in.  In fact, they usually can't stop themselves from "doing what's right".

If you want to be more fit, lose that gut, or qualify for Kona, you have to have the character of a person who does those things.  You have to schedule work outs, eat better and/or less, or race tactically to achieve those goals.  Notice that all the words in italics are verbs.  They require doing.

When Julie Dibens won the Boulder 70.3 recently, she waited several minutes before crossing the finish line to ensure that more people got prize money.  She acted on her belief that the prizes should be awarded differently.

I just wanted to make sure as many girls as possible would be able to earn money today," said Dibens to slowtwitch.com "I just hung out with my family, enjoyed the time and wanted to prove a point. Making money in this sport is hard enough as is.

The most celebrated people of character are the ones that did something.  Ghandi marched to the sea and made salt.  Mother Teresa spent her life caring for the poor.  Superman leaped tall buildings in a single bound.  You gotta do to be great.

If you believe in something, but have a hard time acting on it, you either don't believe in it as much as you think you do or you believe in something else more that conflicts with it.  But that's a subject for another post...

Smile while you train!

"How to Date a Triathlete" - Book Review

I never thought I'd be reading a book with such liberal use of the phrase "tight buns", but then, this is a book about triathletes.

My wife read it aloud while we drove home to Texas from a triathlon-themed vacation in Boulder, CO. Somewhere between the widely-spaced mesas and the gas stations with served diesel that surely tasted better than the food, Emily cracked this book open.  We are both so glad she did.

We laughed aloud several times at some of the insights the author provides. I'm even a little concerned how my wife gleefully read to me the part about the author fantasizing about running over her husband's bike in a fit of jealousy.  I'm sensing a little too much giggling on
her part.

The book needs just a few syntax and factual fixes, but overall, it's a nice read. Emily and I both agreed that it could be a great benefit to somebody struggling with dating an endurance athlete. The author also includes a glossary of triathlon terms at the end for those needing some help with new terminology.

Check it out or give it to a friend that you think might need some
insight. Heck, nearly anybody in the triathlon community could be
surprised with the help some of the tips or stories provides.

Visit the book website here.

Enjoy!

Podcast - Active Interview with Jessi Stensland!

This episode of ZenTri is a real treat.  We have an "active interview" with pro triathlete Jessi Stensland, who puts us through some of her Movement U. core strengthening exercises while answering all kinds of great questions.

We did this in beautiful Boulder, CO. under blue skies in as other pros were working out out all around us.  It is a tremendous interview that can make a huge difference in how you train and perform.

Don't forget, Jessi takes Movement U. around the country, so check out her schedule and get some core strength!

Click here to listen!