Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Dragonfly Race Prep - 2011

I got a call last week from some friends encouraging me to sign up for the Dragonfly Triathlon.  This race is up near Memphis and will be the Mississippi qualifier for the Best of the US Amateur Championship.  While I do not plan on placing first, second or third overall it will be an exciting race.  All of the top guns will be present since the Championship race will be in Alabama this year (Brett Robinson Alabama Coastal).

Dragonfly_009_small

2009 – a huge storm blew in the night before the race. 

Check out that cloud!

In preparing for the race I was looking over some of my past blog entries.  I raced the Dragonfly in 2009 while building up for IM-Louisville.  I was a different racers two years ago.  I wrote this in a post called Dragonfly Race Prep -

I was reading an old Triathlete (June 2008 – the swimsuit issue) and I came across an article called “Crank it Up – Inject some intensity to avoid the one-speed blues” by Matt Fitzgerald. To sum it up I have felt that while my endurance is definitely building my absolute top speed is not present. The article states –

There’s a funny phenomenon in endurance sports that I like to call “becoming a one-speed athlete.” It happens to long-distance runners, cyclists and triathletes whose training becomes so focused on sustained efforts at race intensity and below that their ability to work at higher intensity levels atrophies.


The article states that this phenomenon is due to your body getting used to a set rating of perceived exertion (RPE). That limiting training to the longer endurance makes it more difficult for you to reach a higher RPE in shorter distances. I experienced this last weekend at the Heat Wave. I had plenty of cardiovascular overhead during my run but the effort seemed too hard - I wanted to run faster but I just could not pick up the pace to where I wanted it to be. Sure I ran faster than last year but my heart rate average for last year was much higher – like 10 beats per minute higher. My fitness is improving (a good thing) but I would also like to be able to find the top gear on these shorter races. The article continues with technics to help limit this ‘one speed’ pony. One such workout is a moderate 50 – 60 mile bike followed by a maximal-effort 10 - 15 mile Time Trial (ouch) or a sustained bike workout at a set wattage about 10 – 15 % higher than your race wattage until exhaustion (45 - 60 minutes for ironman).

That is still solid advice.  Looking at my recent training I have been doing a lot more 20 minute cycling repeats at above race intensity, hard tempo runs and just this morning I did 800 running repeats out on the trace.  That 50 mile bike followed by a time trial is still a daunting workout! 

5 comments:

Caratunk Girl said...

I hadn't seen that Fitzgerald article, good one. It is funny, I feel that my endurance is up, but my speed really hasn't increased - this makes some great sense.

Good luck with prep!

Matty O said...

I always love adding the intensity... I just added too much in the past and now am forced to pay the injuries.

I have seen a lot of success from people doing straight endurance for a couple months then the last month before the big race, 1 time a week, each sport they will do short distance but super high intensity.

Not sure I could do that, would be too afraid of injury that close to race day haha.

Good post.

Tri4Success said...

This is spot on. I completely agree with mixing up the intensities of your workouts. They complement each other and give you a full toolbox to work with on race day.

Ransick said...

Good post. I've never been fast but know that I should be able to run faster. I'm going to go to the track once a week over the summer and try some 400's to increase my speed.

Miguel Vieira said...

This is great info and very useful. In the past I have mixed plyometrics in my workouts on last few weeks leading to a big race (or competition before I was in triathlon) and that seems to work for me.
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