Found this in the archives – memories of a very good day 5th Ironman in 14 months, October 2000
With Ironman Hawaii last weekend, there is a treasure trove of data waiting to be mined.
I took a look through my speedy friends’ activities to see what I could learn.
I started with a summary of January to October weekly averages.
16.25 hours a week, every week, for decades
The first thing I noticed is they do a lot of exercise!
That said, it’s not as much as I expected. The implied range is 12-22 hours a week. When I was a speedy 40-something, my range was 18-28 hours per week.
So perhaps this is a “stay good” level of training – these guys are already at the top.
What can you, and I, learn from these athletes?
Think about a Basic Week and forget about the pace that you’re going.
Three swims
Three runs
Bike leads metabolic fitness improvement
Strength work to address personal limiters and injury risks
Mobility – 10′ minimum every single day
My Rx for you, and me, would be 5 months of that program (November to March).
That might seem like a lot but ~300 aerobic hours is a drop in the bucket compared to the lifetime mileage of top endurance athletes.
What a best-case scenario looks like in Kona. Showing the vibe I want to the bring to my training, and racing, going forward.
How fast are these guys?
I started by pulling up the marathon splits of the Best-of-the-Vets in Kona.
Mens 50-54 ran 3:15 to 3:40
Mens 55-59 ran 3:25 to 4:00
Not as fast as expected, except for the handful of sub-3:20 tropical marathons.
I headed over to the Boston Marathon site to have a look.
Mens 50-54 was 2:30-2:45
Mens 55-59 was 2:40-2:55
Still really quick, and my pals remain quick over shorter durations
Implications for me, and you.
Best in class race pace is ~8 minutes per mile, ~5 minutes per km
Right now, fresh, I can run that 30 bpm under max, 15 bpm under threshold – I’ve been running for five months, it’s reasonable to expect some improvement.
The best Ironman athletes (50+) in the world aren’t running much faster than 8 min mile pace – takes a lot of pace pressure off my run sessions.
Might do the same for you…
…and that would give you energy to place elsewhere in your program
Winning means NOTHING if you lose the relationship.
Children carry an embedded option for the most common challenges of aging
something to do
someone to share experiences with
someone to love
Don’t blow it by being a bozo (at the game)
If the family has a special sport, swimming for us, then think in terms of minimum weekly frequency
None of our kids had to “be a swimmer” – all they needed to do was swim a little bit
Every. Single. Week.
Touch the water, once a week, since they could stand up
5-8 hours a week of jumping, climbing, twisting, spinning – All Summer Long
Very Consistently Undertrained
Our kids have done a lot since they were little.
What they have not done is specialize in a specific niche, or train like an adult.
I’ve also been careful to match my encouragement to the way the kid likes to train
Long days
Fast days
Mix of days
The kids decide what and how much – my role is to up-skill and keep it fun.
Ironman Finish – more than 11,000 days after I was born
10,000 Days
From the time a child stands up…
…to realizing their maximum adult potential
About 10,000 days
Longer in my case!
Several important realities flow from this timeline:
We control less than half of those days!
We don’t even control what we think we control – for example, effort at practice
It will not be the parents’ call – without a deep love of exercise, the kids are DONE as soon as they get out of the house, sometimes before!
The most important relationship in a child’s life is the quality of their parents’ marriage Choose coaches, and mentors, based on the quality of their non-athletic lives
What Do We Control?
Modeling Personal Excellence
How our children see our marriage and other relationships
Sleep & Nutrition Habits
Spending my time, and giving my attention, to create a link between Fun and Work
Leave Room To Load Later
Middle School
High School
The Collegiate Level
None are a final destination!
Give the athlete somewhere to go when they leave you.
Being a badass breeds confidence – this impacts everything
Start With The End In Mind
Where do you want the athlete to be when they are done with their competitive career?
Resilient
Courageous
Persistent
Healthy
Enthusiastic
Use sport as a vehicle to teach these traits.
Start today!
Keep these traits front of mind when you’re tempted to make it about winning.
A teacher’s job is to fill the world with positive memories for the student to carry forward
Just in case you prefer written content, I’m going to pull the key points out in this post.
#1 – We train ranges, not averages
To ride a 172w average, I sit in a 150 to 200w range.
If my range crosses into a higher zone/domain then I will be changing the nature of my workout.
With elite athletes, this is not a big deal. They have superior lactate clearance ability and handle micro surges, with ease.
With new and developing athletes, this is a source of underperformance in long workouts. The effective intensity is much higher than the average of the workout.
Learn to swim, bike and run… SMOOTH
It is a foundational skill
#2 – Anchors
Skew your errors left
Recognize that we exercise in ranges, not averages.
Keep your range in the domain you are seeking to train.
Setting an accurate anchor can help.
++
Aerobic Threshold (AeT) (Border Between Zone 1 and Zone 2)
Easily found using the protocol in my lactate video. Anchor your endurance training here, exercise smoothly, and your range will straddle Zones 1 & 2.
For Heavy Domain training, start by anchoring here. This keeps your range away from the Severe Domain, where the recovery cost of your session rises much faster than the benefit from working a fraction higher.
++
What you call the zones doesn’t matter.
What matters…
Figure out the correct anchor for the stimulus you are seeking
Key points:
Know the effective range of your training
Consider if your range overlaps a higher intensity domain
Set endurance anchors bottom-up
Consider checking in-workout lactates to confirm the above
When you have a fatigue mismatch, it is likely because you are training more intensely than you realize.
When you have upward drift in your heart rate, consider backing off.
++
The most common “intensity” mistake is blowing right past T- into the Severe Domain (above FT/CP/LT2)
Floods the body with lactate
Recovery greatly extended
Painful
Time at intensity reduced, for small gain in work rate
We don’t graduate to crushing ourselves in the Severe Domain – we learn how to use the Heavy Domain wisely.
Rate of loading – even a slow jog has faster loading than many traditional gym movements
Lower leg loading across the footstrike – often as the arch collapses
Hamstring loading as the leg swings forward
The challenges are addressed by the plyometric component of the program.
Drop load when you add plyometrics AND always add plyometrics gradually. They are strong medicine.
The suggestions split themselves into three categories
Post-Run
Daily Mobility Routine
Self-Massage
Vibration Gun
Strength Routine
Unweighted Single-leg Deadlifts
Reverse Lunges (torso over hip)
Front Squats (heels elevated, vertical torso)
Hinge Lift
Plyometric Routine
Foot-elevated calf raises
Double Leg Pogos
Mini-Blasters
Most of us will need to split the strength routine away from the plyometric routine. When I combine, I find the fatigue is a bit like 2+2=5.
Where to start depends on what you’ve been doing for the last six weeks. I’ve been slowly developing overuse injuries…
If you haven’t been strength training then you’ll need to come in very gently.
With the mini-blasters, each cycle takes a minute and I take a minute between cycles. Five rounds, when combined with the rest of my program, proved more than I could handle!
Here’s my plan:
1-2 sets of each exercise
Split Strength Away from Plyometrics
Do each program once every ~10 days
Repeat for ~60 days
With every intervention, the first “little bit” has the highest return. This is particularly important with respect to mobility work.
Finally, powerwalk the first ten minutes of every single run workout.
Feel The Byrn 
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