Factor 9 Tri Coaching

Four athletes experienced some atrocious rains in Idaho over the weekend.  Janelle raced her first 70.3 pro race and came through with a 6^th place finish.  There were some issues staying on course in the swim and even on the bike.  Overcoming those hurdles, she pushed on and chased down half of the pro field after coming out of the water. 

Congrats to Coach Adrienne for another age group win and a 4:58 clocking.  Bill finished with a solid 9^th place in his age group by finishing in 4:42 race while Jen (Bill’s spouse) knocked some serious minutes off her best time to finish in 6:34 and change.    Hats off to Bill for racing through a calf injury and another broken bike with just two weeks to race. 

Further west, three Factor 9 athletes race in in Blue Lake (Oregon).  Leanne had a great day.  She had a horrific accident a few years again and is getting near her pre-accident shape.  Last year she went 2:43 at Blue Lake and this year she went 2:39 and achieved her goal of a sub 2:40.  Looks like Samuel had a solid race with a 2:14 result even though we expected a faster time.  But, on race day anything can happen so we will go through his race step by step to see where time was lost.  And congrats to Jennifer for jumping into the Sprint race on Saturday and placing 3^rd in her age group. 

I was lucky enough again to enjoy this fantastic race.  We had near perfect conditions.  Just a little wind to keep things interesting. 

Jen Annett improved on her 2008 success by placing 5^th overall.  Her swim has improved and her cycling remains her strength.  So, we are going to focus on bringing that run time down.  Paul and Melissa had really solid races which I was happy to see.  As a coach, you are never really sure how each athlete will overcome adversity but it is great to see that each was able to make some significant breakthroughs in this race.  Kelly learned a ton in her first half Ironman (which was her second triathlon ever) and had many breakthroughs of her own.  Unfortunately, Sam sprained his ankle two weeks ago and did the wise thing to pull out after the swim so that he can recover and get ready for Desert and then IMC later this summer.

And big congrats to Brian for winning a Sprint Tri up in Whitehorse.  A great way to shake off the cobwebs, his first tri in 7 years.

(picture: Jen running her way to 5th spot)

I will be honest and this is not an excuse, I made a mistake that cost me a lot of time on Sunday.  As a result, I was beat by athletes that raced better than I.  I take full responsibility for that mistake.  I am not sure how much faster I could have went that day or who I could have beat.  It does not really matter.  You have to look forward and focus on what I can do to be better next time.  If you are racing because you enjoy competition then you must recognize you are only as good as your last race.  It’s the cruel reality of sports and the name of the game.  You don’t become a leading goal scorer by telling everyone how good you are at taking shots but hitting goal posts and missing the net.  Instead, you do it by scoring goals.  That is how good you become.

A quick google on “excuses” and I came across this:

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else” Benjamin Franklin

How true!

I just wanted to clear that up because I did make a big mistake and that is not an excuse.  What’s the difference?

People make excuses to escape taking individual responsibility for an action.  When, often, they actually made mistakes that they need to own up to in order to improve.

I have a new system for hydration this year and as a result ended up using a behind-the-seat water bottle carrier.  But, I have struggled in training rides keeping bottles in.  The week before the race, I actually bought two new cages so that the bottles would stay in (better).  They did, but, not well enough.  As a result, I lost one of my two water bottles somewhere on the bike course.  That bottle had half of my bike fuel in it.      

The cages really were not the mistake and losing the bottle was not something I did on purpose.  The mistake was, I did not have a good backup plan.  And, I did not re-focus and get those calories back in.  I always have been critical of people who use “losing” nutrition as an excuse for a bad race.  It happens and you really do need a backup plan if it does.  Why put all your eggs in one basket when you can easily have backups? 

I used to always take a spare flask with 300 calories in it, just in case I did lose a bottle.  But, for this race, I decided that if I did lose a bottle, I would just use the aid stations.  Problem was, I did not think that all the way through and did not think enough about it after I lost a bottle.

I did try to some extent though.  I actually passed a full bottle of Gatorade someone else launched, so I turned around on the course and picked it up.  I thought I was being smart.  I lost a minute, but I figured it would save my race.  It certainly helped, but not enough.  I also grabbed a gel at the aid station.  But again, just not enough.

I slowed down the last 30minutes of the ride as could be seen by my power meter.  I did this on purpose because my legs were running out of gas and I was worried about the run.  I thought they were just getting worn out.  However, I did not clue-in that this was the first sign of being low on calories.  Looking back, I think it was more of a lack of calories than anything.  My legs felt pretty good on the run so I don’t think I rode it too hard.  And my power numbers early in the race match up well with other races this season and some key training benchmarks. 

On the second lap of the run, when I was planning to pick up the pace and effort, I hit the proverbial wall.  It was all I could do to keep myself from walking.  The good news was that I was able to eat 3 gels in about 40minutes while running.  That is a new record for me.  Those gels barely got me home. 

So, I had a fun 3.5hrs of racing.  Next time, I will aim for 4.5hrs of fun!

I get hungry just looking at the first picture with the 2nd bottle still intact:

“I am a triathlete, I do not need to kick.”

“Swimmers kick, triathletes don’t.”

“We wear wetsuits, I don’t kick in a wetsuit.”

I hear it all when I put kick sets into our swim workouts.  Kick sets are the best type of drill you can do for swimming even if you are a triathlete.  Sure, you can become an adequate swimmer without kicking much, especially in a wetsuit.  But, why not become better?  You are spending copious amounts of time in the pool so you might as will spend your time wisely.  Your arms are only going to get so strong and your technique will only get so good without kicking. 

Here are three good reasons to practice kicking:

1.  It increases your swimming speed by adding power each stroke.

2.   It increases your speed by keeping your legs within your wake (i.e. your legs draft behind your waist).

3.  It allows you to maintain speed when you sight in open water.

There are more reasons, but these are the three best reasons in my opinion and all of them make you a much faster swimming.  If I were to choose one of these three as the most important, it would be #2.

Kick technique is very important even if it is not that powerful.  If you have a sloppy kick then your legs become anchors.  They either go too far out to the side or too far down towards the bottom.  In both cases, it is like swimming with a parachute.  Try it, swim towards the wall with good speed and then right before the wall, splay both legs out to the side and you feel yourself slowdown dramatically.  Try it with one leg and feel the difference.  This is a major problem with many swimmers in that they don’t keep their kicks nice and tight and within their hips.  Especially with swimmers who have a habit of scissor kicking each stroke. 

And this is even more important for novice swimmers.  You will struggle to maintain momentum thus making it very difficult to coordinate their arm pulls without having a little kicking motor behind you.  The second thing we teach kids who are trying to learn to swim is how to kick (the first being how to float).  The arms are added after they can float and kick, not before.  Adults tend to start swimming right away without working on good floating and proper kicking.

So if you already have good kicking technique then you will have less kicking practice to do.  However, you still need a strong (fit) kick so that when you get into open water you can battle other swimmers, the waves and keeping a straight line by sighting properly.  Strong kicking allows you to catch other swimmers so you can draft off them.  If you are not in shape, then you will go over red line very quickly and suffer later in the swim or later in the race. 

Good kicking is also a huge advantage in choppy conditions.  The waves will toss you around and take momentum out of your stroke.  However, with a good kick you can keep things balanced and take up the slack in momentum by kicking harder at certain times in your stroke.  Another way to think of this, is that your arms may have more trouble entering and catching the water as the water goes up and down with the waves.  But, your kick will stay in the water because we don’t raise them out of the water very much in comparison.   So build that motor at the back so you can chug through choppy water.

Sighting relies on kicking.  Even with good sighting technique you will slow down or your effort will increase to go the same speed.  However, if you have a weak kick, you will come to a standstill.  Ever wonder why you are swimming along in a nice pack of swimmers and then all of sudden you ram into their feet?  It’s because the front swimmer is not very good at sighting.  They decelerate every time they take a look.  Experiment with it.  Practice sighting without a kick and notice how much you slow down.  Then practice by picking up your kick when you go to sight.

In other words, coach says “kick, kick, kick”!