Recognize the Variable Cost of Training Hours
Not all hours across your season have the same "life-cost." Training hours far away from your race, especially in the winter, have a very high motivation, sanity, and family cost. Anyone who has ridden a trainer for four hours at 4:00 a.m. in January, nine months before their A-race, knows what we're talking about.
Training hours closer to your race can be a little easier to get (more daylight, better temperatures, a greater sense of urgency), and are extremely valuable. How much money would we have to pay you to skip your long ride four weeks before your Ironman? We thought so!
Our mantras of "fast before far," "keep the volume as low as you can as long as you can," and the concepts of the Spousal Approval Unit (SAU) and Return on Investment (ROI) are the results of our recognition of the variable time cost of training.
Intensity
Perhaps the most unfortunate misconception in the tri-space is the notion of aerobic and anaerobic training zones. This has created a culture that believes that in Zones 1 and 2, we are developing "these" fitness components.
As we move to Zone 3, a switch is flicked, we stop training the Zone 1 and 2 stuff and are now training Zone 3 stuff. At Zone 4, we are no longer training the Zone 1 to 3 goodness and instead are beginning to enter the "anaerobic zones," the purview of speedy folks looking to race shorter distances.
These hard divisions between zones and their associated fitness components are then combined with the notion of race-specific fitness. The training conversation goes like this: "On race day I'm going to spend a lot of time at a Zone 1 to 2 effort. Therefore, I need to spend all of my time in Zone 1 to 2 so my body gets really, really good at Zone 1 to 2 work. Further, if I stray outside these zones I'm actually hampering my Zone 1 to 2 fitness!"
Instead, we focus on the science, which says that increased fitness is the expression of the cumulative adaptations of individual muscles fibers. These fibers only adapt when stressed, when they are recruited, and recruitment happens when I go harder, making more and more muscle fibers chip in and contribute to the work.
Training zones are then "Muscle Recruitment Zones" and the conversation with our athletes goes like this:
Zone 4 = just at/under lactate threshold. You're recruiting a lot of your muscle fibers, both slow and fast twitch, making them each better at what they do. This is your "get faster zone," but you're also getting lots of tasty Zone 1 to 2 adaptations because nearly all of your slow-twitch fibers are being recruited.
This is a very time-efficient zone, since as little as 40 minutes of Zone 4 across your cycling week and 30 minutes across your running week can make you significantly faster.
Zone 1 to 2 = your "race-specific" zone for Ironman racing. As we get closer to your race, the volume of your training increases, intensity must therefore decrease, and we spend more time in Zone 2 as a consequence. We also want to make you more comfortable, confident, and familiar with all the things you'll be doing on race day at this intensity (hydration, nutrition, bike position, etc).
Zone 3 = a very valuable place to spend a lot of time. You're recruiting lots of slow-twitch fibers, many of your fast-twitch fibers, and you can sit here a long, long time. The result we've seen, through analyzing the power and pace files of our athletes, is that they are able to significantly boost the training stress (see Progress Overload Principle) for each session with the same time investment. This is a very time efficient training zone.
The net is that we view training intensities as tools to be applied to your relatively static Weekday Hours and slightly more flexible Weekend Hours. The application of that intensity is a function of where you are in your season, which we define as OutSeason, General Preparation, or Race Preparation:
- OutSeason: Cost of training time is very high = volume goes way down, intensity goes way up and you get much faster.
- General Prep: Volume can go up (more daylight, it's warmer outside) = intensity comes down a bit. But volume is limited by what your life says is repeatable. In other words, your Saturday ride is three hours because that's what is repeatable, not because your Ironman says that your Week 6 long ride needs to be three hours.
- Race Prep: Volume goes up again because the distance of the race requires it. Intensity comes down a bit so we can get you better at doing the things you'll do on race day.