WHY YOU NEED AN OFFSEASON (Even a Short One!)
Image courtesy of LiFT Creative Studios
by Chris Bagg
Ed. note—we published an updated version of this story over on Medium, if you would like to see my additional suggestions for keeping yourself sane during the offseason.
A few weeks ago I had to do something I almost never do: suggest to an athlete that I may have to end our coaching relationship. It’s happened fewer than ten times in the decade or so that I’ve been coaching endurance junkies, and I certainly hope this circumstance remains rare, but the interaction stuck in my brain, so I’m getting it out here, in the hopes that that unburdening myself makes someone’s life easier, simpler, or more understandable. The athlete in question had been trying to rehabilitate a stress fracture, and had finally decided to cancel the final race of the season and focus instead on getting healthy for 2020. We were talking on the phone, and our conversation went like this:
ATHLETE: I know this whole week I was supposed to be off, but I was stuck Canada with a visa issue, and I was antsy, so I moved some workouts from the previous week and did them during my week off.
CHRIS: Ok, I get it. That’s understandable. I’m just going to add a few days off, then, so you end up with at least a week of absolutely no workouts.
ATHLETE: What? Really? I don’t know if I can do that.
CHRIS: Ok, I’ve heard that before. So…here’s the thing: if you can’t take a week off of training, I don’t think I can continue coaching you.
ATHLETE: WHAT?
We talked it out, and in the end the athlete relented and took the whole week off. Believe me, I wish I could have gotten more time off out of this athlete. Stress fractures are no joke, and they are the hallmark of athletes that don’t know when to—or, more accurately, can’t—stop training. “I just don’t feel the same when I don’t work out!” they tell me, and I believe them. These confessions, though, have a similar ring to the ones I hear when I attend AA meetings, and although I am—certainly—biased in this regard, I worry when athletes refer to training as a need, rather than as something that can be taken or left alone. Sure, sure, I am very likely over-reacting, but a coach acts as an early warning system for the athletes he works with, a mirror that can show them when they are acting compulsively. Addiction happens “when our lives become unmanageable,” to paraphrase a much wiser person than myself, and what I think that person refers to is the moment when we stopped making decisions for ourselves, and an entity outside of us—alcohol, food, no food, cigarettes, gambling, sex, control, sport—took over and started managing our lives for us. There’s a reason recovery’s called recovery: we’re trying to get something back, something we waived our rights to long ago.
You’re tired—take a break
Shit, that got dark fast. Gosh, this is always happening. What does this have to do with your offseason? The offseason is a chance for you to experience yourself again, without sports or training, and to look back on what you’ve accomplished this past year. It’s a chance for your badly tired body (you’re probably a lot more tired than you think you are—as an endurance athlete you pretty much walk around exhausted, so you think that’s just your baseline) to relax and recover a little bit. Most of all it’s a chance for you to reiterate to yourself that you are an athlete who trains for certain events, rather than person who works out to stay fit, or to blow off steam from their work or home lives. Not that those are ignoble pursuits, but since you’re here reading a blog mostly focused on endurance racing I’m gonna assume that you want to be fast (or simply faster) on a few targeted days out of the year. Here’s the way that I see it:
Training: an undulating pattern of stimulus and recovery, aimed at reaching the highest performance level possible for short amounts of time (your primary races)
Working Out: a linear pattern of stimulus with limited recovery, aimed at maintaining one level of fitness all the time (people who work out for health are in this group, and they prove the model: their goal is to maintain their health, and working out is a controlled dosage of medicine for them)
Again, let me stress that neither one of these is better than the other (indeed, those in the second group are probably healthier and longer-lived in the final analysis), but if performance is your goal, you must end up in the first group and not the second, and if you’re in the first group, your training and recovery have to undulate throughout the year. What does that mean? It means there must be an extended period of complete rest for a few weeks at the close of the athlete’s competitive period. And I really mean complete rest. Here’s another conversation.
COACH: OK, now we head into your offseason/rest period. I want you to take the next fourteen days completely off. I even added all those off days to your TrainingPeaks account.
ATHLETE: So what do you mean, off?
COACH: Totally off. No training. Just rest. Hang out with your family. Focus on work. Eat multiple burritos each day.
ATHLETE: how about Yoga?
COACH: Nope! No Yoga. Just rest.
ATHLETE: What if I feel really antsy? It’s hard for me to take time off.
COACH: I get that, and I feel it too when I take time off, but it’s really important for you to take time off now. I promise that it will make you stronger next season.
ATHLETE: What about some really easy bike rides?
COACH: [long pause over phone line as coach jumps up and down silently in frustration in his home office] Nope! Gotta be total rest.
ATHLETE: Hmmmm. What about…
This is the fitness profile of an athlete who trains vs “works out”
So why is this important? And how do we end up stronger next year? Forgive yet another metaphor, but your fitness is a lot more like the stock market than a zero sum game. If you train consistently for 46-50 weeks out of the year, your personal stock market will climb quite a bit. When you take two weeks off, your fitness will drop, certainly (a market correction), but it doesn’t fall all the way back to your starting point, which is what most athletes believe happens. Most athletes feel that they’ll lose all their fitness if they take more than three days off, let alone 14! Your fitness declines, certainly, but you will start back up at a higher level of fitness than when you started last year, and then next year you’ll start higher again, and the pattern continues: it’s the compound interest of the fitness world, and is the reason that endurance athletes really start to hit impressive numbers after they’ve been following this pattern consistently for years, not months. Don’t like this timeline? Then why did you pick endurance athletics?
Here’s the other magic of the break. Even though your fitness is higher than when you started last year, your acute training load is the lowest it’s been all year, which means you are finally fresh again. You are in a great position to begin laying the bricks of your successful season, and you will be rejuvenated, excited, and hungry. Contrast that with the athlete who doesn’t take a break. Tired and on the verge of injury, they have a few good weeks, and then stress and fatigue kick in, and they get sick, or just can’t rouse themselves to train, and they take a few days off, and then start pushing again, and the pattern continues. These athletes never develop, never climb to heights they couldn’t imagine a few years ago. They meander along, posting the same performances, wondering why their friends (who take all that time off!) have begun to leave them behind.
And here’s the other worry, the one that I started with. If an athlete can’t bring him or herself to take a break at the end of the season, the tail has begun to wag the dog, and exercise addiction is a real possibility. If you’re in this warning area, then I’d really urge you to get some help (real help—sadly your triathlon coach doesn’t help in this regard, but maybe he or she was able to point out some red flags). One of my coaches said to me, once, “You can’t do mental fitness until you do mental health,” and I think about him every single time I have a recalcitrant athlete at the end of the season. “Don’t you want to be the best you can be next year?” I ask them, and they all nod, all of them. “Well, being the best you can be means everything has to work: your body, mind, and soul, and if I have some worries about your mental health, then it means you’ll never be able to optimize your mental fitness. So let’s see what the next fourteen days of rest and reflection brings you, and use this time as an opportunity to see who is in control of you—is it you, or is it your sport?”
I hope this wasn’t too dark or overbearing. Having experienced addiction of several sorts myself, I worry when I see the tendencies in others. For sure, when you’re a nail the world looks like a bunch of hammers, so there is certainly some degree of projection happening here, but I would hazard a guess that there is some truth, too, and I invite you to find yourself in it.
A Brief History of CBCG in time for Small Business Saturday
by CBCG Athlete Amy VT
In 2009, an Australian triathlete named Shane bought a pair of wheels on eBay® from Chris Bagg in 2009. They got to chatting about coaching, and CBCG (we didn’t call it that, yet) was born, the original model simple: a one-coach shop to support Chris’ professional racing. By the middle 2010’s, though, things had changed: we grew, ran our first camp out of the back of a compact 2005 Scion xA, and made the first of several almost-business-ending mistakes. We needed help.
As with many businessy things, the solution appeared from an unexpected quarter. In 2016, Chris met Molly Balfe—who now owns 50% of the business outright—at a local coaches’ symposium in Portland. She came to one of our camps to run the swim sessions, joined us as a coach, became a minor shareholder a year later, and then assumed half the company in 2019. If that seems like a quick rise, it’s because Molly is a natural fit: she shares the CBCG vision and values of making athletes faster and happier. “Without Molly’s help I would have given up long ago,” Bagg says. “If you want to run a coaching company like a real company, where you pay taxes, and compensate your employees fairly, you can’t do it by yourself. Like a lot of founders, I have had some really tough moments during building the company—Molly made it possible for us to get to where we are.”
Molly and Chris, the 50/50 business partners who run CBCG
Just in time for Small Business Saturday, we’d love to both share our story and un-casually suggest the most ideal gifts for triathletes. SBS is an essential movement to combat large corporations’ monopolies, boost local economies, and defend our environment. It was actually created by American Express® and backed by the Obama administration, leveraging both AmEx’s and the government’s impact on consumer spending.† We at CBCG appreciate the movement since gifts for triathletes are easily found via large online retailers, preventing gift-givers from considering purchasing coaching, camps, swim analyses, or other goods (see below).
Our two longest running CBCG athletes Jenny Greeve and Joann Symonette
Today CBCG has grown to ten phenomenal coaches and staff. We run several multisport and swim camps around the country and recently opened the CBCGym in Portland. We are 85 athletes strong, seeking more who’d like to join our family and become happier, stronger, healthier, and faster. We do more, though! So if you aren’t yet enamored with our Small Business, here’s our self-serving list of the gifts for the triathlete in your life or you (just forward this bloggy to your peeps), just in time for Small Business Saturday.
BEST GIFTS
CBCGym Class Passes - come work with us at the gym! Maybe your athlete is looking for a morning spin class to get some saddle time during the dark and rainy days. Or they’ve heard about Daniel Silver’s awesome Open Gym model, which combines the individual attention of a personal training session with the community and price point of a group class. Whatever your indoor training needs, the GBCGym is here to help!
Swim analysis - holy perfect gift. From the top level pro to the total beginner, every single triathlete could benefit from a state-of-the art, expert, high-tech swim analysis including video from multiple angles, ear-to-ear real time feedback, sit-down consulting, and countless takeaways Click here to buy someone a swim analysis.
Bike fit - top level pros and beginners alike could benefit from the state-of-the art, expert, high-tech bike fit with our good friends (and fellow small business) Output Speedlab. Whether they’re considering a new purchase, want to refine their race positions, or want to fit one of their other bikes, we promise the cyclist or triathlete in your life would love you forever, so head here to book this perfect gift.
Coaching - we have gift certificates, obvi! If your loved one is a CBCG athlete, or it’s time for them to start with us, what a treat it would be to get her or him a one time consult, a nutrition assessment, one month, three months, or a year of CBCG coaching on you
Camp - we’ve been running camps across the country for a decade, now, and we’d like to think we’re pretty good at it. We partner with Wattie Ink. to put our campers in custom kits, arrange for amazing food cooked by Aaron Vinten of The Athletes Table, and set up your summer of racing with five great days of training. We only have a small handful of spots left, so move quickly.
You give this to your triathlete, you’re their hero for 2020 and beyond
Thanks for reading about the evolution of our Small Business, and for considering the best IOHO gifts for your triathlete or cyclist. If you’re personally craving one of the above gifts, let us know your family’s contact info and we’ll shock-and-awe them with hints and links.
† fbfs.com/learning-center/history-of-small-buisiness-Saturday
3x Pelotons a Week to 70.3: Introducing Drew Davis, CBCG Coach
In conjunction with my officially joining the CBCG team, I’m sharing the story of the first athlete who took me seriously as a coach: my wife, Amelia.
I remember when the e-mail hit my inbox. The subject line read, “Holy Shit--I’m really doing this.”
It was a confirmation of my wife Amelia’s registration for Ironman 70.3® Wilmington in October - five months away. Although we had already fostered a general sense that she would race Wilmington and she had begun informal training, her registration made it official. After three years of supporting my racing with alacrity, it was now her time to take a shot at going the distance.
Amelia’s story may resonate with many of you. She played softball at Princeton (and even overlapped with Heather Jackson for a few years) before beginning her career. Her hard work and ambition led to estimable success, demanding time and focus that often thwarted a healthy lifestyle, let alone endurance training.
After the birth of our daughter, she was motivated to get back to working out, but didn’t want her sole motivation to be the idea of weight loss. She wanted a concrete goal. I teased her about the idea of a 70.3 for months, which she steadily dismissed. To sweeten the concept, I promised that I would coach her, sharing everything I had learned, creating a formal program, and ensuring she would be generally well-prepared to take it on. Finally, she decided to take me up on it.
When we started, she was doing about three Peloton rides per week, averaging 35 minutes each. That’s it. So the prospect of ramping-up her weekly commitment to ten hours a week with some sessions lasting longer than three hours was daunting, to say the least. But together we assessed our schedules, afforded ample time for our daughter, coordinated both of our training, and created a plan for her to get started. I won’t spoil the ending just yet, but I will share some of what we learned together, and how it will inform my coaching moving forward.
All stress counts. All-nighters exist in Amelia’s profession, as do sudden schedule changes and unforeseen workloads. Sometimes her clients need to get on the phone, as in, now. These interruptions obviously interfered with workouts, but more importantly, they added an extra mental load to Amelia’s plate. As we progressed we continually made adjustments to acknowledge, accommodate, and account for this stress. As a result, what we learned and how we adapted actually resulted in more consistent output in her workouts.
Keep the goal in mind. If you Google articles about advice for new triathletes, you will get a long list of patronizing answers alá “you must ride with clips.” “Here is exactly what you should eat and drink.” “Anyone who doesn’t do this will fail.” Very click-baity. For Amelia’s training, we planned every session and approached each decision focussed on one boiled-down question, “What will increase the chances of you crossing the finish line safe and happy?” Shoes with clips were intimidating for her, so we switched to toe cages. Flip turns made her feel panicky, so we stayed with touch turns. Coffee before her workouts simply make her feel better, so we embraced that ritual. We paid attention to her body and her output, and the results were awesome.
Commit to the goal on the daily. Almost exactly one month ago, Amelia made Partner at her firm. This accomplishment is huge. Minutes after receiving the call, she headed downstairs to the gym in her building and banged out one of her longest runs, nine miles with steady HR and fueling practice. As her husband, coach, and best friend, I have never felt so torn about which was more exciting. Her entry into the partnership was a career milestone, and one that very few people ever attain. Her decision to delay celebration, honoring her racing goal equally, and assiduously banging out a huge workout on that day, makes me beam.
In addition to the joy of watching Amelia grow as an athlete and prepare for this race, we have reveled in amazing byproducts of her new lifestyle. We now get to coincide rides, runs, and swims together when time allows, and our shared language about the sport has increased dramatically. I have watched Amelia learn to fail with more grace than she knew, and come back stronger only to attack the session a second time and succeed.
Amelia’s training and subsequent life changes reminded me of the chief benefit to the pursuit of this sport. The patience, perseverance, and ability to adapt to change that triathlon demands are more salient than the actual races.
Five months after receiving that email, Amelia toed the line at Wilmington 70.3. I think that I was far more nervous than she was. I stayed with her at the start, through T1 and T2, and rode my bike all along the run course so that she knew I was there to support her.
Frankly, she didn’t need me. Beyond my expectations and hers, she crossed the line in just over seven hours, finishing very respectably in her competitive AG of women 30-34. At the finish line, she smiled about as wide as I’ve ever seen. Whether or not she continues to race is immaterial. For the rest of her life, she can approach any challenge or obstacle knowing that she prepared for, and demolished this one.
To Amelia, I love you and I am so proud of you. To anyone out there looking to change your life, kick some ass, and become a better version of yourself, let’s get to work!
Why You're Doing it Wrong: CBCG Strength Coach Daniel Silver Explains Lifting for Endurance Athletes
CBCG Strength Coach Daniel Silver with his favorite weight: his son Davin
“So I grew up with the idea that getting strong lifting weights wasn't just for aesthetic reasons, that it carried over to sports performance and things like that. And then that led into me getting my first gym membership when I was eleven or twelve. Something inside of me just said that getting stronger will basically make you all around better at sports. And this was early 90s or something, so it wasn't exactly normal to have a kid in the gym. And nobody's insurance covered it, so we ended up having to find one of the rare places that was dedicated more towards families, and I began my strength-training career there.”
—Daniel Silver, CBCG Strength and Conditioning Coach
How many times have you resolved to get your skinny endurance athlete butt to the gym, in order to build some “sport-specific strength” you’ve heard everyone talking about on podcasts or at the local 10k? Or to “build some lean muscle” in order to “improve body composition?” Or because you’d like to “ward off injury?” Well, your author certainly has, but the results are usually the same—after a few weeks or months of consistency, since I don’t know exactly where I’m headed (or how to get there), the allure of strength training begins to wane, and I stop, and then three months pass, and my hamstring hurts (or I’m feeling heavy, or weak) and the cycle begins again. Endurance athletes tend to struggle in the gym—at our core is a desire for flight and exploration (or, more darkly, we’re all running from something), and the gym is a static location. A couple of years ago, though, I met a strength coach who had just moved to Portland named Daniel Silver. He talked about strength training in the same vocabulary with which I discussed endurance work, and understood that coaching is much more than writing workouts and walking away. He began working with a few CBCG athletes, and their results instantly improved. Not only that, they enjoyed the time they spent with him in the gym, as he included them in the process and showed them the process they were making. I sat down with Daniel to ask him some questions about his style of strength training for endurance athletes.
What’s different about the way you approach strength training?
Where I think endurance athletes go wrong with strength training, basically, is everywhere. It starts with the original breakdown thinking maximum strength means low repetitions, power means medium repetitions, hypertrophy eight to twelve reps, and then muscular endurance above that. And those are incredibly simplistic ways to look at the approach, but I think the average endurance athlete picks attacks weight training in the same way they approach their endurance work. So they end up doing high repetition circuit training, boot camp type training, repurposed bodybuilding style training, and all of these are going to fatigue the athlete in the same way that they're doing on a daily basis in their endurance training, which I think is why we often see so much fear of strength training from the endurance community—it just makes the athlete more tired. But it feels familiar, so they gravitate towards that style.
Let me give you an example. A 70.3 is a long term endurance event that relies primarily on our aerobic system and slow twitch muscle fibers. So if we can use the weight room to isolate and improve certain variables within those muscle fibers, then why would we not do them? We need to be moving slowly and economically against resistance so that we're not encouraging our body to rely on fast twitch muscle fibers. How do we do that? We can add a slow tempo to a squat so we’re in fact training in a way generates the adaptations that will be useful on race day. So maybe we’re doing squats, but doing them in a way to generate mitochondrial growth in the muscle fibers that can power our race day performances, not just going for X amount of repetitions or to see an increase in weight kind of over a period of time. But a more general oversight is we want to make sure that we're focusing on the parameters that are going to actually improve athletic performance rather than just hope that exercise X increased over period of time Y will lead to miraculous results, which is how I think most endurance athletes approach strength training: as something they have to just get out of the way so they can get back to what they want to be doing.
You mention the squat—is there another exercise that you see as beneficial to endurance athletes, or one that elucidates your process a bit more?
Triathlon is all about economy, but we're still going to need to rely on our big, fast twitch muscle fibers at certain times during a race. Especially if we're on a brutal course with tons of climbing. In that case we need our big fast twitch muscle fiber (which are historically inefficient, historically anaerobic) to be as aerobic or as resistant to fatigue as possible. We need to maintain a high power output over a period of time. Imagine I put Joe Triathlete on the treadmill this morning, and I said, "Joe, you're going to do walking lunges for ten minutes." If he starts at a certain pace and then slows down, I need him to start off a little slower. What we’re doing is finding the line in the sand where the bulk of his fast twitch muscle fibers are starting to fatigue. And then we try to push the boundary of fatigue a little higher each time so that you can do a little more fast twitch work each week. Rather than just using sets and reps, we would say, "Yes, this is a strength exercise, but we need to improve endurance and we need to improve it in a specific way, which means we're going to set parameters on this particular exercise." These two approaches are almost polar opposite. Both slow squats and walking lunges would be in the program of a 70.3 triathlete at times throughout the year because we both need to have incredible, oxidative qualities of our slow twitch muscle fibers, but we also need to be able to call upon a great deal of fast twitch muscle fibers and have them be as fresh and ready to go as possible.
How do you start working with an athlete? How do you assess their fitness?
If somebody comes to me, say a 50 year-old guy with high blood pressure who can't touch his toes, and wants to run a marathon, I'm not going to discourage him, but I'm going to give him a program to make him a little bit healthier, and making that guy healthier is going to significantly decrease his marathon time. So for him it’s more of a general health and wellness perspective, and just that attention will make it possible to finish the marathon, and for him that IS performance, so it’s not really different from someone you’d describe as elite: we’re trying to find out what performance means to different athletes. If somebody's not functioning at the level where they're able to train specifically without breaking down, then we need to get them to that level. And then once we're at the level where we're basically able to train hard without breaking down, you use the weight room to assess what areas of the body may need a little bit extra protection for the rigorous demands of the sport they’ve chosen.
Then I look at a variety of joint positions and range of motion positions to see if you can get into the positions required for your sport. And if you can’t, we need to identify and work on those limitations and restrict stress on those systems. Then—and this is probably the most important step±—we look at the isolated pieces of your health as an individual: injury history, static assessments on the table, blood pressure, resting heart rate, sleep quality, and things like that. Because if those areas have issues that need to be addressed, then addressing them is going to be the most performance enhancing program that that individual can have. Once those bars are met (and most people don’t meet those bars!), then and only then can we start talking about performance.
Ready to make a change in your training and racing? Join Daniel at the CBCGym using his Open Gym program, which gets you personal training-like attention in a small group format. Daniel will craft a program that meets your needs as an athlete and help you to achieve new heights. Athletes such as OBRA Road Race champion Annick Chalier use Daniel’s guidance, and whether your goal is a win or a completion, he can shorten your road to that goal and keep you healthier and happier, two of our biggest goals at CBCG.
Wave Starts Explained: the benefits, drawbacks, and strategies
by CBCG athlete Amy VT
Bodies were freckled along the bike path, in the dark of the morning, unmoving and wrapped in blankets. It was Ironman Chattanooga morning and I was baffled as to why shuttles began their 10-minute jaunt to swim start at 4:30 AM for a 7:30 AM start. Why would anyone want to sequester themselves at swim start for three hours, with fewer water resources and porta potties?
Oh! When I got there I realized that the new swim wave start system for age group athletes has some people freaking out about positioning. The estimated time signs (and volunteers wielding them) were already set up as early as 4 AM. The stretch described a full mile (!), and foresightful racers got there three hours early to stake their real estate claim with their blankets.
CBCG athlete Matthew Evans at Ironman Korea
The new system was implemented by Ironman® brand races over the past few years for many half- and most full-distance races, wherein your timing chip ignites when you cross the mat so you’re not wasting clock time between the gun firing and your actual start. From what we at CBCG can tell so far, there are mainly positive reasons and outcomes for the new system. There are some odd, if not awkward consequences, however, which certainly vary among races.
WAVE START BENEFITS
Reduced danger as swimmers are more apt to spread out
Smoother sailing for the fastest swimmers as they have more room at the front, confident their surrounded by like-time swimmers
Incentive for slower swimmers to wait and start towards the back without incurring a timing deficit
WAVE START CONCERNS
Your pre-race routine must account for time lining up in your corral
Self-seeding may creep as athletes line up in a faster corral, hoping to catch a draft ride or avoid getting blocked
The clock at the finish line is rendered erroneous, and the midnight cutoff a full Ironman is hideously awkward as Mike Reilly has to wait for the computer to tell him if someone, is, indeed an “Ironman”
A traditional lineup at smaller races like the Great White North Triathlon
No one wants to compromise her or his best swim possible. So, let’s focus on the controllables and what you can do to strategically approach your next race with a wave swim start.
RESEARCH
CBCG Coach Josh Sutton has his athletes investigate just what the wave start will look like since they vary among races. 2500 participants or 800? Deep water start, or dock, or beach? Wetsuit or swimskin? Timing? Here’s the homework Josh gives his athletes ahead of the race:
“Have a gameplan! Thoroughly read the athlete guide and attend the pre-race athlete briefing so you know exactly how the wave start will work. Physically scout the swim start (and possible corral location) to get the lay of the land. Nothing is worse than going in blind the morning of the race.”
LINE UP APPROPRIATELY
Josh offers this sage advice, “Line up just ahead of your expected pace. So, if you plan to swim 35 mins for a 70.3, line up in the back of 32-34 min group. This positioning should put you in a great drafting position behind those slightly faster swimmers. If you’re a beginner swimmer, or if the swim gives you major anxiety, don’t be afraid to start near the back. Avoiding the chaos up front will lead to a much more enjoyable experience.”
ADJUST YOUR WARMUP
If you have to secure your position long before the gun goes off, alá the run corrals in Boston Marathon, you need to adjust your peeing, trotting, swimming, fueling, and, well, everything you do before race start. Josh suggests:
“Write out a timeline for all of your pre-race activities. ‘Finish transition prep, last solid food snack 1hr before race start, 2nd bathroom stop 55min before, wetsuit on half way 45mins before, get to corral 30mins before, etc.’ These are just examples, adjust the times based on the pre-race scouting and your own individual activities. Don’t forget that those bathroom lines ALWAYS take longer than expected.”
So there it is. Wave starts are awesome as they increase safety and protect the fastest and slowest swimmers. I, personally, predict a creep in self-seeding, and I still cringe at the awkward midnight cutoff nuance, but those are meager fallouts from a largely beneficial shift in race logistics.
Mike Reilly is an ace at adapting and announcing with grace and unwavering spunk. So take Josh’s advice and “Scout, write a timeline-based plan, add extra time for porta-potties, and have your best race.”
One of our favorite venues: Penticton, BC! Photo courtesy CBCG athlete Sue Moote
So You Had a Bad Swim
by CBCG athlete Amy VT
There’s no avoiding it: the swim sets the tone and affects your mindset for the rest of the race. During a full iron-distance event it can be devastating to have things go so wrong, so soon, seemingly pulverizing your hopes for a certain goal.
Athletes hoping for a Kona spot or a PR might as well just pack it up and go home if they have a bad swim, right? Don’t even bother getting on the bike? Obviously not, but it can certainly feel like there’s no hope for that PR or Kona spot. In this week’s blog, let’s take a look at an extraordinary example of a bad swim turned into an awesome race, and how he did it. He is CBCG athlete Scott Goodrich.
Scott Goodrich at Ironman Wisconsin 2019
1486th out of the water. Scott Goodrich is a talented and strong triathlete who was certainly eligible to be in the running for a Kona qualification at Ironman Wisconsin last month. True, his swim is by far his weakest leg, but a 1:40 was far, far off his predicted time.
1338 spots. That’s how many spots Scott moved up as he tore through the majority of the field that day. Many competitive athletes’ momentum would erode after such a bad swim, irreparably wining their remaining eight hours of racing. So how did Scott shake it off, keep his head in the game, and proceed to pass over 1000 people that day?
Image: IRONMAN® Tracker app
“Evolve and have fun!” Scott reports. “I was able to quickly change my perspective of the day based on the conditions, and tapped into my drive to fight even though my goal was compromised.
“All indications and my preparation considered, I was realistically set to swim around 1:18 to 1:20. Race morning, however, winds were whipping out of the East, portending rough conditions that were only intensifying at race start. My start was perfect until I breathed to the left, met with far too much chop and a big gulp of lake. I started working on my timing of the swell, but there was no rhythm.
“The left at the second turn buoy introduced head-on swell, waves breaking, and white caps. My pattern was rendered chaotic at best as my face was consumed by water to the right...try to the left...face still underwater…shit…out of breath...full stop. ‘Okay, goal change for the day needs to happen now,’ I told myself. ‘This is going to be a long swim no matter what, so don’t worry about the time. It’s time to fight like hell!’
“Finally out of the water, I saw the damage: 1:40. It was tempting to revel in my disappointment, but I focused on these truths:
1. disappointing, yes; controllable, no
2. it was a rough swim for everyone
3. I still had a lot of the day left, including a very fun ride
“My main takeaway was that I was proud of my ability to quickly adapt, shifting my focus on the rest of the race as though the clock was reset. I was unprecedentedly focused leading up the race, nailing my training and setting an ambitious, but realistic plan with my coach.That focus allowed me to rip a fast technical bike and run, taking advantage of my strengths when I could. Evolve and have fun!
Scott finishing Ironman Wisconsin strong
Other examples:
Jim Lubinski, professional triathlete - “Ironman Los Cabos 2014: the water in Cabo is extremely salty, and I must have swallowed half of the ocean. I exited the water so far behind the leaders, I figured there was no hope to place among them, let alone catch up to the mid-pack. I just got on the bike, anyway, surrounded by the women and first age groupers, which didn’t help my ego. I felt so nauseous on the bike I made myself puke, letting the half of the ocean I swallowed out while riding along at 20+mph. I just kept trucking and went on to have the fastest marathon in the race at 2:54 good for 11th Place overall.”
Rachel McBride, professional triathlete - “2008: I was dead last out of the water at US ITU Elite Nationals, but finished top 10! Back in the day (in my late 20s), I was racing short course triathlon and had my sights set on the Olympic stream. At the 2008 Elite Nats at Hagg Lake, Oregon, I came out of the water DEAD LAST, much to my dismay as I had been working hard on my swim. I was three full minutes behind current long course superstars Sarah True and Jen Spieldenner, and I mean, like, not even at the tail end of a pack. Just all on my lonesome. Yikes. It was pretty discouraging to look behind me and see literally no one else. From that moment on I stopped looking back and set my sights on forward - got myself up to a solid pack of cyclists thanks to one of the fastest T1s of the day and blowing a few matches early on. I remember the run also being particularly tough, and I gutted it out to finish 9th place. Top-10 at US Elite Nationals was a pretty rad result to add to my resume!”
Zach Wiens, CBCG alumnus - “I had the worst swim of my life at Ironman Cozumel 2013. I swallowed a couple gallons of salt water, threw up and then fought a current that felt like it had me at a standstill. In fact, I swam 4:00 per 100-meters for the last 1200 or so! I decided I was going to quit before I even got out of the water, but I somehow convinced myself to get on the bike. It took almost an hour on the bike to feel normal again but I got there, and finished with a huge smile at the end of one of the most (ultimately) enjoyable races of my life!”
Amy VT, professional triathlete - “I looked up and couldn’t see anyone or anything in any direction. I yelled HELLO to no response, and didn’t even know which way to swim. It was a foggy Ironman Mont Tremblant 2018, and I was dead last out of the water with an impossible 20 whole minutes off my goal time. I was so far back I ended up dead last off the bike, too, making the prospect of the marathon less-than savory. I ended up running down six girls, however, into the money spot, so poutine was on me that day!” (It was difficult tracking her down for that quote.)
Rachel McBride out of the water and focussed on T1
What do all the above stories of perseverance have in common? Focus, patience, and belief:
They all refused to let the disappointment sour their attitude and momentum.
They all stuck to the plan to pass all those racers and have great outcomes (in other words, they didn’t burn matches trying to furiously make up time or places).
They all shifted their focus extremely rapidly (in other words, they didn’t dwell on it throughout their ride).
When you have a bad swim, we hope you can channel their focus, patience, and belief and, in the words of Scott Goodrich, “EVOLVE!”
Sugar Water: It’s Not Just for Racing Anymore
by CBCG Athlete Amy VT
“I never drink water.” - Matt Lieto, professional triathlete and the voice of IronmanLive®
It’s always a good idea to try new things on race day, right? You would never christen a shoe, saddle, or sock at a race without significant mileage of testing beforehand, and nutrition and hydration products are no exception.
Head CBCG coach Chris Bagg says, “Athletes often avoid sports drinks in training, potentially to cut down on sugar and calories. Unfortunately, that typically leads to athletes complaining about GI issues on race day that could have been prevented with better training practices. Moreover, athletes frequently shortchange the quality of any given workout by skipping optimal fueling.”
So, why can’t we just eat our fuel and supplement with water? In a word: absorption. Whether training or racing, endurance athletes need the sugars (plural!) and elements that only sports drinks can provide, and absorption rates affect performance so drastically that it’s essential to hydrate with a scientific approach to what’s in your bottle.
CBCG Athlete John Seddon, en route to a 70.3 PR with two bottles visible and a third inside his downtube
So now that we know why can’t we just eat our sugars - A.K.A. carbs A.K.A. energy - what the heck is the diff among sucrose, glucose, fructose, malto, and so on? If you’re a CBCG athlete, your coach has prescribed sports drink in your race plans, largely informed by what will be on course. Ideally the concoction contains a blend of sugars that absorb at different rates, in addition to other key elements like electrolytes, potassium, and sodium.
Dr. Asker Jeukendrup was a pioneer of studying absorption, and he posits, “Although it is known that carbohydrate (CHO) feedings during exercise improve endurance performance...studies using (stable) isotope methodology have shown that not all carbohydrates are oxidised at similar rates...Glucose, sucrose, maltose, maltodextrins and amylopectin are oxidised at high rates. Fructose, galactose and amylose have been shown to be oxidised at 25 to 50% lower rates. Combinations of multiple transportable CHO may increase the total CHO absorption.” *
Check out this infographic of how a dual source performed versus a single (and placebo). †
Now let’s explore an ideal sports drink. Indulge me as I gush about my personal favorite product the brand new PowerBar® Isoactive sports drink mix. Eric Zaltas, founder of Pivot Nutrition LLC, is at the helm, of the PowerBar Sport® And describes this awesome new product, “Isoactive's 60 grams of C2Max carbs per liter of the drink speeds energy to your muscles. Work your way up 70-90 grams of C2Max/hour or as close as you can comfortably get to see your endurance times improve.”
The stuff is designed for rapid absorption, and, ergo, transport of energy to muscles. I personally love the flavor, and find the specific ingredients even more ideal considering there’s ample electrolytes and sodium so I don’t need to worry about salt tabs or nuthin’ else.
But what if you just can’t keep sports drink down the hatch during a race? What if it makes you hurl or you just can’t stand the taste? Here’s what Chris has to say to that: “It’s likely you haven’t practiced it enough it your training! If it’s just the flavor making you nauseated, think of it as medicine.” Indeed, race day isn’t a trip to the ice cream parlor. Nothing should be tasty.
And how about Amy VT’s secret trick? I find that training with the type of plastic bottle (some fine day it will be more enviro-friendly) that will be on course can be useful. I need every nanosecond I can spare in a race, and nailing the one-handed (or teeth) twisty-turny to open and then close those disposable bottles is an art. In fact, last race I encountered the surprise of an actual plastic cap on a hinge that you had to open and close with your teeth for each sip. Race day is no time for surprises, so I find and start with the exact product and disposable bottle in my cage.
OK, what are our takeaways? We need sports drink to absorb carbohydrates at different levels. We need to train with it, too. We need to find out what’s on course. We need to drink a lot, and drink early. Talk to your coach about what’s right for you, and relish drinking the Kool-Aid.
CBCG Swim Smooth Hood River Camp Round Two
CBCG Swim Camper Nicole Van Baelen is All Thumbs Up
Our second Swim Smooth/CBCG Swim Camp in Hood River is scheduled! We are returning to the Columbia Gorge for another couple of days of swim analysis and instruction on October 19-20 at the fantastic Hood River Aquatic Center. Our first Hood River swim camp was a huge success, but instead of plugging ourselves, we’ll let one of our campers speak for us:
“What the heck is swim camp? Let me break it down: 2 days, 2 amazing coaches, 4 campers/swimmers, 2 hours of video analysis, 8 hours in the pool with a swim test, specific instruction on drills targeted at your ‘opportunities,’ lots of time to practice those drills, culminating in a massive swim set aimed at testing what we learned. Chris and Molly of CBCG are so knowledgeable, plus they made learning and working hard fun.
I was able to feel a significant improvement in my swimming over the course of the two days. The decreased level of effort I expended to swim FASTER was unbelievable. I also had the opportunity to spend the weekend with three amazing people who are now friends that I’ll see again. Nicole, Jenny and Sebastian, until next time!”
Pretty good, huh? We think so too, and we’re really happy that our camper was so happy. Swim instruction is incredibly important for triathletes, and it’s rare to spend an entire weekend focused on all the different aspects of a proper open-water freestyle stroke. Here’s the schedule for our next camp in Hood River:
Saturday (Day One)
8-10am—session one: threshold testing, CSS swimming, and videotaping
10am-12pm—classroom: video analysis of your stroke in a group setting, which helps you see that all swimmers are different, which is the Swim Smooth way!
12-2pm—session two: introduction to the Swim Smooth primary drills
Sunday (Day Two)
8-10am—session three: stroke correction session and technique/endurance session
10am-12pm—a much needed break!
12-2pm—session four: the mysterious and effective Red Mist Set!
If that sounds like something you need, then head here to sign up! We are limiting camp to eight participants, so make this a priority if improving your swim is something that interests you this winter!
REMY MAGUIRE WANTS YOU TO BE STOKED (both happy and well-fed)
Our new coach, Remy Maguire, in action at The Sisters Stampede
"I love helping people discover the life changing aspects of triathlon, appreciate what their bodies (and minds) can do, set big goals, reach big goals, improve their relationship with food and do amazing things." Remy Maguire tells me, and then concludes the whole thing with a smile. “That’s it. That’s what I’m excited about doing.” I’m talking to the coach/athlete/nutritionist over at Nike World Headquarters, where she’s dropped in to see what our swim classes are like and to talk about what makes her tick as a coach.
We’ve had a lot of changes recently at CBCG, with our new gym getting the most attention, but we’re also super excited about the people who have come on board: Remy Maguire, Juliet Hochman, and Daniel Silver. Remy, similar to the rest of us, coaches triathletes, runners, swimmers, and cyclists, but she’s got another superpower in her bag of tricks: she specializes in nutrition and works to help others optimize their bodies, for life and for performance. It’s a piece we’ve been missing at CBCG, frankly, and we’re all stoked to see how Remy can help our clients get even faster and happier.
There are two ways you can optimize your fueling with Remy: with short-term packages and ongoing subscriptions. Read on to learn how she can help you achieve your goals. When you’re ready, you can head here to sign up. Not sure if you’re ready, but want to learn more? You can book a free fifteen-minute session with Remy to find out if her services are right for you.
Part One: Initial Assessment ($100)
First, we’ll meet with you, ideally in person (or via videoconference), and go through the following steps:
review of 3-day food diary
review of medical history
overall nutrition assessment
individualized goal setting
guidance on meal planning
basic nutrition education
If that’s enough for you, then you’re good! You’ll leave this session with a greater understanding of how to manage your daily nutrition, and you’ve taken an awesome step to better health and improved performance. If you need more, though, then we’re on to part two…
Part Two: Ongoing Consultations
We offer two routes, here: a monthly subscription for three-, six-, and nine-month periods, or a set number of follow-up meetings that you can schedule at any time with Remy. During your meetings, you’ll review your progress and cover the following:
review of habits, goals and progress
nutrition education
guidance on meal planning
advice for navigating obstacles
Monthly Subscriptions
bi-weekly follow-up meetings that cover the above topics, keeping you on target for three, six, or nine months, coaching you to lasting change in your nutritional habits.
$200/month for three months, $190/month for six months, and $180/month for nine months (subscription costs are in addition to the initial assessment)
Unlimited email and text support
Meeting Packages
GET THE BALL ROLLING!
$200.00
Whether you need a hand to get started, reenergize your workouts, break out of a rut, or simply get some new ideas for meals or a boost of motivation to keep going – this package is for you.
1 initial assessment
2 follow-ups
MAKE REAL PROGRESS
$330.00
Tired of the all-or-nothing approach to a healthy lifestyle? Are you ready to figure out how to incorporate better eating habits into your daily routine? With this package, real progress can be made creating good habits and making them stick.
1 initial assessment
5 follow-ups
OPTIMIZE RESULTS
$450.00
You’ve been working hard at staying healthy and fit and are ready to add the next piece of the puzzle to your life – then pick this package to dig in and get the information, motivation and support you need to feel your best. If you are committed to creating a healthier lifestyle this option is for you.
1 initial assessment
8 follow-ups
CBCGYM Opens Today
CBCG Head Coach Molly Balfe Working in the CBCGym
CBCG is proud to announce the #CBCGym Summer Schedule! Starting on August 2nd, join us for the following classes and get faster, happier, and healthier for your training and racing lifestyle. Check out the below schedule for a description of classes, and instructions on how to sign up now!
Weekly Classes
Monday Morning Routine
We are thrilled to offer a CBCGym exclusive class that combines 40 minutes of the “basic strength you never do,” 10 minutes of heart rate variability breathing, and 10 minutes of journaling. Start your week off right by joining the ranks of high achievers who are using morning routines to clarify and achieve their goals! You will need a journal for this class.
Tuesday/Thursday Spin
Come take on some high intensity intervals in a fast-paced class designed to make you stronger and faster on your bike. Challenge yourself with workouts designed to create breakthrough performances—all while listening to tunes with your friends!
Friday Evening Restorative
End your week with a restorative class that uses elements of Yoga, Kinstretch®, and functional movement. Unwind your stress and unlock your body to stay strong and prevent injury.
Open Gym
Is it possible to have the coaching and individual assessment of a personal trainer with the community and price point of a group environment? What about with the flexibility, open hours, no set time, and structure of a gym membership? Yes—that’s within reach, and Daniel Silver’s Open Gym is just that. Come in, meet with your coach about your goals, go through any specific assessments, get added to our system, and you’re a member of the team. From there, you are able to sign up for any open gym hours each week. Your training program will be provided and explained, and your coach will be there at any open hours to help you through your program. You’ll sign up for one, two, or three sessions per week, depending on your goals, sport, and times available to train.
$99/month – one weekly workout (four sessions/month)
$150/month – two weekly workouts (eight sessions/month)
$175/month – three weekly workouts (twelve sessions/month)
You can also use two class passes to attend an open gym session if you do not have a subscription. Single drop-ins will be $30 each.
Personal Training
If you would prefer one-to-one strength training, schedule a session with one of our strength coaches! Contact us for pricing and availability.
How To Sign Up
Both Class Passes and Open Gym subscriptions can be purchased on our website. We ask that you sign up in advance for specific classes to ensure your spot. To register, just click on the class you want to attend and fill out your name and email address. If you have class passes, click “Redeem Coupon or Package.” If you need to buy more, click “Pay Now.”
Morning Routine: Our New Class at CBCGym
Morning routines are all the rage. From Tim Ferris to Rich Roll, people who aspire to be high achievers are adopting some kind of regular routine from the moment they awake to the second their butts hit their chairs at work (or their feet hit their standing desk pads because it’s 2019, yo!). Ferris likes to quote W.H. Auden, who says “Routine, in an intelligent [person], is a sign of ambition.” Now, maybe the whole ambition thing isn’t really your bag, which is totally fine and understandable. But if making change in your life is something you want, then you have at least that type of ambition. I talked about this way back in January, after coming back to Portland after a blissful two weeks in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Needing a change and a way to kickstart my physical therapy routine, I began with a simple start: eight minutes of any PT exercises before I got to drink my coffee. After about a week, I did my exercises, grabbed my coffee, and banged out some gratitude journaling. By the end of the third week I added ten minutes of writing to the end of the journaling. Right now, as I write these words, I’ve got three minutes left on my daily ten minute timer of writing, which I’ve completed just about every morning in 2019. Here are some of the results from the seven months of routine:
A return to regular running, mostly pain-free (and waaaaaaay better than where I left things in December)
More power going uphill on the bike, due to daily clamshells
Greater stability in everything I do, due to regular core work
A huge uptick in published articles around the Interwebs, with an ensuing rise in freelance pay
A more expansive sense of gratitude throughout each day
A plan for the day and for the following seven days—i.e. a sense of sanity in an often too chaotic world
So that’s all well and good for me—what does this mean for you?
You’ve heard about our new announcement regarding the CBCGym. Now we’ll begin letting you know about the new classes we’ll be offering, and this is one of them. Every Monday morning at 6am, I will lead a class consisting of the following:
40 minutes of the “basic strength you never do,” such as:
internal/external rotation clamshells
banded arm pull-aparts/circles for scapular stability
ab braces and core moves
hamstring curls on stability balls or benches
hip flexor stretches to avoid high hamstring tendinopathy
movements to strengthen and mobilize ankles and knees
basic joint health
10 minutes of heart rate variability breathing, intended to get your autonomic nervous system to chill out!
10 minutes of journaling, where you’ll use the following structure
three things for which you are grateful
three things you want to accomplish within three months
three things that will make TODAY a win for you
three things that you want to accomplish by the following Monday
So yes, you will need a journal for this strength class! We will have ones for you to purchase at the gym if you’d like, but any old notebook will do, really.
Sound like something you’d like to try? You can head here, to our brand new gym page, and sign up for one class OR a package of classes, and we’ll see you on the first Monday in August!
Enter the CBCGym: We Have a Big Announcement!
CBCG has Some Big News!
What’s happening: We are thrilled to announce that on August 1st, 2019, we will be opening the CBCGym! As you may have heard, Shawn Bostad, owner of Steelhead Coaching, and his family are moving back to Texas. While Portland will be sad to see them go, we couldn’t be more excited to take this opportunity to expand CBCG and to have a physical space allowing us to serve as the physical, philosophical, and spiritual hub of CBCG. We are thrilled to be joining forces with Juliet Hochman, Remy Maguire, and Jon Eng to offer support for the whole athlete, including endurance coaching, strength coaching, personal training, nutrition counseling, and physical therapy.
What you can expect: The Gym will be a space for Portland endurance athletes to come together for high-quality training sessions, educational opportunities, and community building. The content we offer will support our overarching goal of helping athletes become faster, happier, healthier people. We will be releasing more information about our schedule in the coming weeks, but you can expect:
Coached workouts to help you exceed your training goals
Lecture series from coaches, experts, and athletes
Community events that deepen your network of endurance athletes
Come Celebrate: We can’t think of a better way to warm up our new space than by filling it with all of you! Please join us on August 1st from 6:00-9:00 PM to check out the CBCGym and say hi to friends and training buddies. We’ll have beverages and snacks and maybe even some competitions. Can’t wait to see you all there!
The CBCGym Warming Party
Thursday, August 1st
6:00-9:00 PM
2635 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232
When Calamity Strikes: five do’s and don’ts for coping with adversity in a race
by CBCG Athlete Amy VT
Phil Collins chucked a beer can across the room.
Johnny Depp tele-marketed fountain pens.
Chrissie Wellington got a flat tire at Kona.
These three moments in history have a common thread: they reveal successful people in the throes of adversity. In our last blog I highlighted a few consummate examples of #fiercelyselfreliant athletes at our annual CBCG Camp in Bend, Oregon. The idea is that practicing resilience can arm athletes with the ability to cope should something go wrong in a race, so this week I unpack five classic examples of setbacks in triathlon, and how to, in the words of Beyoncé (specifically Jay-Z’s grandmother), turn “lemons into lemonade.”
Let’s begin with the above three examples. During a seminole studio session for the legendary band Genesis, Brian Eno endeavored to spark creativity by having band members draw cards, forcing them to play another instrument than their own. Phil Collins drew the “drum” card. He allegedly grew so frustrated that he threw several beer cans across the room. Tough day in the studio for the brilliant musician, but we all know how it turned out. Genesis produced amazing, globally chart-topping albums, featuring Phil, himself, on the drums.
Speaking of knowing how the story turns out, you can guess that anything Johnny Depp endured in his youth ultimately worked out for the dude. Similar to Phil, he was forced to do something he hadn’t planned on when he dropped out of high school and wasn’t let back in. He became a telemarketer, hawking pens of all things to unwitting phone answerers. That seemingly sucky job forced Johnny to adopt different personas and act-out effusive pen-demanding scenarios as he tried to make a sale, revealing his talent, and, ergo, igniting his career in acting.
photo: slowtwitch.com
Most relevantly, we triathletes would be remiss to ever forget Chrissie Wellington’s Kona victory a decade ago in spite of a flat tire. Arguably the most competitive triathlon in the world, and arguably the most frustrating uncontrollable setback in a race, Chrissie lost 10 full minutes due to a puncture, and still managed to win. Beginning with punctures, let’s now look at five examples of worst-nightmare-worthy adversity in triathlon, and how to overcome them with some semblance of smarts and grace.
photo: gameyum.com
1. Flat Tire - D’oh!
👍🏽What to do - Ignore the cyclists going by. There’s actually only one move when you get a flat: change it. CBCG Coach Molly Balfe offers sage advice, “The best thing any athlete can do when they get hit with a mechanical is to stick with their plan when they get back in the saddle.” This strategy avoids the #1 mistake athletes make, which is...
👎🏽What not to do - Coach Molly continues, “If you get a flat, drop your chain, loose your water bottles, etc., it can be really tempting to try to make up the time you lost. It is far better to get back on your plan since the time you spend frantically trying to ‘catch up’ will certainly have consequences later in the race. The longer you’re racing, the more important it is to let these seconds go.”
Indeed, so many athletes focus on the dialog “...but I was up there and now I lost all those places!” when really the only thing to do is to recommence cycling at your prescribed numbers, pretending like the clock stopped for you during your time on the side of the road.
As an aside note, please, please, please, especially if you’re a CBCG Athlete, do not gripe about your flat after the race to anyone save for a few close friends and your coach. Word to the wise: mention of flats (or pretty much any other form of adversity) has no business on social media.
Head CBCG Coach Chris Bagg a the Great White North Triathlon photo: Ken Anderson
2. Bad Stomach - barf!
👍🏽What to do - keep drinking and eating. ‘Nuff said. You won’t be able to finish a half- or full-iron-distance race if you’re not hydrated and fueled, so even if you keep barfing, there’s no choice than to just keep forcing it down. Uncomfortable for sure, but it’s really up to you to either DNF or keep going. Obvi, if you continue to wretch with agony, or if you are too dizzy to ride safely, it’s time to call it quits, but vomiting happens (CBCG Coaches may suggest you hadn’t trained enough with race-relevant fuel), and the mentally strongest athletes puke and redeem.
👎🏽What not to do - stop drinking and eating.
photo: meredithkessler.com
3. Legs Won’t Run - oooph!
👍🏽What to do - keep moving forward. When Ironman Champion Meredith Kessler is approached by a first time iron-distance hopeful, she shares a mantra for them to repeat, “Continual forward motion.” If a biomechanical renders you unable to run, your goal should be to see if and when you can start trotting again, right? So keep speed walking the line of best fit as you try to pick it up every 60 seconds or so.
Even if you keep trying and you keep walking...for 26 miles...CBCG head coach Chris Bagg, for one, is a fan of finishing races no matter what. Plagued by years of not being able to run off the bike due to a chronic injury, Chris has had to walk off the course, in some cases sparing himself from five hours of sunburn, but when at all possible he errs on the side of finishing, often spewing the reminder to all his athletes, “What else are you going to do that day?”
I personally once ran past Meredith Kessler (a phrase that begs for an explanation) because she was walking. I’ll never forget how she cheered, “Go VT!” because she was walking away from the finish line on an out-and-back! She had resolved to walk the marathon in deference to the spirit of the race, in addition to the opportunity to cheer on runners. A pure class act, that Kessler.
👎🏽What not to do - give up.
photo: Wallmart.com
4. Goggles Kicked-Off - crap!
👍🏽What to do - there are only three options: retrieve them, swim the remainder without them, or pull out of the swim if they’re gone, as in the case of an iron-distance swim in salt water. If they’re still on your head or within reach, you’ll probably cause mayhem as you tread water and swimmers collide with you, so the key will be calmly and slowly reentering your freestyle flow.
If you end up swimming without goggles, the worst part will be glimpsing your watch when you hit shore. With a swim time way slower than you planned, you’ll need some supreme mental strength to bike and run as planned without getting distracted by discouragement or trying to compensate with speed.
👎🏽What not to do - it might be impossible to not incite turbulence with other swimmers, so the only controllable mistake you can avoid would be to dramatically swing right back into freestyle too soon. That would spike your heart rate, invite water choking, and prolong your panic. If you do have to pull out of the swim (be sure... give it at least a minute of treading water before you decide), then flagging down a kayak and extracting yourself from the pack can be harrowing. You should do so via breaststroke with your head up at all times - never try to dive under the school. Nota bene: when you’re back on shore, dial up my article on coping with DNF’s.
photo: slowtwitch.com
5. Crash - yikes!
👍🏽What to do - pull over. Get you and your bike off the road, and then take two breaths to control your shot of adrenaline. Then survey your body for cuts, and test out every joint head-to-toe. Actually wiggle your neck, shoulders, wrists, and everything down the line. Then check your helmet and bike, spinning the chain and everything. Only if you passed those exams should you get back in the game safely (I’ve seen more than one cycling re-entry result in a subsequent crash). If there’s another victim, make sure she is OK or has help on the way, which we know all CBCG Athletes will do.
👎🏽What not to do - never, ever, ever get back in a race without conducting the above survey first. Your second crash might be worse when you can’t shift because your arm is actually broken, masked by your adrenaline. Strategically, you should also follow the above flat tire advice.
Adversity rewards strengths and exposes weaknesses. It seems to all boil down to that adage when it comes to handling setbacks in races. Of course there are countless other things that can go wrong (I harbor a fear that I’ll be handed the wrong run bag at two-transition races), and the common denominator to grappling with the unexpected is to exhibit mental strength.
Mentally weaker athletes immediately focus on lost goals, unable to divorce their thoughts from not making that time or place. Worse yet, they end up making dumb mistakes to compensate for the calamity. Mentally strong athletes, conversely, are able to divorce the obstacle from their outcome. They avoid writing a script about how their race might be ruined, in what capacity, and the reenter as though the clock stopped for them.
When Chrissie got a flat, we know she never disbelieved she could win because, well, she won. Perhaps we should all think of her the second something goes wrong in a race. It doesn’t have to mean we will necessarily still attain our precise finish goal, but we should all channel her grace and wisdom, and the moment we get a puncture our first thought should be, “Remember Chrissie.”
#FiercelySelfReliant: the Best Way to Make Camp Workouts Race-relevant
by CBCG Athlete Amy VT
“Be fiercely self-reliant tomorrow,” said Christopher Bagg, head coach and leader of our annual spring training Camp in spectacular Bend, Oregon.
Chris was debriefing the next day’s long ride, imploring the concept of autonomy not because Camp staff weren’t at the ready with exceptional SAG and support (which we love to provide!), but because it’s actually ridiculously race-relevant to practice self-reliance and resilience during training. Camps provide an optimal opportunity for race simulation, especially when Campers resolve these questions:
WHAT IF I WAS ON MY OWN FOR THIS RIDE?
WHAT WOULD I DO IF THIS *INSERT ADVERSITY* HAPPENED IN A RACE?
Bend Campers sporting their Wattie Ink. custom kits
We at CBCG believe the best way to parlay Camp to race-readiness is to surmount the above questions in real-time. To maximize a Camp experience is to seize opportunities to practice total autonomy during long workouts, and to practice real-time fixes or adjustments when adversity strikes. This week we’d like to highlight three consummate exemplars from our Bend Camp who were #FiercelySelfReliant.
1. Kristen Hughes
Kristen knew no one coming into Camp, and she’d never been to Bend. Talk about brave; I am personally unsure I could ever be such a daring trailblazer. Camps can be daunting to begin with, but not knowing what to expect, and having met nary a Camper nor coach exhibits utmost courage.
How was it, then, that Kristen was entirely self-reliant during all workouts, and grew exponentially stronger and faster over the course of five days? Her success stemmed from these clutch moves:
1. Kristen was immune to competing with other Campers. Pro move right there. So many Campers, especially those new to groups, get caught up in racy demonstrations, especially during the first Camp workouts. Even those who swear they don’t feel like they have anything to prove are subconsciously drawn to strutting their stuff early, or when coaches explicitly command moderate or easy effort. Kristen was steady, if not conservative during the first few workouts, and then, can you guess what happened? That’s right. She ended up relatively stronger than anyone during final sessions. On the penultimate day, several of us marveled, “Where did she come from?” She is Kristen, and she comes from the land of wisdom. She will be stronger at her next race.
2. Kristen prepped for rides as though she was going solo. On our second day, Kristen faced down a century ride reconnoitering the hinterlands of central Oregon. She guaranteed her own confidence and success, however, by downloading routes to her device, studying them before-hand, and packing as much fuel as possible. Of course our SAG vehicles were bountiful along the way, one with Tour de France soigneur extraordinaire Kurt Marion at the helm, but Kristen wouldn’t have freaked out if support wasn’t there at any given turn because: WHAT IF I WAS ON MY OWN FOR THIS RIDE?
Self-reliant enough to research and find her own solo adventure aprés Camp, Kristen camped out and went hiking in Bend the next day. Congrats on LA Tri, Kristen, and thanks for joining us!
Kristen running and riding stronger than prior days during Monday’s brick sesh
2. Kelsey Bledsoe
Ask any Camper about Kelsey and she or he will tell you the same thing: she was always smiling. It was almost freaky - freaky because Kelsey had never been to a Camp, never ridden a century (by half!), and never, ever trained so much over five days. Going into Camp, both Kelsey and her CBCG Coach Molly Balfe aimed to sort of “see how it goes” every day. Welp, every day was stellar, and Kelsey did 100% of every workout despite Molly’s offering of rip cords. Moreover, she always donned said abiding smile.
She was definitely feeling it towards the end of Camp, but she kept showing up (with signature smile) ready for the full workout because: WHAT WOULD I DO IF THIS FATIGUE HAPPENED IN A RACE?
What made Kelsey so resilient? Coach Molly attributes it to her fierce self-reliance, “Kelsey had never done a ride over 45 miles before Camp, so she was understandably nervous that morning. She got to base camp early with basically everything she owns so she would have options for all kinds of conditions. She totally crushed her ride, and was tired at the end of course, but she made good decisions throughout. In fact, she rode all that camp fitness to a 2:35 first Olympic Distance last weekend!”
Talk about race-relevant Camp experience...congrats, Kelsey!
Kelsey seriously looked like this the whole Camp - the most she’s ever trained in fie days by double!
3. Ann Hill
Ann just might be the most intrepid Camper I have ever witnessed. She was continually extended get-out-of-jail-free cards tendered by coach Molly, who saw legit reasons why she might want to cut a workout short. She took none. The most salient example was our final day, when rain and cold conditions made descending Skyliners Road less-than comfortable. Most Campers bailed on their last repeat - heartily condoned by coaches who’d rather everyone be safe and comfortable - but Ann went back up.
Ann had a jacket. Ann had grit. Ann went back up because: WHAT WOULD I DO IF COLD RAIN HAPPENED IN A RACE?
Coach Molly attests, “I figured Ann would turn around and head back to the parking lot, but when I hadn’t seen her 15 minutes later I got worried that she’d gotten cold and pulled over. We took one of the SAG vehicles up to find any remaining campers, and saw Ann cruising down the hill with a big smile on her face, dismissing a pickup and responding, ‘No thanks, I think I’ll ride!’”
Our final day at Camp called for a final run that most Campers eschewed due to travel needs or physical fatigue. I swear Ann had more spring in her step on that final workout than anyone. Three days later she was spotted updating her Facebook profile pic with the below pic and the self-described caption, “The great Ann Hill.” I love this woman.
Our brick sesh before the rain came…nothing can stop Ann
Again, CBCG Camp staff relish supporting, SAG-ing, and providing enjoyable experiences. We consider our Camps a premium experience, and hope Campers revel in five days of having everything taken care of for them, save for their own physical training. CBCG Coaches also want your next race to rock, though, which is why Chris and all the CBCG Coaches hope Campers line up at their next one with some gritty experience having practiced being #FiercelySelfReliant.
Caffeine and Watts Tackle Belgian Waffle Ride—Triathletes Trying New Modes of Suffering
Riders at the start of this year's Belgian Waffle Ride
by Chris Bagg
Ed. Note—all of us have been there at some point: an injury or desire for something new has moved us away from triathlon for a spell, and we look for some way to spend our hard-won fitness. Longtime Wattie Ink. professional triathlete Chris Bagg is spending much of 2019 racing for sister company Caffeine and Watts at gravel races around the country, and competed in the iconic Belgian Waffle Ride last weekend. He joins us to explain how triathletes may want to give this "new" kind of racing a shot.
I’m sitting on a flight home from San Diego to Portland trying to describe endurance fatigue. For me, it feels…fuzzy, as if my skin had an extra layer or film on top of it. Not unlike the early warning signs of coming down with something, my body seems to want to get away from itself, to molt like a snake or a lobster in search of a new home. Why the attempt to catalogue fatigue? Well, I spent this past Sunday (and the preceding weekend) on a new kind of bicycle, the “gravel bike,” a chimera that incorporates aspects from road, cyclocross, and mountain bike design. At this point, you’ve probably heard of gravel racing, maybe even seen pictures of grim, grime-faced riders toiling through clouds of dust, stretches of mud or sand, spread across both lanes of blissfully car-free roads. Gravel or mixed-terrain racing, despite the moment-in-the-sun it’s enjoying, is no new thing. What is Paris-Roubaix, after all, other than a mixed-terrain race? Or any of the Tour de France stages before, say, 1960? There are long-toothed gravel road races right here in the states, such as Western Massachusetts’ D2R2 or the venerable Battenkill-Roubaix (now Tour of the Battenkill), have been kicking around since the late 1990s or early aughties. Gravel racing, really, is just an acknowledgement by many that roads don’t have to be perfect, and that additional adversity is something to be welcomed.
That was a long preamble, wasn’t it? Apologies—it’s easy to get rambling on this sort of subject. I’ll return to the subject at hand: fatigue. It’s a deep, abiding one, because I participated in the 8th Belgian Waffle Ride this past Sunday, on the heels of the Cascade Gravel Omnium the week prior, which may be the first race of its kind in the United State (Rebecca’s Private Idaho probably got to “Gravel Stage Race” first, but a points-scored omnium is something new). I’ve been taking a bit of a hiatus from triathlon thus far this year, trying to fix a recalcitrant hip and hamstring, and have been lucky to land a spot on the new Caffeine and Watts Gravel Racing team, which will participate at some of the bigger gravel races throughout the year: Belgian Waffle Ride, Dirty Kanza, SBT GRVL (Steamboat Springs), and the aforementioned Rebecca’s Private Idaho, with smaller races scattered throughout. Lots of you reading are triathletes, so I’ll tailor my BWR report to speak to what you might experience, should you decide to dabble in this kind of racing.
Caffeine and Watts rider DeLayne Hart, on a recon ride the day before the race
The Belgian Waffle Ride is what you get when you’ve got a taste for longer rides, you live in Southern California, you’re a bit sick of the usual road routes, and you love the road races that take place in Belgium and northern France from February to April: hard, long races with plenty of short, sharp climbs (“bergs”) interspersed between tiny cobbled roads and hamlets. The first edition was in 2010, and it grew from a curiosity into a segment-leading model. While not a true gravel race, it features (this year at least) 46 miles of dirt and single-track inside its 134 mile length. The 2019 edition saw many legitimate road cycling professionals stick a toe into the water, resulting in one of the faster/harder races yet. I was there to experience it, but also to get a big day of racing in my legs ahead of (gulp) the 209 miles that await me in Kansas at Dirty Kanza in just a few short weeks. BWR begins with an eleven mile “neutral” roll-out that devolved, unsurprisingly, into an all-out sprint for the first section of dirt. I knew positioning would be important, and did what I could to be near the front of the pack, but 300 riders makes for a dynamic, shifty field! If you are a triathlete coming across to this style of racing, I would find some local road races to get comfortable with this sort of pack riding. It is fast and cutthroat, and you have to keep your wits about you and be comfortable with some amount of contact. If that’s not for you, simply drift to the back, knowing that you’ll be behind some traffic jams once you hit the dirt. I managed to be in the middle third of the field (I think) when we first hit the dirt, which separated me from the front of the field (not that I would have been able to stay up there on the road sections, either), but meant I wasn’t too far back once we completed the first two miles of single-track, which is called Lemontwistenberg, probably due to the small, hand-lettered, ancient sign advertising “Lemon Twists” about a mile back along the main road. This section of dirt did what it is supposed to do: break the 300-person field up into groups of 30-40 riders, and it was with one of those, along with teammate James Walsh, in which I settled into the rest of my day.
One of the dirt sections of the BWR
And what a day it was! I won’t bore you with all the particulars, but I can’t remember having as much fun on a bike. The vibe at BWR is “racy with a hint of irony,” as died-in-the-wool road racers, mountain bikers, cyclocross-istas, and the occasional semi-retired professional triathlete all rub elbows in a challenging yet fun setting. Here are some things that will stand in your favor as a triathlete-become gravel-racer, should you decide to give this a crack. Teammates James Walsh and DeLayne Hart are also both former triathletes, so the three of us could exchange histories of all things triathlon: peeing our cycling shorts (a big no-no in the cycling world; the chamois are thicker, so you really end up with that full diaper feeling), the pain of the final 13 miles of an Ironman, and enough nutrition science to launch a small startup.
- Your endurance will really help. In the gravel races I’ve done so far, I’ve discovered that as long as I keep pedaling steadily, the road racers around me (not used to the constant muscle tension that triathlon requires) tend to simply fall away as the day progresses.
- Your understanding of race fueling. Triathlon is more of a logistical and mental challenge than a pure athletic challenge, and if you’ve come up with a successful fueling plan for a half-ironman or Ironman, you’re going to be prepared for the “out there all day” nature of these rides. Eat and drink early, but learn how to pee while riding your bike (sorry, ladies), so you’re not stopping all the time.
- Your capacity for steady discomfort. Road racing, while featuring short, repeated bouts of actual suffering, also gives you long breaks while you roll along in the comparative comfort of a peloton. As a triathlete, you’re used to doing it yourself, and this well help you deal with the accrued pain of 6-7 hours of riding (heck, for most triathletes, this is only about half our racing day!)
Bagg and Walsh at the finish
Of course, the cup is not all full. Although you may be more suited to jumping into a gravel race than a classic road race, there are some things your multisport background won’t provide, and you’ll want to bone up on them before your first gravel-staganza.
- Riding in groups. Nothing screams former triathlete more than not being able to ride in very close proximity to other riders who are moving quickly. Unless you’ve done some draft legal triathlon (good for you), you’ll need to find some places to practice this. Your usual training ride probably won’t cut it, as it could be full of triathletes doing all sorts of verboten things (sitting on the front too long, half-wheeling, letting gaps form). Maybe your town has a road-bikes-only ride, or a weekly training race that has categories for beginners. Do not skip this step! Doing so will place you (and the people around you) at peril.
- Bike handling/riding off road. Triathletes get a bad rap where bike handling is concerned and—let’s face it—that reputation is fairly well-earned. Our sport doesn’t require a whole bunch of handling skilz, so we tend to disregard them. Buck the trend and instead of being “that guy” take some time and get good at the things roadies shame us for: improve your descending; try out some track-standing; stay off your brakes; discover how much you can lean your bike before it starts to disappear out from under you. A great idea, here, would be to take a mountain bike skills clinic, or a cyclocross class, which should be easily findable in your area. You’ll scare fewer people, and you’ll actually get faster upon your return to triathlon, as you carve through corners and descents with greater grace.
The weekend prior to BWR, I mentioned that I’d taken part in a gravel omnium, out in Bend, Oregon. I was joined by Wattie Ink. professional Rachel McBride, who went on to post a perfect score in her race, winning all three stages: a short, Friday evening time trial on a rocky road outside of Bend; a technical, lower elevation 70-mile route on Saturday; and a glorious, long-climb, plush gravel 65-mile course on Sunday. Here's what McBride had to say about gravel racing:
"Triathlon prepared me for gravel racing in a couple different ways. First, gravel racing is a super tough endurance sport, so I use my ironman mental toughness and grit to get to through those hard miles. I also need to keep cool with things go wrong - gravel racing is hard on the body and bike and you’re usually out in the middle of nowhere with support a long walk away. In triathlon with 3 different sports and transitions, there’s a lot of room for error or malfunction so you have to have the ability to handle different situations, improvise, go with the flow and not get too worked up about it. Triathlon also helps when the climbs are so steep you have to run your bike up them!
Triathlon does not prepare you for the bike handling skills you need. Every gravel race I do, there is new and different, challenging terrain that I may have never experienced before. There can be gloriously smooth-packed roads, but that usually doesn’t last long. Expect washboarding that will shake your teeth loose and numb your hands, technical rocky roads that drive you batty as you bounce around and can’t find a rhythm, and big washouts and sand traps that got me this time at the Cascade GG. Oh and don’t forget the potholes that come out of nowhere to pinch-flat your tires (game changer: ride tubeless!). So go out and ride some trails first to try it out, take a cyclocross skills session (or better yet, race it!), or take up mountain biking (because we all need yet another bike, right?!).
This may sound a little scary and not so much fun. Well, I can tell you it is sometimes scary, AND it is some of the best fun I’ve ever had. The gravel community is pretty chill and rad. You are destined to come out of any race with some new friends. The courses are always epic, on roads few have travelled at times, and usually packed with beautiful views. And of course my favourite, it’s almost standard you’re supplied with a few pint at the finish. Sign me up!"
McBride on the podium after her Perfect Score
Riders traverse some lonely, open expanses of Central Oregon; image courtesy of Adam Lapierre
Day one saw some deep, technical, sandy descents; image courtesy of Adam Lapierre
The men's lead group on Day Two—your editor promises he is just out of frame on the right; image courtesy of Adam Lapierre
In short, gravel racing is fun, low-key, hard, safer than riding on the road, and tends to take you to places normal paved roads don't traverse. It's something you should add to your calendar right now. Interested? Head over to Caffeine and Watts to learn more about the Wattie Ink. linked gravel team.
10 Things NOT to Bring to Your First Triathlon
by CBCG athlete Amy VT
If you scroll through our past blogs, you’ll mostly find vernacular, topics, and discourse geared towards experienced endurance triathletes. Indeed, the majority of CBCG Athletes are Iron-women and -men with decades of experience, looking to progress to that proverbial “next level.”
This week, however, we bring to you a refreshing change of pace. If you’re a vet triathlete, share this with that pesky coworker or cousin who’s peppering you for advice. If you’re a beginner yourself, read on for ways to streamline your first race.
You’ve likely already gleaned a litany of tips from magazines, online forums, and other triathletes. Is your head spinning? Perhaps less is more when packing up for your first tri.
If you watch a pro athlete transition from the swim to the bike, she’s only doing two things: removing her swim gear, and putting on her helmet. That’s it. Here’s a refreshing approach to your first race, suggesting what you don’t need, in the spirit of simplifying your transition and your headspace, in general.
1. Gloves
‘Nuff said. Cycling gloves, whether half- or full-finger, are designed for protection against abrasions in a crash. They also absorb shock, which is advantageous for longer rides. It’s not worth the time during races, however, to remember, stage, or put them on, which is why you never see gloves in triathlon.
2. Towels
Some transition areas, particularly the more rookie setups, colonize upwards of five square feet with spa amenities. Foot pails, towels, bath mats, bags, dinette sets...When did the memo go out that T1 is the prefect time for a pedicure?
True, wet, sandy, and dirty feet might portend blisters, but transitions are too frenzied for perfection. A quick one-two Tinder swipe of your bare soles against your opposite calf should suffice. Perhaps during a half- or full-Iron distance it’s more important to take a few seconds to clean your feet, but a sprint or Olympic isn’t long enough to worry.
That stated, if you just freaked out reading that advice, then a smallish towel in T1 is fine so long as you don’t spend too long with it, that you don’t colonize beyond your area, and that you don’t flip if it’s not there when you get there, or your neighbor already used it.
3. Sunblock
SPF is extremely important. CBCG Coaches recommend applying and reapplying for all activity in the sun. For race day, you should obvi apply liberally before the race, which should be enough if you use a thick or waterproof variety. It’s not worth it, however, to take the extra time to reapply from your own tube in transition, which might be futile since you’ll be soaked from the swim. Most races in blazing sun offer reapplication on course, so don’t complicate your transition.
4. Body Glide
Ditto.
5. Nutrition for the Bike
It should all be on your bike. During sprint or Olympic tris, you’ll only need to eat one-to-three times on the bike, and it should all fit on your frame. If you don’t have a “bento box” for your top tube, then you can attach bars and gels with electrical tape. Rehearse a ton: practice finagling the packages, and consuming them while you’re steering and cycling fast.
Festoon your bike with all your stuff on it and then take it for a shakeout ride before your race. Indeed, this means sleeping your bike overnight bedecked with your nutrition. (Let’s not broach the hilarious practice of adhering open bars to your top tube, just plastering on sticky little squares without their packaging.)
There is one exception to this rule: if you are super quick and adept at grabbing a handful of nutrition and shoving it in your race kit, pockets, or sports bra. If that works better for you than bike storage, then ensure you’ve practiced rushing through the process with precisely what you’ll be wearing on race day.
6. Hydration for the Bike
Ditto. It should all be on the bike. In fact, most triathletes pack too many bottles on their frames, seats, and aerobars, rendering their ride unnecessarily heavy. Exactly how much to carry is highly race- and athlete-dependent, so discuss with your coach, but there’s no need stage extra bottles on the ground in transition.
7. Frame Pump
Again, many triathletes load up their beautiful bikes with unnecessary weight. Of course bring an extra tube and flat repair, but learn how to use CO2 cartridges (or tubeless repair), and practice to the point of confidence before race day. (Let’s not broach spoke reflectors.)
8. Hand-held Water Bottle for the Run
Especially for a sprint or Olympic tri, there will be ample hydration on course. If you’re worried about spilling, getting enough down, or picking up the right thing (water or electrolytes), then it will be more worth it to slow down through aid stations than it would to set up your own bottle in transition, which might disappear, and it will definitely get hot.
9. Tons of Nutrition for the Run
Ditto. For a sprint or Olympic tri, you will only need to eat one-to-three times on the run. It may be be more worth it to adapt to what’s on course than it will be to set up your own buffet, save for a baggie or pile of a few gels, bars, or blocks. Fuel belts are contraptions we usually reserve for longer events, but they can be convenient when they double as race number bib belts, so that one comes down to personal preference. Bottom line: keep it simple and try to rely as much as you can on aid stations.
10. Helium Balloon
You’ll see at least one at every race. It’s a self-centered, if not egregiously rookie move when a triathlete marks the coordinates of her transition area with a balloon so that her crazy, hazy, post-swim eyes can hastily locate her rack. What a spectacle if everyone did that! Selfishness aside, c’mon people, memorize your bike coordinates.
Many triathletes over-think their first race. If you have studied up via magazines, online forums, and other triathletes, then hopefully you’ve imbibed the most salient words of advice: have fun. The adage is a bit hokey, but if you can’t have fun stumbling through your first triathlon, why do it? And if you simplify things by minimizing your stuff in transition, there will be less on which to stumble.
Women’s Cycles and Triathlon: the Real Effects on Training and Racing
The author and CBCG athlete Amy VanTassel chilling in The Dead Sea
by CBCG Coach and Co-Founder Molly Balfe
Several years ago, a fellow coach referred a female athlete to me for help with what he called “women’s issues.” In my experience, as it relates to triathlon, this term typically applies to one of the following: whether you are supposed to wear underwear under your tri shorts, or how to train and race throughout your menstrual cycle. This athlete fell into the latter category; after spending the better part of a year training for her first Ironman, she realized that she would almost certainly get her period on race day.
CBCG Athletes Becky Matro and Cher Vasquez at our yearly Tucson Training Camp
Her understandable concern was exacerbated by a lack of reliable information, not to mention the nuances of approaching her male coach about the issue. Within the last century, a lack of understanding about female anatomy combined with outdated ideas about gender roles gave rise to the absurd belief that a woman should not participate in sports lest she rattle her uterus loose. It was this type of thinking that contributed to the ban on women’s ski jumping, which persisted until the 2014 Olympics in Sochi!
This history of misinformation has also contributed to a lack of evidence-based research about the specific needs that female endurance athletes have regarding nutrition, training, and racing. A recent article on USAT’s website about “Fueling the Female Athlete,” cites that “when all 2015 publications from the three leading sports science journals were analyzed, women made up only 3 percent of the 254,813 participants in 188 studies.” The unsurprising result of limiting women’s representation in sports science research is that traditional recommendations for endurance athletes are often appropriate only for men.
The good news is we are starting to see some progress. In the past few years, more resources have become available to help equip women with the tools they need to work with their physiology. Stacy Sims’ book Roar provides a tremendous amount of information for women on how hormones impact performance throughout their lifetime. The book clearly states that “women are not small men,” and therefore should not assume that fueling and training based on recommendations that were developed for men will work equally well for them.
The book also details how hormonal changes throughout the menstrual cycle can impact training. Surprisingly, the athlete who came to me because she was worried about racing while she had her period had little to worry about regarding her performance. The biggest hormonal challenges for female athletes present themselves during the high hormone luteal phase of their cycles, when blood sugar levels, breathing rates, heat tolerance, and mental focus can all be impacted. Once the low hormone phase starts on the first day of their period, performance potential and pain tolerance tend to increase.
Research about women’s specific training needs is still being done, but here are a few key points to think about when developing a plan that works for you:
Fueling
For long-term training and racing, it seems pretty clear that most women will not thrive on low carbohydrate diets. As Sims’ book says, “Low-carbohydrate diets increase fatty acid oxidation during exercise and encourage intramuscular fat storage. The body is smart; if there isn’t enough primary fuel to support the stress it’s under, it’ll go for a secondary source—in this case fat—then store more of it for the next time it encounters that stress. But this does not translate into improved performance.” Female athletes are also at risk of undershooting their protein needs, especially in the post-workout recovery window. We urge all of our athletes to consume protein in the post-workout window, but for women this is extra-important: the window is shorter than for their male counterparts.
Recovery
No doubt your coach has told you that recovery is a critical part of training. Strength and speed gains happen when we work and then rest, so a good training plan should include periods of lower intensity to allow you to repair the damage done to your body during periods of heavy training. Moreover, women’s ability to access stored carbohydrates is typically lower than men’s, and lower still when our estrogen levels are high, so you and your coach should develop a recovery routine that allows you to reap the gains of all your hard work.
Aging
Postmenopausal athletes may find that they need to adjust their nutrition plans for optimal performance. Increases in insulin resistance during this time may require a move away from traditional high-carb endurance products to regulate blood sugar and prevent GI distress. Postmenopausal women should also consider adding more high intensity training (along with commensurate recovery!) to their training regimen to support muscle strength and to fight muscle atrophy/loss.
Summary
The author on deck at a recent training camp, image courtesy of Dylan Haskin
Even with recent additions to the body of research on how women respond to training, there is much work to be done. I found a lot of the information in Roar to be extremely valuable for determining possible solutions to common issues that female endurance athletes face. I also thought it was somewhat limited in its discussion of how athletes respond to the hormones used in contraceptives and hormone therapies. My recommendation to all of my athletes is to evaluate your sources of information and find what works for you.
Our sport requires balance, and finding that balance means being clear about your goals and your needs. So tell your coach about your period! In fact, all CBCG Coaches condone tracking your cycle in Training Peaks, so if your coach is male and demurs at “women’s issues,” show him this blog post.
CBCG Hosts Swim Smooth at Nike WHQ: Our Single Best Technique Session
Swim Smooth Co-Founders Adam Young and Paul Newsome, and CBCG Coaches Chris Bagg, Molly Balfe, and Josh Sutton at the Swim Smooth 3-day Coaches Education Course
There’s been a lot of swimming on the blog, recently, but springtime always feels like swim time to us. It’s the perfect time of year to think about technique and to focus on the stroke faults you have in order to optimize your performance at races later in the season. At CBCG we deeply believe in the importance of the swim so that the rest of your race can go the way you’d like it to go. In that vein, we sent coaches Molly Balfe and Josh Sutton to the Swim Smooth 3-day Coaches Education Course at Nike in Portland this past weekend, in order to flesh out their already impressive coaching abilities. Professional development is a huge part of coaches continuing to improve their games, and we’re happy to be able to provide that support.
What is the 3-day Coaches’ Course like? Well, there’s a lot of material, for sure. Adam and Paul know they have a lot of material to cover, so they get right down to it, putting coaches in the water for a CSS test (like finding FTP on the bike) right off the bat, and then following that up with video analyses of each coach’s individual stroke. Molly, for example, set a new CSS pace, but was surprised (and motivated) by her video session: “I’ve got some things to work on,” she averred afterward.
Paul Newsome stalking the deck, running the “Single Best Technique Session”
One of the sessions Paul and Adam teach the coaches is the Swim Smooth “Single Best Technique Session.” This session helps swimmers focus on posture and alignment, hand entry, and breathing, ideally recognizing afterward which of those three areas is holding them back. If you’d like to give it a crack, the session is below:
Warmup
100 breathe right only
100 breathe left only
100 breathe bilaterally
Build Drill Set
4x100 with fins as 2x(25 kick on side, 25 swim), :15 rest.
---When kicking on side with fins, focus on the following things:
1) lead hand is 8-10 inches below the surface of the water and straight ahead
2) wrist is above hand, and hand is above elbow
3) eyes are straight down
Video here
8x50 Javelin Drill. 1-4 paddle on right hand. 5-8 paddle on left hand (ideally using a Finis Freestyler Paddle)
1) focus on feeling the water during the first 25. Ideally you feel water on the back of your hand, not on your palm.
2) on the second 25, focus on not crossing over, and on starting your catch even while breathing away from the catching hand.
Main Set
3x100 moderate breathe only right side, get time. :20 rest
3x100 moderate breathe only left side, get time. :20 rest
3x100 moderate breathe both sides, get time. :20 rest.
Which side was fastest?
Optional Set
400 pull + paddles breathe slowest side, :30
300 pull + paddles breathe bilaterally, :20
200 pull + paddles breathe slowest side, :15
100 pull + paddles breathe bilaterally
Happy Swimmers are our Favorite Swimmers
Ready to make a change in your swimming? You can now book Chris directly for a video swim analysis right through the scheduling site, here.
Two Great Peak Week Swim Sessions
by CBCG coach Molly Balfe
Spring is finally here! The snow is melting and triathletes are making the slow transition from their trainers to the open road. With the improvement in weather comes the indisputable fact that race season is upon us. Athletes everywhere are testing out their flashy new kits, ensuring their nutrition is dialed in for race day, and (hopefully) adjusting their workouts to allow them peak for their first important race. A good training plan should include a few weeks, or at least a few days of decreased volume to rest up for the big day and provide a chance to heal from the physical and psychological stresses of training.
Simultaneously, workouts during these “peak weeks” should also include a bit of higher intensity work in an effort to stay fresh as volume decreases. Perhaps more importantly, training sessions are great opportunities to simulate the unique challenges of race conditions, practicing coping mechanisms for when things inevitably get tough. To get ready for the swim leg of a big race, triathletes should ideally seek out open water swims to acclimate to that exciting sensory depravation experience that accompanies swims in murky water without convenient walls for unscheduled rest breaks. This preparation is invaluable, but there is so much more you can do to make sure you are ready to have your best swim possible.
Race starts are specifically engineered to be exciting, if not completely chaotic experiences. The music pumping, the announcer amping everyone up, nervous athletes shimmying into their wetsuits, and everyone panicking about lines for the bathrooms... All of this hyperactivity comes to an apex as the gun goes off and athletes heart rates are potentially higher than at any point during the entire race. If you do not prepare for this eventuality, you may well end up taking out the first few hundred yards of your race at a categorically unsustainable pace.
Have you ever found yourself struggling to breathe, 100-200 meters or so into the swim? Perhaps you can’t even tell how fast you’re swimming since everything is so wildly different from the pool? Maybe you’ve even faced anxiety or panic? This scenario is one reason why I love giving athletes fast start intervals as they start to taper for a race. Mimicking race starts is an essential practice from the beginner to the pro, as every triathlete must be ready to swim the frenzied start with a semblance of grace, and then drop back to a strong, but sustainable pace for the entire swim.
The following two workouts are among my favorite “peak week swims.” The first is a pool sesh, and the second should ideally be done in open water. I typically prescribe the pool workout early during the week before a race, and the lake or ocean swim later, preferably on Sunday after their long run (which tends not to be very long that weekend). I’m cognizant that it’s not always convenient for everyone, but I do recommend prioritizing finding open water for that week prior, since nothing simulates race conditions like finding a buddy, zipping up each other’s wetsuits, and swimming with the fish.
Fast Starts / Pool
400 easy swim – use a buoy if you are preparing for a wetsuit legal race (no paddles)
8x50 build (:10 rest)
+++++++++
4x250 as 50 fast/200 race pace (:15 rest)
500 @ race pace
+++++++++
200 cool down
Fast Starts / Open Water
10 minutes easy swimming
+++++++++
5x(20 strokes fast/hard, 50 strokes easy)
10 minutes steady, just below race effort
+++++++++
5 minutes easy cool down
Remember, competence comes with preparation! If swimming in open water is outside your comfort zone, don’t expect that to change on race day. Comfort comes from familiarity and confidence, and the A-#1 best thing you can do to minimize race day anxiety is to mimic race conditions. How about this: make a stretch to have your next swim start more cool, calm, and collected then ever. Your coach will be able to tell from your heart rate file, and you’ll be able to overcome unexpected challenges if you incorporate the above workouts. We CBCG coaches are here to help you not just get physically fit, but also mentally fit to make your next race, and this season your best!
What the HECK Does RM Mean?
Since returning from Swim Smooth Camp down in Perth, I've been using the somewhat foreign "RM cycle" more and more in your workouts recently, and it always gets some questions. I know that it seems odd at first, but this way of training is excellent for one reason: it standardizes the amount of training stress that everyone on the squad experiences, which means we all get faster, more efficient, and more comfortable at new paces together. Here is how it works.
Take your CSS (or Threshold Pace)—for this example, let's use Salvo who swims in lane three or four at my Nike squad as our example. His CSS is currently 1:37/100m
Round up to the nearest even number = 1:38/100
Split that number in half = :49 seconds
This is now your "RM 0" number. By adding seconds to it, you can use it like a send-off that is more tailored to your present fitness. When we're using RM cycles, we use the Tempo Trainers (those little yellow torture devices) in mode two, and we're usually trying to "beat the beeper," i.e.: finish the interval before the beeper beeps, and leaving the next time we hear it beep. If you were to do a set on RM 0 (using your CSS pace as your send-off base per 50), it would be very hard indeed, since you would have to swim faster than your CSS pace to get any rest at all! That's why you will usually see a number after the letters RM. Here's what to do with those.
Say I give Salvo a set of 200s on "RM 5." He adds five to his RM 0 number, arriving at :54 (:49 + :05 = :54). The beeper will now beep every :54 seconds, meaning that if wants to get any rest, he'll try to get farther in front of the beep every time he finishes a 50. Salvo goes out a little fast and swims :50 per 50, finishing :20 ahead of the beeper in 3:20, which he uses for his rest, and leaves on that next beep (which sounds on 3:40, or 4x:54 seconds). He sets off on his second 200, a little winded from his first effort, and only manages :52 per 50, this time finishing in 3:30. The beeper simply marches on, though, beeping :10 later, signaling him to begin again.
Whenever we use mode 2, we are “beating the beeper,” which means you try to finish ahead of the beeper ever 50 (getting farther and farther ahead in longer intervals). It’s like a pace clock made for you!
Why don't we just use traditional send-offs?
I'm guessing this will be my biggest obstacle in implementing this system. We've been used to traditional send-offs, like completing a set of 100s on a send-off "base" of something like 1:45/100. The problem with this system is that it shoehorns everyone in the lane into something that doesn't account for individuality. Salvo's CSS is 1:37, but Tracy will also swim in his lane, and her CSS is 1:43. On a set of 100s swum at threshold, using 1:45 as a send-off, Salvo gets 8 seconds per 100, while Tracy only gets two! That is a very different set for the two swimmers! Using RM cycles standardizes the set across participants. It also frees us a bit from "the tyranny of the pace clock," leaving whenever we hear a beep rather than having to wait for intervals of :05 or :10 on the clock. For those of us who grew up with a pace clock, this is an adjustment, I know, but I know from personal experience how effective this kind of training is, and how quickly you'll pick it up if you give it a fair crack.
The other reason is that it really allows us to give a swimmer the correct dose of training stimulus during each session. When we just use multiples of five seconds on the pace clock, we aren’t optimizing our time in the pool, as we’re usually getting too much or too little rest. This way we can figure exactly the correct rest number, and adequately prescribed training stress, too.
What are the other modes for?
Yeah, good question. We use mode one when we want to stay at a certain pace, such as CSS/TP + 3”/100. With mode one we program the beeper to beep every certain number of seconds, so we can use it a pace check. Say Salvo wants to swim at CSS +3”/100 for a set of 400s. He takes his threshold of 1:37 and adds three seconds to get 1:40. If we want it to beep every 25, we have to divide that number by four, right, since the 1:40 is per 100 and we want a reminder every 25? So take 1:40 and divide by four. This is easy, since 1:40 = 100 seconds. Divide 100 by four and you get 25:00. Set your tempo trainer to that number, and you have a device to perfectly pace you through your set.
The third mode, mode three, is a stroke rate beeper, and useful for other things. We’ll discuss it another time.