Five Ironman World Championships Kona Race Day Pitfalls

Don’t be like Cole Trickle

Since it appears that Days of Thunder is NOT on most triathlete’s watch list (a fact that, honestly, is just driving one half of the Campfire ownership crazy), we can still learn from the above meme. There is a scene during the classic (yes, classic) 1990 film when Cole Trickle, Tom Cruise’s character, strikes a bargain with his coach/director about how to drive effectively on race day. Trickle’s approach leads to destroyed tires and a bad finish. His director’s approach (the tires at right) lead to a much better performance. As the Campfire coaches are putting the final touches on the race plans we write for every athlete, we figured it would be helpful to publish the five pitfalls we are warning athletes against as they make their final preparations today for races on Thursday and Saturday.

1. Expending Too Much in the Water

Every triathlon is an energy cascade, where the goal is to have as small a step down in energy reserves (mental, caloric/metabolic, endurance, speed) from discipline to discipline. Kona is a hype engine of epic proportions, which leads to tightly wound athletes on race morning thinking they are going to do something special on race day. Say it with us: doing something special at Kona simply means doing what you have already done elsewhere. If you do that, you are going to have an AMAZING day. The swim caliber at Kona is high, with a much larger percentage of the field able to swim around 60 minutes. That means the pack is much bigger, which means it is much easier to tuck in and draft. Embrace the group, find some feet, look at the fishes and the coral, and just cruise along. It will be over before you know it, and if you get out saying “that was refreshing!” you have nailed it.

2-4. Falling Into the Three Bike Pitfalls

There are really THREE pitfalls on the bike, each of which we will detail below, but really, they are variations on a theme from our lessons from Cole Trickle (was that REALLY the name the Days of Thunder writers came up with?!): DON’T GO TOO HARD! Ok, what is too hard, though? We were pleasantly surprised by this post from the folks at Precision Fuel and Hydration, who talked to GOAT Jan Frodeno and learned that he rode about 15-20% easier at Kona than he would at races that aren’t as hot and humid. If that doesn’t help change your approach to the bike at Kona, we don’t know what will. But if most athletes can have good Ironman performances riding between 70-80% of FTP (that’s rough, don’t @ us), then you would want to be even below that at Kona. So that means that your average power at Kona might be in the 60-70% range of FTP, which isn’t out of the realm of possibility. It is a hot, windy, lumpy course, folks, and there are three spots that can really leave you out of gas if you too go too hard:

1. First Hour: so this isn’t really a place as much as it is a mindset. It’s easy to get sucked into thinking that “making a group” is important in this race. It isn’t. Many of the professionals who focus on making the front group end up paying for it later. Think back on the number of times you have watched this race: there is always a big group on the way out to Hawi, but once the athletes start coming down…it’s as if someone has taken the group and shaken it. Those athletes who didn’t have the physical ability to ride with that group for four hours? They often end up struggling on the run, and you will too if you ride aggressively early! If you ride too hard too soon you will churn through your glycogen stores and raise your core temperature too soon, both of which will have you walking later.

2. The Climb to Hawi: the climb to Hawi is very often a tailwind climb, which can seem nice at first, like you’re getting a little push, but it’s easy to forget that without a headwind you’re going to lose a lot of evaporative cooling. As we mentioned above, keeping your core temperature in check is a crucial part of racing well in the heat, so if you ride too hard on the way up to Hawi, enjoying that tailwind, you may find yourself paying the price later on…

3. The Bowl at Kawaihae: not long after turning at Hawi, you’ll find yourself back at the base of the climb, near the port at Kawaihae. What seemed innocuous an hour ago will be an oven, now, in this depression between the Queen K and the Hawi climb. You have to climb out of this completely exposed oven, with sunlight reflecting off the lava rock around you, and you’re tired at this point. If you push too much, here, you will probably run out of gas later on.

5. Running too hard along ali’i

Sensing a theme? Yeah. Ali’i Drive, which provides the only shade on the course, is also lined with spectators. You’re right next to the ocean, so you get a little relief from the heat. You’re also off the bike, which is a respite. A lot of athletes get excited, forgetting that a marathon in these conditions is tough even without six or seven hours of continuous exercise first, and they run this part too fast, paying the price later on when you’re in the horrible exposure of the Queen K and the Energy Lab. The section along Ali’i should be about rhythm, not pace or power. Heart rate should probably be about 8-10 beats above what you averaged on the bike, and RPE (the most important metric of your whole day!) shouldn’t be much more than a 5-6/10, or moderate to moderately-hard. If you keep control of things NOW, you’ll be able to keep running LATER, instead of walking the way that you’ll see a lot of athletes doing, having pushed it too much early on the run.

So those are the big five, as seen by the coaches at Campfire. We hope this short post serves as a nice reminder as you’re getting ready to race this week, but the biggest things are to enjoy yourself, stay hydrated, and remember that Kona is the reward, not the sundae. Race well!

Your Ironman World Championships Reprieve

Five Kona “Can’t Misses” That DON’T Involve Racing or Training

by Jay Prasuhn

Say "Kona" enough times, and your brain begins to assume that there’s ever only one thing going on there in October. The Ironman. Underwear runs. Expos. Triathlon things. 

Or is there? We have to step back and remember this is a sleepy but thriving town when it’s not overrun with athletes from around the world. Certainly, the athlete spouses, friends and family among us want to know that the island doesn’t stop for Ironman. They want to know what else is there to do here other than cheer on their athlete? We’ve culled five aspects of the island that are simply not triathlon things, but island things. Good food, drink, experiences, and history that speak to the vibrant place many inhabit for a week but so often forget to experience.

Da Poke Shack, where the Campfire co-founders eat…a significant percentage of their meals

The Poke Shack, 76-6246 Ali'i Drive, Kailua-Kona, HI 96740 Dapokeshack.com

Da Poke Shack used to be a bit of a secret, but that’s been blown out of the water. So forget Kona Inn or (lol) Bubba Gump—the secret is now yours: this is hands-down the best place to get poke in town, that uniquely Hawaiian lunch or dinner. Situated along Ali'i Drive and butted up against Kona Bali Kai Condos, it’s as advertised: a little shack where you can procure poke. Whether you’re grabbing lunch or an early dinner, bank on a little line to get the freshest poke on the island. With 14 different varieties of poke (and for the uninitiated, poke is sushi grade tuna or salmon, in a bath of spices, sesame seed, shoyu, ponzu or teriyaki sauce for a cacophony of sweet, bitter, sour, or spicy wrapped around that fresh fish). Add some sticky rice, some fresh seaweed salad and maybe furikake, and it’s an unforgettable plate lunch (or dinner).

How fresh? Last year, I was lucky enough to hoist a fresh tuna that was coming in off the truck, getting set to be fileted and diced for the next batch of seafood goodness. Go in, get a killer plate lunch, maybe run into local surf legends like Shane Dorian or Makua Rothman that hang in the tiny shack when they’re not out at Banyans getting shacked.

Captain James Cook Monument

In 1778, British sea captain James Cook became the first person from the western world to set sight on the shores of the Hawaiian Islands. A year after he found the islands of O’ahu and Kauaii, he set sail for the shores of the Big Island. After anchoring in Kealakekua Bay, he was by the local Hawaiians, who thought he was Lono, the god of fertility. A week later, the Hawaiians learned he wasn’t a god and after a fight with several of Cook’s fellow sailors, killed Cook. In 1874, a white obelisk was erected in Cook’s honor in Kealakekua Bay. 

All that history aside, the bay hosts placid waters, making it one of the most popular snorkeling spots to find a rainbow of colorful fish, coral and urchins. A hike to this historic location (it’s over two miles in and two miles out), but if you bring a lunch, a towel, some sunglasses and some sunscreen, it’s a day well spent. From Kona, take Highway 11 for 15 miles south before turning right onto Napoopoo Road (Highway 160), which takes you to Kealakekua Bay. 

Cliff jumping at End of the World

End of the World

Out beyond the famed “Pit” along the old run course is a road with a lava rock walkway along the shoreline. You’ll be shocked by the waves crashing against the rocks, with water exploding into the air. Just 100 yards beyond that is a spot called “End of the World” where after the race, many athletes (as well as friends and family) will hurl themselves (or more accurately, simply “jump”) off a 30-foot cliff into the cool Pacific. It’s a short hiking trail, but leave your flip-flops back at the condo; it’s pretty rocky with lava, so be sure to wear close-toed shoes in and out of there. 

There are stories of folks being injured jumping, or trying to scramble from the surging surf back up the lava cliff rocks, so jump at your own risk. But the water is plenty deep, and scrambling back up the cliff from your jump is pretty easy….unless a bit of water surge bangs you up against the rocks.

Touring the coffee plantations on the side of the volcano is worth it for ANY visitor

Kona Coffee Plantation Tours

While Kona town is, well, a town, it doesn’t take long to drive up the slopes of the island to find that things get a bit more temperate and tropical. With that, the soil gets good. So good, that it’s one of the best places in the world for coffee to grow…Gaining Kona the repute as some of the finest coffee beans world over. As we’ve found, 100 percent Kona coffee makes one of the best holiday gifts for friends to take home after the race.

While there are a lot of middling “Kona Coffee” spots in town, be aware that some of these are only 10 percent Kona coffee. Seeking out the 100 percent coffee can be done, and the best way is to take an excursion up the hill to visit a working coffee plantation and tasting room.

Many of the plantations live along a band just above Kona Town. We’ve been to Holualoa Kona Coffee Company (konalea.com) and can vouch for an authentic self-guided tour that takes you from bean to the roasted final product. There are several others that are a short jaunt from town, from Greenwell Farms to Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation. Tip: when choosing whole bean versus ground coffee, get whole bean; you get all the taste in the bean oils, making for a stronger, more flavorful cup.

Old Kona Airport Beach is a short trip but a LONG way away from the madding crowd of triathletes

Old Kona Airport Beach

Let’s say you’re just not into the whole Ironman thing. You’d love to get away from it all and just enjoy some quiet. Luckily, there’s a spot close to town where you can: the Old Airport. Just past the Kona Pool, you’ll find this long, broken pavement airstrip, with folks parked to the left. All along its length, there are rocky shorelines with a few little breaks of white sand. With no triathletes, no traffic and no noise, it’s the perfect place to bring a folding chair, a floppy hat, some sunscreen and a good book to just relax and listen to the waves lap against the shore. 

Well, that’s it! Five short things for you to do that AREN’T training and racing and hearing triathletes talk about training and racing. Want to go farther afield? Here are five more trips worth your time:

1. Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park

2. Cinnamon Rolls at Island Lava Java

3. Day trip to Hilo

4. Mana Road (gravel bike necessary, but WORTH it)

5. Spam Ramen (don’t knock it until you try it)

Preserving the Candle

Signs of and strategies for late-season fatigue

Aw, buddy…

At this point in the year, athletes sometimes have performances in races or in training that leave them scratching their heads. Fatigue is an important factor in those odd performances, as athletes have usually been building fitness for almost a year, and by this point fatigue is high as well. Managing that fatigue is the key to good performances in the final few months of the northern hemisphere schedule, which is also when championship races are held. Coaches need to know how and when to either rest an athlete, keep moving forward as they have been, or (in a few rare cases) lift or shift the training load.

Fatigue is an Important Metric

It’s really important to track your fatigue, but it’s difficult because so many factors go into how tired you feel: training, work, relationships, family, diet, sleep. Every athlete committed to improving performance (an important distinction! Not every athlete hungers to improve all the time!) needs to carry some fatigue, since it’s a sign of progressive overload, the holy grail of endurance training. The key is figuring out just how much fatigue, since too much is bad (injury, burnout, poor performance), as is too little (stagnation, plateau, poor performance). Many athletes will have polarized reactions to fatigue, so keep asking yourself or the athletes you coach what their impulses are when they are tired. Two very normal “types” are:

• The “Security blanket” athlete or the athlete who says “I need to feel very tired all the time, otherwise I don’t think things are going well!” This athlete keeps pushing, no matter how bad they feel. This athlete will need to build faith in the fact that fitness is durable despite resting.

• The “Recovery junkie” athlete or the athlete who says “I need to be perfectly rested for every workout (not possible, leads to stagnating fitness, performance plateaus). This athlete pulls the emergency brake at any sign of fatigue and shys away from pushing themselves. This athlete needs to see that they can do hard workouts on top of other hard workouts, and that some fatigue is important to development.

Signs of Fatigue

Fatigue can manifest in different ways, sometimes even within the same athlete! As a coach or an athlete, look for these flashing lights that it might be time for a rest:

• The athlete suddenly cannot perform as they did just a few weeks (or days!) ago

• While analyzing your workout files, you notice that heart rate is elevated or depressed for a given power or pace

• You experience sensations in training you’re not used to: shakiness, chills, fever-like symptoms, burning legs on easy/shallow climbs, clunkiness while running or swimming, deep sighs or odd breathing patterns

• Motivation is low, or you find yourself saying or thinking I don’t really care about this workout

• Sleep, mood, diet, or stress suddenly change: over/undersleeping, mood swings or mood intensity, hungry all the time or never hungry, everything seems like a stressor

These are only a few of them, but as your athletes move into August/September/October it might be a good idea to check in with them about how they’re feeling (well, you should be doing that all the time, coaches, but maybe put a little more emphasis on it at this point in the year). After programming workouts, your main job as a coach is to manage fatigue, so make sure you have these questions built into your athlete meetings. If you are self-coached, journaling can be a helpful way to check in on fatigue, or giving yourself a snap score every day on a scale of 1-10, where 1 means you’d really rather stay in bed and 10 means you could probably throw that football over those mountains. Notice that we aren’t suggesting one of the many recovery devices presently flooding the market. If those are useful to you, continue using them, but we’ve never seen anything more powerful than the question “How are you feeling?”

Yup. We get it.

How to Deal, and What to Say to Yourself (or Your Athlete)

We’ll cover the athlete who avoids fatigue completely in the next section, but if you’ve discovered you or your athlete is suffering from fatigue, here is what to do and what to say. First of all, scrub the workouts from the next two or three days. We can actually hear you type A types clicking away from this post, but don’t! In the words of someone pithier than us, “Fatigue is the ultimate watt-block.” That statement is aimed at cyclists, but the principle is the same for all endurance athletes. If you are tired enough that your workouts are suffering, you will not get anything out of them. And even worse, if you feel the compulsion to train even though you know you are tired, you might have a problem with exercise addiction. That’s kinda heavy, but it really happens in these sports. If that is the case for you, we really urge you to talk to a mental health professional, since it’s probably beyond your coach’s scope of care.

But if you can take two or three days off, please do so. And do so in the spirit of exploration. You won’t lose all of your fitness, we promise you. Physiological changes take a long time to occur, both as you add fitness and detrain, and a few days of complete rest won’t return you to couch and donut days. If you find yourself saying to your coach “Can’t I just swim?” or “Can’t I just go for an easy ride?” you may want to check in with yourself to figure out what is doing the wagging: the tail or the dog. If you’re a coach, just ask your athlete to give it an honest try and you’ll evaluate how they feel when they return to training. If you’re an athlete, ask yourself if you have gone through this exact thought process in the past, and if you are willing to try something new this time. For both coaches and athletes, here are some tools to help quiet the demons, since skipping planned workouts can be anathema for goal-oriented endurance athletes:

• Out of the 500-700 workouts you will do this year, how important could 5-7 of them actually be?

• You (self-coached athletes) or your coach do not write perfect plans. You both wish you do, but it’s just not possible. Think of these sessions you are missing as moments of overenthusiasm from you or your coach during the planning session, and they shouldn’t have been here in the first place, if either of you had had a crystal ball.

• Training while tired or sick will eventually lead to worse problems: injury, chronic fatigue, or burnout. You picked up this sport because you liked it, not because of the shiny things it can offer you.

Making Friends with Fatige

On the other side of the coin from the athlete digging themselves into a crater at this point of the year we see the athlete who hasn’t yet accepted the fact that ANY fatigue is a good thing. We won’t spend too much time here, but these athletes probably still have at least one or two races remaining on the calendar, and probably want something different than what they’ve gotten this year. For these athletes, walking them through the following process of developing endurance performance can be helpful:

• Training induces fatigue, as your body struggles to keep up with the new load

• Progressively adding more fatigue (but not too much!) signals to your body that it needs to adapt to handle this new normal 

• You should be getting more and more tired over the course of a training block or mesocycle, and a few workouts that don’t go well are totally OK

• Once you’ve hit a moderately-high level of fatigue (usually after a period weeks, not days or months) it’s time to rest

• Resting after you’ve built up significant fatigue is when your body has time to recover and adapt

• If you’re repeating a pattern of one workout - rest - one workout - rest your development will take much longer than it needs to take

Probably the best way to sum this up is to rip off Michael Pollan’s maxim for healthy eating: “Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.” In our case the message would be “Train consistently, mostly easy to moderate, not too much.” Note that in both sayings, there is a real lack of absolutist language, no “only,” “ever,” or “always.” 

Conclusion

To wrap up, we’re going to give you something else, other than just the summary of this article. We owe Tim Cusick, lead developer at WKO5, the main idea here, which we are going to extend slightly to our own purposes. Cusick uses a term he calls “Self-selected Training” for those moments when an athlete is feeling good. The idea here is that we should be making room for athletes to bring their own experience and intuition into their training, but we should also give them guardrails to keep them safe. Cusick’s maxims are the first two, and ours is the third.

• In the early part of the training year (first trimester), if you’re feeling good you should extend the interval. I.e. make it longer, not harder

• In the middle part of the training year (second trimester), if you’re feeling good you can make the interval harder (i.e. more intense)

• In the third part of the training year (third trimester), if you’re feeling good, consider leaving the interval just as it is. Save that bullet for your big race instead, and carry around the confidence that you could have done more, but you were a mature athlete and kept an eye on your fatigue

We hope that this has been a helpful post, and will keep a few of you from maybe driving yourself into a too-deep hole. Managing fitness is always difficult, but this point of the year, when form and fatigue balance on a narrow fulcrum, you should be asking yourself every day “what is the appropriate response to this feeling I’m having right now?”

What is Blood Flow Restriction (BFR)?

More Importantly, How Does it Work and in What Contexts?

by Campfire Coach Accelerator Adam Goulet, DC, MS, CCSP, CSCS

Only BFR with a trained supervisor!

“What would have become of Hercules… if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar – and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?” – Epictetus

One beautiful aspect of endurance sports is that one can continue improving at them for years. The question always remains, though: how? How do you continue to improve physically and psychologically? How can you always nudge the needle onward? Maybe you’re already consistent in your training, and you tackle every day as a chance to improve upon the day before. If you’re already doing the hard work of staying consistent, then the place to look is the changes you can make in your offseason.

If we are tackling endurance full-throttle during our season, then the offseason is not “off.” Your time away from in-season training is a time to improve the aspects of our performance that we cannot address within the race season. This is a great time to work on nutrition, cross-training, and strength training. The latter is an often overlooked piece of the endurance puzzle, and I’ll try today to provide some ideas that address strength in general. Specifically I’ll examine how best to implement blood flow restriction (BFR) training into the endurance paradigm. That raises an immediate question: what the heck is BFR?

BFR is a subset of strength training that uses a tourniquet to physically restrict the blood flow into a limb. Why in the world would you want to do that? To answer that question we need to address the place of strength training in an endurance program more broadly. Strength training can be an integral part of year-to-year improvement and, due to the increased stress on the body both neurologically and muscularly, it is most often programmed in the offseason. There are two major reasons why strength training can improve performance. The first and more obvious reason is that strength training can increase the size of your muscles, and bigger muscles generally result in increased muscular strength. As this relates to endurance performance the stronger your muscles become the more powerfully they can press on a crank or push off the ground. Increasing muscular strength is akin to being able to go faster. However, due to some pretty interesting physiology, this is a hard task to achieve while also doing endurance training. Building muscle mass is incredibly resource-intensive for your body and unless specifically supported with the correct stimulus, nutrition and recovery it is something your body does not generally like to do. The second primary reason strength training can be beneficial for athletes is that it improves neuromuscular integration between the nervous system and the muscles. By challenging the body's ability to integrate the nervous system with the muscles (done through intensive loading) we can increase the force produced by muscles, increase  core strength and stability, and improve dynamic coordination between multiple body regions (arms and legs). While an endurance athlete due to aerobic stimulus is unlikely to receive the benefits of increased muscle mass, what we can achieve with  intensive strength training is improved core stability and coordination resulting in increased power output, and faster times come race season. 

How does BFR fit into this picture? By reducing the blood flow to the working muscles, BFR will cause your muscles to have to work anaerobically, which increases the rate at which the muscles fatigue. As your muscles fatigue doing a movement, let’s say a knee extension, your body has to recruit more and more of the muscle to make the movement happen. That is to say, when you do a normal knee extension your body will use the least amount of muscle possible to achieve that movement; as you fatigue you recruit more muscle fibers to achieve the same movement. By employing BFR you can “skip” some of the unfatigued part and get straight to the moment in which you have to recruit new muscle fibers

Some of your movements will be bodyweight only—less load!

Along with the increased muscle fiber recruitment and higher rate of fatigue, your nervous system has a harder and harder time telling your muscles to contract. This difficulty means that as you go through a BFR session you will need to produce a higher nerve stimulus to produce the same effect (the lifting of the weight). In the end, because BFR recruits larger numbers of muscle fibers/motor units, and makes your nervous system work hard (increased demand on your neural drive), your muscles become stronger. 

Additionally, the anaerobic process inside the muscle that happens during a BFR session produces metabolic changes that increase the rate of muscle growth and recovery. Here’s the beauty thought BFR is very low load. Because you are reducing the blood flow to the muscles and performing an exercise over several minutes (7-15 minutes typically) the amount of load or weight you can lift needs to be very low, in fact for some cases even body weight may be too much load and assistive exercises may be appropriate. The takeaway? BFR can result in increased strength with very low loads during strength training. 

Wait, you heard me say blood flow restriction, isn’t that dangerous? It absolutely can be. BFR should only be done under the supervision of a professional. There are many different systems out there for BFR, and, simply put, if you can buy it on Amazon, it’s probably a bad idea. A safe and effective BFR protocol should use a wide pneumatic tourniquet (like a blood pressure cuff); it should have some sort of monitoring system that both can inflate and deflate the tourniquet as you move to maintain a constant PSI within the tourniquet; finally, an effective and safe BFR system will measure a personal tourniquet pressure (PTP) for you, which typically is 60-80% of what a blood pressure cuff might use to take your blood pressure. If you find yourself being offered a BFR system or workout that does not meet these criteria, but rather uses elastic cuffs or a hand pump to inflate a tourniquet, then run: those systems do not have reproducible results and can be unsafe. One more time for the people in the back! Don’t use BFR without professional supervision.

Now that we have cleared that hurdle, let’s talk about the amazing advantages to BFR. First, endurance athletes are time crunched by nature. BFR training, due to the fact that it reduces blood flow to the muscles and asks you to perform an exercise over several minutes (seven to fifteen, usually), uses much lower loads than you normally would in a traditional gym session. In some cases even body weight is too much and assistive exercises may be appropriate. Due to those lower loads and increased metabolic fatigue, you actually decrease the strain placed on your body. The magic is that you can improve strength at lower load. The number one reason we get hurt while strength training is that we use weights, bands, and cables at too high a load. BFR reduces that load dramatically and can therefore reduce injury risk. Because the loads we are using for a given exercise are lower with BFR (someone who can squat 300 pounds, for example, may only squat 30 during BFR), the exercise is less likely to create soreness. 

Here, however, is the biggest benefit: BFR is hard, really hard, but because of that difficulty this type of training exposes motor imbalances and functional deficits. This exposure means that if you have a compensation pattern that only bothers you when you’re fatigued (like your knees drop in towards each other at the end of a long run) you will see that happen in a BFR session. BFR, therefore, gives us a golden opportunity to address compensations which we may never see in a normal strength training session. Along those lines, one of the most common dysfunctions we all have is coordinating breathing with lower body movements. BFR is hard, like an anaerobic sprint. This fact means it will make you breathe hard and provide us an opportunity to fix our core, breathing, and movement patterns. This type of repair is extraordinarily hard to do in normal circumstances. Can you imagine your coach asking you to run for two hours simply to address the form deficits that arise with fatigue? BFR also has the potential benefit of consolidating and preserving strength gains through the competition season  with as little as two fifteen-minute sessions a week. 

Finally, from a psychological standpoint BFR provides us with a chance to go hard and dig deeper than we thought we could without wrecking our bodies. There is benefit in finding a new level of effort and going harder than you thought you could, but in a race or workout that high level effort could take a week or more to recover from. The low loads of BFR mean you can exercise the power of your mind fully and repeatedly without having to worry about how long it takes to recover. BFR is innately an anaerobic stimulus and should be considered as such. While BFR can have some aerobic benefits including increased mitochondrial mass, it should be made very clear that as with all workouts, dose and recovery are key to getting an optimal response. The longest BFR protocols typically do not exceed 15 min, and within that time frame a maximum of 30 reps at a time is standard; the intent of BFR is to get the most bang for your buck, with this in mind a BFR session asks you to give maximal effort, while keeping loads very low. This is to say that there is no benefit to trying exercises that are aerobic in nature with BFR, the resulting stimulus would be null, and aerobic work is generally a misappropriation of BFR training. It is plausible that you could use BFR with a certified professional on a stationary bike or treadmill, however the exercises performed in those cases are not aerobic. BFR, when used appropriately can be an amazing adjunct to training, and with supervision increases in muscle strength, nervous system integration, and dynamic coordination can all be achieved with very little negative effects of muscle soreness. However, as with many training modalities inappropriate programming and use of BFR can be detrimental to performance and at worst dangerous. 

Setting Up Your Devices for Endurance Success

One of the BEST uses of your smart devices

Put your bike computers and smartwatches to work for you…not the other way around

I remember one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever done: a set of 1600s and 800s on a flat, unshaded bike path along the shore of a Floridian lake, the air heavy with humidity. Our coaches had sorted us into groups and given us times to hit for each interval, and we set off, packs of five or six leaving from our arbitrary start line (a chalk line drawn in the shadow of a huge myrtle tree, the last respite from the sun we’d have until completing a mile or a half-mile) and either running down and back for the mile repeats or just down for the half-mile repeats. The workout was going well. I felt focused on my effort internally, my outward focus gathering in the lake, the heat, and the athletes around me. One of those athletes, annoyingly, raised her smartwatch to her face roughly every six strides, searching for confirmation that she was executing the interval to perfection.

I tried to ignore it, but a call-and-response kept cycling through my head “Gosh, do you really need to check your watch again? Chris, chill, do YOUR workout, don’t worry about it…my god, AGAIN?!” I began to worry that the obsessive lifting of the watch would have a long-term effect on the muscles of her left arm and shoulder. I didn’t say anything, because she was not an athlete with whom I work, but I couldn’t help but notice that this particular athlete approached most of the workouts at camp in the same way: trying so hard to make each interval perfect that she never seemed to notice anything else going on around her. Even though we were training outside, in the company of other athletes we liked and respected, she may as well have been doing her workouts on a treadmill, in Watopia, running past the virtual ghosts of other Zwifters, an avatar of alone-together behavior.

Modern training devices have done quite a bit for us as athletes. These days we carry powerful mini-computers on our wrists or bike stems, smaller versions of the supercomputer phones we also carry with us on workouts, in their own turn the shrunken siblings of the massive devices that hulk out on our office desks or living room credenzas. But the devices can promote a whole host of unhelpful behaviors for endurance athletes (just as phones pose risks to those of us who use them all the time). Today we’re going to work through some of the best practices for smartwatch and bike computer use. We believe that by using our devices to contextualize our efforts, rather than allowing them to drive or lead our workouts, we can become faster, happier, and healthier athletes, the Campfire goal.

Workout data contextualizes but doesn’t direct

Whoa, hold the phone, what the hell does THAT particular idea mean? Bottom line up front, it means that your workout data should be secondary to how your body feels and what your perception of effort is. We have all experienced heading out for a hard workout, like 5x1600m at the track, or 3x20’ @ FTP, only to realize that—even though our bodies feel the correct level of effort—our output (speed, power, pace) is not meeting the goal that day. On those days, have you had more success by gritting your teeth and trying to force the workout to perfection, or have you listened to what your body is saying and work more in the spirit of the effort, rather than the prescribed effort? I’m sure a few of you will try to convince us of the “no pain, no gain” route, but what we’ve found is that letting the numbers dictate success or failure, rather than listening to your body to tell you how hard you can go today, is a smoother path forward, less littered with injury and burnout. On the other hand, simply telling you to go out there and train by feel is irresponsible, too. Doing that is like handing a kid a violin and saying “What, you can’t just play that?” A large amount of practice needs to happen before you can hear accurately what your body is telling you, and your devices, if you set them up correctly and employ some best practices, can get you to that point of “just playing” faster.

How devices can help you get better through contextualizing effort

Many athletes have heard or seen the four stages of competence, which move from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, making stops at conscious incompetence and conscious competence along the way. When many of us start out in sport, we’re doing the sport simply because we like it and it’s fun. Maybe we have some natural aptitude, maybe we’re the Swedish Chef on skates, but at this stage we may not even WANT to get better. We make mistakes but we don’t care, because ignorance can be bliss. Usually, if an athlete does want to get better, a device at this stage can help us see the error, pointed out by a helpful coach or mentor: “Hey, see this section of your ride? This, right here, is why you didn’t run well—you were riding way too hard. It’s OK, don’t beat yourself up about it, you didn’t know! You’ll know to avoid that mistake in the future.” Now, armed with that information, our athlete spends a few weeks training, exploring their efforts and listening to how their body responds. Maybe they discover that at 200 watts their breathing gets too labored, and that when their breathing was that labored in the race their coach told them it was too much. Or maybe they use heart rate, and know now that efforts over 160 beats per minute (BPM) will leave them walking before the end of the run. The athlete goes to their next race and…gets it wrong again, but this time they return to their coach and say “Man, I could see I was over the effort again, but I felt so good! I didn’t think it would leave me walking again!” They saw their mistakes but made them anyway at this stage, the conscious incompetence phase. Next, having learned that their actions have real consequences for their body and their desired goals, the athlete sticks to the plan exactly, watching the watts, pace, or heart rate like a hawk during races and workouts, and results are…better but not great. What’s happening? This athlete, at the conscious competence phase, is hitting their prescribed numbers, but still something isn’t quite right. They come back to the coach with a quizzical expression on their face.

ATHLETE: “Well, I did stick to my numbers, and the race went better than I thought, but…I just felt as if there was more to give.”
COACH: “Ah, great! First of all, congratulations on the race! Can you describe to me the physical sensations of riding at the wattage that led to a successful run?”
ATHLETE: “Suuuurrrrre…maybe. OK, well, my breathing: it was deep but it wasn’t gasping.
COACH: “Great. What else?”
ATHLETE: “My legs felt the effort, but I really felt like I was on top of the pedals—that was that feeling of having more to give, you know? Like I could have really stomped on them.
COACH: “But you know what happens when you do that, remember?”
ATHLETE: “Yeah.”
COACH: “OK, so you felt the effort, but you felt as if you could do more. Was there any pain, or strain, or burning? How uncomfortable was it?”
ATHLETE: “It was uncomfortable but manageable.”
COACH: “GREAT! Love that. OK, anything else?”
ATHLETE: “I felt in control.”
COACH: “Awesome. OK. Here’s what we do. Now when you go out for a workout, you know those are the rough sensations you should feel at that wattage: deep breathing but not gasping, on top of the pedals, more to give, uncomfortable but manageable. When you feel those sensations, you know you’re in your ‘racey’ area. The next time we do race pace intervals, I want you to aim for those sensations, and use your bike computer as a backstop. The numbers you see certainly shouldn’t be perfect, but if they are within 5% on either side of what we’re aiming for, that’s more than good enough.”

Finally, when the athlete attains the unconscious competence phase, they simply head out onto the bike course and let their experience and feelings guide them. Athletes at this stage often don’t even need to look at their bike computers, checking the race or workout afterward to cross-check their work and make sure they’re in the range. And guess what? As the athlete gains fitness and ability, they’ll see their numbers going up at the same effort? Is this a problem? NO! THIS IS THE THING WE ARE AIMING AT THROUGH TRAINING! HIGHER OUTPUTS (SPEED/POWER/PACE) AT THE SAME EFFORT (HR/RPE).

Page One, Racing or Training

Everything you need, nothing you don’t. Realtime watts (yes, they bounce around), average watts for the workout/race, average HR, time, present BPM, distance, and present RPM. That’s IT.

Interval Workout Page

Lap time (duh), average watts for lap, cadence, realtime watts, average HR for lap, realtime HR, and last lap watts (so you can see what direction you are trending in).

Run Page One

Simple. Run distance, time, current pace, and current HR. You use this page to eyeball how things are going.

Run Workout Page

Lap distance, lap time, average pace for lap (since that’s one of our outputs we’re after), and average HR for lap.

The Racing Page

Yup. No pace here. Just present HR and lap HR. In a race, when you’re hitting lap every mile or kilometer, you should see your HR climbing slightly through the race, so this is the GOD page.

Device setup for achieving unconscious competence

1. TURN OFF AUTO LAP. You hear that, all of my athletes? Please, please, please, for my sake and the sake of the coaches you will work with after you fire me, TURN OFF AUTO LAP for your training. You can turn it back on FOR THE RUN ONLY during races, but other than that please turn it off. Your coaches want to be able to quickly see the intervals you did in your session. If you have intervals, your button-pushing looks like this: START, LAP at the beginning and end of each interval, STOP. That’s it! Same thing on the bike.

2. WEAR A HEART RATE STRAP. Oh please, wear a HR strap. The optical HR just isn’t there yet, and straps are almost a half-century old by now. They work. Find one that fits and doesn’t chafe (you just have to try several, I’m sorry, that’s it) and wear it IN EVERY SINGLE WORKOUT that’s not in the pool. Yes, you read that right. EVERY. SINGLE. WORKOUT.

3. YOUR GPS DEVICE IS INACCURATE ON THE TRACK. Yup, you read that right. Your $600 watch is mostly useless on the track, due to the fact that satellites don’t like decreasing radius turns. But why, why, why are you thinking about using GPS pace on the track? You literally have a digital watch on your wrist and tracks are pretty much universally 400m in distance. If your coach wanted average pace efforts on the road, they’d send you, well, out on the road. On the track we want the time (which you can get by hitting lap at the beginning and end of each interval), the distance you know because of basic math, and the average HR of the interval. CAVEAT: yes, some devices now have a “track mode” which does a little better with getting distances right, but…why? We really don’t get this one. Run your interval distances, hit lap at the beginning and end of each of them, and…that’s it. Nothing else to set up, trouble-shoot, or futz with while literally running almost as fast as you can. You don’t want your attention divided on track days. Devices are cool, yeah, but know what’s cooler? Nailing your track workouts. Strava doesn’t care, but your physiology sure does.

4. Page One, Bike: your global data screen on the bike, and the one you’ll use while racing. Real time watts (if you don’t have a power meter, real time HR goes here), average watts and HR to make sure you’re not over- or undercooking your effort, time (since race brain is a real thing) real time HR, distance, and cadence.

5. Page Two, Bike (Interval Sessions): lap time (it’s generally helpful to know this if you’re doing timed intervals, we think), lap wattage and HR, real time watts and HR, cadence, and last lap watts, so you can see how you did when you’re not slavering all over the screen.

6. Page One, Run: your global data screen on the run. Workout distance and time, average pace, and present HR. Everything you need to eyeball how you’re doing.

7. Page Two, Run (Interval Sessions): lap distance, lap time, average pace for lap, and average HR for lap. It can be nice to have real-time pace here to keep you from overcooking the pace in order to bring the average pace into line, but you’ll quickly learn how to do this by feel.

8. Page Three, Run (Racing): the GOD page. Simply real time HR, and lap HR. When you race, you can turn auto-lap back on, and you’ll be able to see your average HR for each lap and your real time HR. Since virtually 100% of the best endurance performances in the world (go look it up) come from a negative split EFFORT (not pace), this is all you need to look at during a race to have your best day. Looking at pace on race day will generate a quick trip to the struggle bus, since it is literally out of your control. The only thing you are in control of? Attitude and effort. Attitude can be covered in another piece, but HR is a great reflection of your effort. If you need proof, think of the last time you tried to run up a hill at the same pace you were just running on the flat. Pace may have stayed the same, but effort would have gone way up. Since we’re mostly managing effort in races, and we aren’t in control of the course and the conditions, we just don’t need to track pace. It will likely work against you, actually, and keep you away from unconscious competence.

9. Set up alerts. Just like the one at the top of this piece, setting alerts that remind you to drink or eat are really helpful, since it outsources something many athletes forget to do on race day.

10. Don’t bring your watches to the pool. This one deserves its own post, but really, stop it. You can all count to sixty, which is the longest interval a coach will probably prescribe you (that’s a 1500, and you can also hear the heads of all non-Americans exploding because they swim in normal-sized 50m pools, which is just 30 lengths instead of 60). Stop luxuriating in your claims that you can’t count to eight or twelve or sixteen. The watch in the pool is CLASSIC dissociative thinking, in which the athlete basically removes themselves from the situation and lets the watch do the work, a lot like our athlete at the top of the story. By counting your laps, you will be focusing on your effort and how your body feels; you will be associating with the workout, which is a powerful move in achieving flow state. Counting your laps is like counting breaths in meditation, or counting steps in a difficult run—the small amount of background thinking actually crowds out distracting thoughts, and this very often leads to flow states, in which athletes have great, unconscious (there’s that word again), performances.

So that’s it! Devices are fun, and sexy, but really they should exist primarily to record data and to contextualize your effort, so you know in your body what 200 watts feels like, or 7:30/mile on a flat road, or 160 BPM while running up a hill. Don’t get stuck inside your watch during races and training, like all of those tourists who spend their vacations behind their phones, taking pictures, and missing life for the recording of it.

Sharpening instead of Tapering

A good sharpening period leaves you feeling, well, sharp!

Suggestions for nailing your competition period

By Chris Boudreaux

“Taper time!  Time to put the legs up and relax till race day!”
“The hay is in the barn!”
“Last long run done! Time to chill…#tapertime”

How often do you see (or say) something along those lines in the last few weeks before a big race, like an Ironman or a marathon?  Pretty much all the time, especially if you’re on Twitter and follow a bunch of other distance athletes.  And it’s not that they are completely wrong.  Of course, if you’ve been doing a big training block leading into a major event, you will reduce the training load.  And there will be a focus on rest and recovery and making sure you’re 100% on race day.  But there’s a key word here many of us miss: FOCUS. 

There are a ton of articles and opinions on an ideal taper leading into events, but managing workload is an intensely personal aspect of training. Over the years we’ve seen tons of different ways to approach a race as far as the degree of workout reduction, specific workouts, specific rest days, that have all worked for the athletes and coaches that deploy them. But learning what works for YOU is something you and your coach need to figure out together. We’re not saying that there isn’t good, bad, and great ways to taper, but we think the mental focus during that time is the most important.

When you think of a “taper," we think of downtime, less work, more rest…basically a little off-season.  But what happens when you take your off-season break?  You don’t lose a ton of fitness over a few weeks, but try to go run a great track workout in the middle of November or December a month after your last race…Not fun, right?  There’s some physical sluggishness, but it’s overwhelmingly mental.  Your body and your mind are just not ready to work like that.  You’ve told your body that it’s resting, and guess what? That’s exactly what it wants to do.  So when we do the same thing in the last two to three weeks before our most important race of the year, why are we surprised when we feel flat and sluggish and “off” on race day?

There should be SOME of this during your sharpening period, but not ALL of your sharpening period

It’s not that exact of a science to be already to go for a 8-17 hour event.  You just don’t need to be that perfect.  You need sharpness, but not as much physical sharpness as if you were running the 100 meters (or even the 5-10k).  You need to be healthy, engaged, and be ready to work.  Think “sharpening” instead “tapering.” This may take some time. as the triathlon world, in particular, seems to be obsessed with the term taper (it makes several of us think of candles, though, or those long thingimajigs one uses to light hard-to-reach candles).

When you think about sharpening over the last few weeks, we’d urge you to think about sharpening your focus: more attention to detail, more time spent preparing for the event, more preparation of your mind.  While that increased mental focus includes reducing your training, it doesn’t include less preparation or attention to detail than what you’ve done over the previous eight-to-twelve week block just completed.  You should get dressed the same, warmup the same, eat properly, everything you’d do for that huge ride or run a few weeks back. Total focus and concentration on the task at hand. Sharp. Focused. Ready to give 100%. So even your 20 minute run w/30 second pickups has the same level of focus and attention that the 2 hour run with Ironman intervals did.

When you sharpen, everything you do over those last few days or weeks prepares your mind and body for the upcoming event.  When you feel like you’re resting and relaxing for 2 weeks, then asking your mind and body to be “on” for a huge event, that’s a recipe for disaster. Use your sharpening period to get you fully prepared, and then “taper” when it’s time for your off-season, the real time to relax and check out.

Five Non-Workout Activities to Help You Sharpen Into a Race

1. Write out your race-day nutrition and talk with your coach about it, being ready for adjustments to be made.

2. Move the course maps onto your bike computer or wrist-based GPS device—visualize yourself having a great event on those very roads.

3. Practice your race day nutrition in EVERY workout, even if it’s just a 25-minute run or 60-minute bike. 25 minutes is enough time for 2-3 energy chews, and in 60 minutes on your bike you should get through at least a bottle of sports drink. Does your body “need it?” No, but training your gut and your mind are crucial for good performances.

4. Put your training sessions at the rough time of day you’ll do them in the race and examine how your body feels.

5. Do 5-10 minutes of visualizing the race you want to have every. single. day. If you meditate, this is a great use of your daily meditation period. If you’re not meditating…then start. It can really help endurance athletes.

Getting Accountable

A simple process to figuring out what’s holding back your performance

Open up Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook the day after a race, and you’ll see dozens of “race reports” that feature some kind of excuse:

“TWO flats on the bike torpedoed my Kona chances!”

“Not the day I was hoping for, due to choppy water and high wind on the bike.”

“Would have done better but I’ve had some injuries recently that held me back.”“GI issues forced me to slow down.”

If you’re stuck with us this far (only 78 words) then maybe you’re already running through your social media recaps, wondering if you have participated in any of the above behavior. Maybe you’re worried, but don’t be! We have good news for you:

Nobody cares.

Yes, that’s right. Nobody cares how well or how poorly you did. Your friends and acquaintances just want you to feel good about your performance and your effort, and you shouldn’t worry about what your enemies think, because…they’re your enemies. Not only do they not care about how you did, they certainly don’t want to read about it. What does your “audience” want to hear, presumably? They want to imagine themselves in your shoes, doing hard things and overcoming adversity. They want to hear that you’re happy. The reality of these excuse-laden posts? They’re focused on making only one person feel better. We think you know who that person is.

It’s you.

What if we told you there’s not only a better way to deal with the disappointment of a race gone wrong, but there’s also a way to help you avoid “bad luck” in the future. You’ll notice we put bad luck in quotes—that means we really don’t believe it is bad luck, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. By ruthlessly examining your own role in aspects of your race that didn’t go according to plan, you can make yourself a stronger, more confident, more reliable racer at your next event. You ready? It won’t be easy or comfortable, but it will be useful. Get ready for something we call…Accountability. 

Can we get this guy some salt? Please? He seems incapable of helping himself.

A Useful Compass

The world today offers us opportunities for and examples of unaccountable behavior. Ever made an excuse about a race day performance like the ones above? Ever skip a session you promised your coach you would complete? Ever cheat on your taxes? Ever fail to return a library book? These all are moments when you chose not to be accountable to your commitments. Now, we can already hear what you’re saying “It would be impossible to keep 100% of the commitments we make in life,” and you’re absolutely right. There will be small failures of accountability throughout your life, and largely that’s totally OK. But when we’re talking about something that’s important to you, something you want to do well, then remaining focused on accountability can help you see the areas where you are letting yourself down. Committing to accountability, and examining the moments in which you drop the ball, can improve your performance and increase the satisfaction you feel around racing and training. Having a regular accountability process provides a useful compass, letting you know whether it’s YOU driving the bus…or some other, less helpful aspect of your personality…

Articulate the Commitment

OK, you ready? Let’s begin. We’re gonna take this kinda easy to begin, in order to keep things a little light for your first time through. We’d like you to think of a commitment you made recently and didn’t keep. It could be small, but make sure you clearly articulate what the commitment was. We’re going to use a semi-fictional example in this case for you to follow, an athlete named Dean who recently completed Coeur d’Alene 70.3, suffering some bad quad cramps late on the bike and throughout the run. Dean finished, but didn’t have the race he had hoped for. In chatting with Dean after the race, there was one particular commitment we focused upon: the fluid he consumed on the bike. Dean’s coach had prescribed six bottles of sports drink, estimating he would complete the bike in just under three hours. Coeur d’Alene was hot this year, making hydration particularly important for athlete performance. Dean got in a little under four bottles, or only two-thirds of what he’d agreed upon with his coach. So in this example, the commitment was to consume six bottles, and Dean consumed four. We would ask him to name the commitment (say it out loud or write it down) and then ask “Did you keep that commitment?” Although it can seem like we’re shaming Dean, the goal here is to get the athlete to say out loud that they didn’t keep the commitment, so they know for certain what happened.

So you had a bad day?

What was More Important and what were the Consequences?

Now that the athlete knows they didn’t keep a commitment, we ask three questions:

1. What did you CHOOSE to make more important? This question can get a little squirrely. We can assume that Dean didn’t WANT to get horrible quad cramps, so he may say something like “I just forgot to drink.” We say NO to that kind of tossing up of hands. EVERYTHING is a choice, especially when you are participating in an event that you CHOSE to participate in! So in this case, maybe Dean chose to make focusing on eating more important, or staying in his aero position, or maybe he chose to make not drinking more important than his commitment. The goal here is to communicate to the athlete that they made a choice—something didn’t just happen to them. Your athletes will protest, here, saying something like “I didn’t choose to get a flat tire,” but maybe they chose to not replace their tires in the weeks before the race, or maybe they didn’t replace the sealant in their tubeless set up. The message here is that the athlete is the only one responsible on race day, sadly.

2. What were the consequences to you? In Dean’s case, it’s obvious: cramps and impaired performance.

3. What were the consequences to others? This is important, but again your athletes might say “nah, no one.” Push them to think about this. Your coach, who worked hard on your training and your race plan? Your family, maybe, if you end up in medical and they don’t know where you are? Think hard about this—nothing encourages accountability like realizing you’ve messed with someone else’s experience.

What is the Belief that Drove the Behavior?

Now we really get down to it. The truth is is that every behavior we take in life (writing a blog, watching the Tour de France, going to dinner with a friend, to grab three examples) expresses a belief we have about ourselves or the world. In the three examples above those beliefs might be A) We believe that writing this blog may help other athletes improve their performances and enjoyment of the sport, B) watching the Tour is enjoyable, it only comes around once a year, and it’s important to me as a person to experience that enjoyment and the inclusion in a society that also enjoys the Tour, and C) that having dinner with a friend will be good for our relationship. There are beliefs that power our less than helpful behaviors, too. So what might have powered Dean’s behavior of not sticking to the plan he agreed to with his coach? The following are guesses and projections:

1. I didn’t believe it would actually affect me (“I felt fine at the time!”)

2. My racing is not important enough for me to worry about stuff like that (“I’m not a pro…I’m not trying to get to Worlds…this is all just for fun”)

3. I don’t believe I need anything other than water (“sports drinks are too processed!”)

Who Else Speaks Like That?

Once we’ve got a belief, we ask the athlete to say how they would describe somebody else (not them!) who held the same belief. We’d say, “OK, what words would you use to describe someone who thought that hot temperatures wouldn’t affect their performance?” After a little coaching, the athlete might say “Well, that person clearly thinks they are different, or special, or better than the other athletes around them.” Or “That athlete should value their racing and training more.” Finally, the third belief might be something like “The normal rules of physiology don’t apply to me.” The idea, here, is for the athlete to see that their belief is the thing that is powering their unaccountable behavior. Most athletes aren’t willing to face this, and they look for something else to blame the difficulty on. But you’re not “most athletes,” right? You’ve stuck around for 1500 words at this point! So we know you’re brave, so you can handle the next step.

What’s the Shadow?

Before we get into this part, we are NOT therapists. The concept of shadow is a Jungian creation, and you can find this information out there in the world, but we are not doctors and we don’t even play them on T.V. This is all for informational purposes only. OK, wild side step aside, now we want you to name that belief that is powering the behavior we don’t want. We call it a shadow because usually it’s behind you—we’re using the power of accountability to bring the shadow into the light, where we can examine it. We’re gonna ask our athlete to name the shadow, and the best way to do is to ask “What judgments would you have about someone other than you who held the belief that’s powering that behavior?” Here are some answers, given our three examples above:

1. Conceited/Proud/Special shadow (“The rules don’t apply to me”)

2. Unworthy/ashamed/not-good-enough shadow (“My pursuits don’t matter”)

3. Arrogant/Better-Than shadow (“Experts can’t be trusted”)

Maybe you should have packed better?

CONCLUSION

OK, the goal here is NOT to leave the athlete feeling conceited, or worthless, or arrogant. The goal here is to see that they have something normal that is driving their behavior in ways that actually doesn’t help them much. But how do we fix it? We’re not going to change a lifetime of belief with one process—the goal here is exposing the shadow. But we CAN help the athlete prove to him or herself that they CAN make commitments and stick to them. The last thing we do is ask the athlete “OK, now that you see this, what is a SMALL commitment you can make that you can follow through with so you can show yourself that you can stick to commitments?” The athlete can’t just re-voice the commitment they missed, since that commitment still stands. We always suggest something simple, like saying you’ll send your mom flowers next Wednesday for no good reason. As coach, make sure your athlete knows you will check in on them to see if they kept that commitment, too. Ideally they did, and they can start feeling as if they can make and keep commitments. If they didn’t? Well, you simply run the script all over again!

Once an athlete realizes that everything is a choice of theirs, and that only they are responsible for what happens to them on race day, we have found that athletes tend to own their performances, take better care of their equipment, and prepare as much as possible. In closing, here is a list of excuses we’ve heard and how that athlete could have taken responsibility and prepared better.

Excuse	The Accountable Answer
“My stomach shut down”	Practice your nutrition in EVERY workout
“The water was too choppy—I do better in flat water.”	GO PRACTICE IN THE OPEN WATER, and work on lifting your stroke rate
“It was too hot and I melted.”	Adjust your pace, and acclimate ahead of time
“I lost my nutrition.”	Don’t rely on “special” nutrition—train your gut to accept anything
“I got a flat tire.”	Keep your equipment in excellent working order, and practice changing flats
“Another rider crashed me out.”	It takes two to crash—how did you contribute to this situation and how will you stay out of that situation in the future?
“My aerobars/saddle slipped—stupid bolts!”	Torque your bolts before any race
“I fell apart in the final half of the run.”	Examine your pacing, Broheim.
“My race nutrition soured the night before the race.”	What? No it didn’t.
“Another athlete knocked off my goggles/swam over me/got in my way.”	Practice swimming in groups.

Want to hear this process in action? Click below and listen along!

Beating the Heating

How to prepare your body for training and racing in hotter weather

Prepping for heat early can make your race day all smiles (handups from your daughter help, too)

Who hasn’t struggled through a surprisingly hot race, one that was supposed to be mild but then flared into the 90s Fahrenheit on race day? Or maybe you know you’re traveling to a hot race (Kona, any race in Mexico, or maybe even Coeur d’Alene in the usually cool and wet Northwest) but you aren’t sure how much heat acclimation you should do, or how to do it? Managing your core temperature can be the most important piece of non-training preparation after practicing race-day nutrition, and dealing with heat will only continue to become more important as races and athletes struggle to deal with the realities of climate change. Today we’ll give you a sense of how to acclimate and acclimatize (those are different?) and what you can do on race day to give yourself the best chance of keeping your literal cool. As one of our co-founders likes to say: “You can’t uncook a turkey.” Don’t be an overcooked turkey, okay?

Understanding Plasma Volume, Sweat Rate, and Cooling

Before we get into our tips for preparing, we have to take a brief detour through some physiology. First of all, how does the body cool itself in the first place? Without these processes, your body would heat up by about 2° C every minute of exercise, which would make any kind of effort beyond a few minutes lethal to humans. Happily, we seemed to have evolved to avoid that quick and ugly fate. One of the main mechanisms for cooling is sweating. A warming body sends more blood to the capillaries under the skin, where heat can radiate into the air around you. In addition, you begin to sweat; the body’s goal in this case is to cool the body by evaporation: the sweat carries energy out of your body and into the atmosphere around you. So sweating a lot is good. Sweating, however, dehydrates your body, which eventually will contribute to temperature rise. Why is this? Well, your body has a kind of internal lake, and if you remember specific heat from 7th grade science, you remember that the bigger a body of water, the longer it takes to warm that body of water up. Our internal lake is everywhere, part of that “the human body is 70% water” cliché that floats around, but one of the parts we can manage is our Plasma Volume, or the watery component of our blood. The other part of our blood are the red blood cells, those inner-tube-shaped discs that keep us alive by transporting everything we need around the circulatory system. Plasma is a yellowish but clear liquid that the red blood cells are suspended within—without plasma your blood would instantly coagulate in your veins, which would be…suboptimal for continued living. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Well, you can increase your plasma volume ahead of your event through several different ways which we’ll cover below, but if you’re paying attention you’ll remember that a big body of water warms up more slowly, and your plasma volume is a big part of your internal lake. Therefore, if you have more plasma volume you’ll heat up slower, and cooking your turkey takes longer. So our big three goals in preparation for hot events are:

• Increase capillary density so more heat can radiate away

• Increase plasma volume to slow heating and to stave off dehydration

• Increase sweat rate to improve cooling through evaporation

Ready? OK, let’s begin.

Acclimation vs. Acclimatization

First of all, let’s get some terminology out of the way. Acclimation is the process of preparing your body through different techniques to better handle the heat. You might sit in a sauna, pedal your bike in a hot room, hit the hot tub after a hard swim (gross), or wear too much clothing on a warm day, all of which will raise your core temperature and incur the changes we’re after. Acclimation is something you do in the weeks and months before the race, and it doesn’t look much like the actual race. Acclimatization, on the other hand, is a much more specific process that entails training in the exact conditions of the race. For most athletes, this is difficult or impossible, since it’s unlikely you’ll be at the race site for weeks and months before your event. We call out this difference because we believe that, in general, workouts should not be race day rehearsals, except in tiny doses. Acclimatization takes a while, too, and if you don’t acclimate first, you’ll simply deplete your body by trying to acclimatize race week. Don’t be like those athletes who think they can adapt to altitude by going the race a week ahead of time: true acclimatization takes weeks if not months, and to be successful you need to acclimate first and acclimatize later. OK, vocab lesson over.

Start Early and Periodize/Dose

Continuing in our theme of saving endurance athletes from themselves, we encourage you to start your heat training early. In a meta-analysis of athletic preparation ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the study authors found that most athletes began their heat acclimation 16 to 20 weeks before the games, suggesting that this is something you should include long before you head into your race-specific period. But we all know that endurance athletes LOVE to overdo things, and we don’t want someone to read this and then resolve to hit the sauna every day, twice a day, for hundreds of days before racing. Your body is wildly complex and adaptable, and if you convince it that it now lives in a hot environment, your plasma volume will expand at first but then eventually return to homeostasis (baseline), rendering your efforts moot! Don’t overdo it, endurance athletes! Heat preparation appears to work in a similar way to altitude training, where athletes perform doses of heat exposure coupled with weeks of heat maintenance. We suggest a pattern of two weeks of heat exposure, where athletes do some kind of heat work four-to-five times a week, followed by a week of maintenance where you do heat work only once. Hear that, everyone? Only once! More is not more in this context! Here is a sample protocol, below, with explanation:

Proposed 16-wk chronic heat preparation approach which includes MTHA (medium term heat acclimation) of ten 1/day heat acclimation (HA) sessions commencing 16 wk prior to competition start, followed by short term heat acclimation (STHA) in the form of five 1/day HA (12 wk prior to competition start) and then twice-daily heat acclimation (TDHA) 8 and 5 weeks prior to competition start). Weekly adaptation retention sessions using established exercise heat acclimation approaches e.g. isothermic method (HA) or alternative approaches (HA-ALT) e.g. over-dressing or post-exercise hot water immersion (HWI)/Sauna, punctuate these interventions. Days with no notation are regular training/recovery days. Athletes may consider implementing double sessions e.g. strength and conditioning or similar activity on acclimation days.

Raising Core Temperature is King

The big goal with heat training is to raise your core temperature, which will raise your skin temperature. Once you’ve inflicted that stress on your body, it will try to find ways to adapt, shifting blood to the skin, sweating more, and boosting plasma volume. How much should you raise your core temperature? Well, unless you have access to a swallowable thermometer OR a very good friend who is willing to take, um, internal readings, you probably won’t be able to track this exactly. BUT it doesn’t really matter. Any of the following mechanisms will raise your core temperature, so if you stick to these you’ll achieve your goal:

• Training in a hot and relatively dry room: examples include riding a bike at 50% of threshold power in a 100° F room for 90 minutes; rowing for 40’ in a room at 40 C and 60% relative humidity

• Passive heating: sitting in a 180° F sauna for 20’ after a workout of at least 30 minutes; sitting in a hot water (100-110° F) bath up to your neck for 15-20’ after a workout of at least 30 minutes

• Overdressing during training: wearing long sleeves, tights, etc…while doing your training in a normal or warm environment

What does all of this accomplish? Well, we’ve pointed this out above, but endurance athletes love lists, so…here you go. The adaptations from raising your core temperature are:

• Hypervolaemia (higher water content of blood, basically)

• Lower perception of discomfort/effort/fatigue

• Lower core temperatures during prolonged exercise

• Decreased glycolysis/increased fat oxidation (this is huge for endurance athletes, as it means you have more fuel for longer)

• Higher plasma volume, which leads to…

• ...higher stroke volume, which can lead to higher VO2max (but not necessarily) and…

• …slower dehydration, which is what we’re really after

• Lower resting heart rate

• Lower exercise heart rate

• Increased blood skin flow, which leads to…

• ...higher sweat rate = more cooling

Enjoy the sweat!

Sweat is Your Friend

So, sweat. It can seem that sweat is the enemy, since it carries fluid and electrolytes out of your body during exercise, and it would seem that retaining as much of those as possible would be important. But as we’ve pointed out above, more sweat equals more cooling, so we really want to encourage sweating. But now we need to account for how much fluid you lose during sweat. If you’ve been with us a while, you’ve seen us talk about the sodium content in your sweat, a crucial number to know for endurance athletes. If you know how much sodium you lose per liter of sweat, and then you know how much sweat you lose in a given time period, you can make a plan to replace as much of that fluid and electrolytes as possible! So take the time and get a sodium content test done, and then test your sweat rate on your own time. How do you do that? Simple:

1. Before a workout, weigh yourself naked and dry (weight A)

2. Keep track of how much fluid you drink during a workout 

3. Weigh yourself naked and dry after the workout (weight B)

4. Subtract weight B from Weight A to find the difference and convert to fluid ounces or milliliters (1 pound = 16 fluid ounces, 1 kg = 1,000 ml)

5. Add the volume of the fluid drunk during the workout

6. Divide that total volume by the number of hours in the session to get your sweat rate per hour

Ideally, you perform this test several times in the run up to your event, seeing your sweat rate rise as you get closer. If your sweat rate is going up, you are successfully acclimating.

Fitness Helps

Remember reading above that more capillaries improve your body’s ability to get rid of heat? You know what generates more capillaries throughout your body? Effective aerobic conditioning, otherwise known as easy-to-moderate training. Don’t skip this work, as it is the golden goose of endurance sport—it is truly the gift that keeps on giving. The fitter you are, the better your radiator is at getting rid of heat, so…do those long easy rides, runs, and swims!

Campeche, Mexico, where not only is it usually hot but the race often starts at noon!

For the Ladies

As always, ladies, the men have it slightly easier in this context. That sucks, but it doesn’t mean you should throw up your hands. The takeaway is essentially the same as everything we’ve said thus far, but knowing the why is always powerful. Racing during the luteal phase (high hormone phase, right before menstruation) of your cycle can be more difficult, as core temperature rises faster during that phase (although how much this affects performance is still unknown). It seems like this can be mitigated by heat acclimation and adequate fluid intake. Hormonal contraception can also raise core temperatures AND lower sweat response, both negatives in this particular scenario. What’s the big takeaway for women? You should perform acclimation work during all phases of your cycle, and women may benefit from a longer term (more than ten days) acclimation program than men will.

Conclusion

Just this week warm weather returned to the Pacific Northwest, where Campfire makes its home, and we have a summer of warm racing ahead of us. Don’t worry if you haven’t started acclimating yet—there is still time! Begin adding some heat sessions to your training, and some of that will happen naturally as you perform your workouts outside in the glorious temperatures. If you start acclimating, you’ll be better prepared for warm days when they coincide with race day. This doesn’t mean that if you are heat acclimated you won’t have to modulate your pace at all, but you’ll certainly have to modulate it less than you would if you hadn’t prepared. As with most things in endurance sports, proper preparation prevents poor performance. With that monument to alliteration out of the way, we’ll leave you to it!

Sources

Gibson, Oliver R et al. “Heat alleviation strategies for athletic performance: A review and practitioner guidelines.” Temperature (Austin, Tex.) vol. 7,1 3-36. 12 Oct. 2019, doi:10.1080/23328940.2019.1666624

Golich, Lindsay, MSc. “Heat and Humidity Preparation for Extreme Training and Racing Conditions.” Endurance Exchange, January 2022.

Garrett AT, Creasy R, Rehrer NJ, Patterson MJ, Cotter JD. Effectiveness of short-term heat acclimation for highly trained athletes. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 May;112(5):1827-37. doi: 10.1007/s00421-011-2153-3. Epub 2011 Sep 14. PMID: 21915701.

Garrett AT, Goosens NG, Rehrer NJ, Patterson MJ, Cotter JD. Induction and decay of short-term heat acclimation. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009 Dec;107(6):659-70. doi: 10.1007/s00421-009-1182-7. Epub 2009 Sep 1. Erratum in: Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009 Dec;107(6):671. Rehrer, Nancy G [corrected to Rehrer, Nancy J]. PMID: 19727796.

Sick Happens

by Campfire Head Coaches Molly Balfe and Chris Bagg

First, it's totally understandable that you're worried. You've been training hard throughout the spring, building your threshold power on the bike, improving your run endurance, and working on technique in the pool. Your first big race is coming right up, and you feel like you're on track for a strong performance. And then you get sick. You can't work out; you can't really get out of bed. You're out for at least a week. What do you do?

If you have been dealing with a cold or flu, the return to training is typically straightforward. There is a general guideline to follow with sickness, which we’ll lead with here: If you're sick, wait until you feel COMPLETELY NORMAL (100% back to normal), and then...WAIT ONE MORE DAY. Yes, you read that correctly. Wait until you feel perfect, and then wait another day. I can't tell you how many times I've told this to athletes, and then heard something like "Well, I think I'm OK. I've still got a bit of a sore throat and a runny nose, but I could probably train." A week later, the athlete still feels rotten, and the intervening week of training is pretty much wasted.

If you are coming back from from covid, it is wise to be a bit more cautious. So much is still unknown and there seem to be real risks of cardiac damage, especially in severe infections. The American College of Sport Medicine has some guidelines for returning to training, which include:

• Athletes under age 50 who were asymptomatic or had mild respiratory symptoms that resolved within 7 days can follow a gradual return to exercise after resting for 10 days

• Asymptomatic athletes should rest for 7 days

• Athletes over age 50, or with symptoms (including shortness of breath or chest pain) or fatigue that lasted more than 7 days should be evaluated by a physician before returning to training.

• All athletes should engage in 2 weeks of minimal exertion before increasing volume and intensity, and those increases should be gradual.

We get it. Not training feels calamitous. It feels as if you're sliding back into your pre-season lack of fitness. You've spent money on travel, on a race, on a coach. The thought of doing nothing is terrifying. And here's where we hope you'll learn something from this blog. The basic guidelines are simple, but the execution can be excruciating. Here's a chance to do some mental training, while you're sick.

1. Why is it excruciating? What about losing a week or so of training threatens your sense of identity as an athlete? Or, to put it more bluntly, what are you afraid of losing?

2. Now that you've admitted what you're afraid of losing, keep following that thread. If you lose that thing, what's next? What else will you lose? What's at risk if you take time off of training?

3. Keep heading on down the ladder, until you get to the very bottom. It'll probably be something you didn't expect, something like "people will know that I'm a fraud," or "everyone will be proved right about me."

4. Now take a step back and see how far apart Point A (taking a week off from training) and Point B (everyone knows I'm a fraud) are, in fact. This greater sense of perspective might expose to you that the only person making this training interruption calamitous is, in fact, you.

5. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to make you feel worse. It's important, though, that you recognize this is coming from your own personal demons.

Now it's time to start the journey back up. I hope that by forcing yourself through that exercise you may see that your reaction outstrips reality (is taking a time off of training really going to change how anyone thinks about you? Very likely not; in fact, those people you're worried about really aren't thinking about you that much, anyway; probably something like 30-60 seconds per week, max). With a little perspective you can start seeing the fact that your season is quite long, and a week's interruption won't change much. And if you rush back and get sick again, you've just created a much bigger and longer interruption.

We can say this to you until we're blue in the face, but what we really want is to get there alongside you. There's a great saying in coaching and teaching: "tell me and I forget; teach me and I may remember; involve me and I'll learn." What we're after, here, is mastery of your particular sport. As coaches (and, in particular, endurance coaches) there is nothing we can do for you while you're in competition. You are largely alone. What we want for you is the ability to make decisions on your own, respond to new information, and thrive no matter the environment. Learning how to deal with sickness can become a microcosm for being a better athlete. The first few times you get sick you'll want to rush back. Your coach will remind you, gently, to wait. The first few times you won't listen, and you'll be sick again in a week. Then you have a chance to take control of it yourself, owning it and taking the break you need to take. You go on to have an excellent sharpening period before that big race. You do better than you anticipated, probably due to the rest you put in while convalescing (the sporting world is full of stories like this). So that's nice, but the real benefit is that you've taken a step towards mastery of the sport.

Our author, on the verge of getting sick, feeling sick during the Chili Pie race in New Mexico

10th at the Age Group World Championships in St. George—Result Spotlight

John B. en route to a 9:38 on the very difficult StG World Championships course

Ed. Note—today we hand the keys over to John B., a Campfire Endurance Coaching athlete who nabbed 10th in his AG at the Ironman World Championships this past weekend in St. George. Following you’ll find his notes about the day, and the coaches will drop comments in about John’s preparation.

• 9:38:34, 3rd fastest IM on the hardest course I’ve completed to date

• 10th in AG, 65th male OA

Swim

57:05, 10th in AG, 67th male

Two days leading in, the water was 60 degrees. Cold for a general swim but with race day adrenaline I figured it would be fine for race day. I still put gloves in my T1 bag just in case. Race morning they announced it was 64 degrees and that eased the nerves and also helped me decide that no gloves would be needed for the start of the bike. I poured ice water on my face and down my kit prior to jumping starting the race to get that initial fight or flight reaction over with. Coach’s note: many athletes forget to do this, and it’s a mistake! Your mammalian diving reflex happens when water hits your face, prompting a big inhale and a rise in heart rate and ventilation, two things you don’t want when you’re already nervous. Splash cold water on your face and in your wetsuit before the start to mitigate this reaction.

Pretty basic swim, I was the 5th wave to start and just swam through the earlier waves the entire time. After about 200m I backed off the effort slightly knowing I wanted to build by the end. Found some good feet about 1k into the swim and followed those for the next ~1.5k before not liking the line he was taking and did the rest solo. Pressed a little towards the end but still held it in the 5/6 out of 10 effort all the way to the end. Coach’s note: this is a perfect report. The swim in the Ironman should be exactly like this: quick-ish start but only for 2-300 meters, and then a settling into 5-6 out of 10 effort or “moderate to moderately-hard.”

The swim venue in StG, where water temps hovered in the low 60s

Bike

• 5:12:37, 3rd fastest IM bike on a much tougher course

• 16th in AG and 101st in males

• NP by hr: 197, 190, 192, 195, 189.

• Nutrition: no issues here and everything went down well

  • 5.5 24oz bottles with 75g cabs and 1300mg of sodium in each

  • First two hours was 25g carbs of gummy worms

  • Final 3 hours was 1 gel an hour with 25g carbs

  • Water from every age station

As everyone has already said, St. George was an absolutely crushing course and absolutely worth being a World Championship.

My only goal starting the bike was to start easy and not push over 220w. The first tiny climb out of T1, 220w did not feel very good and my HR was shooting up above 150! This was basically how the rest of the bike went. Power was not coming, and my HR was super high at my recovery power. I hoped that after a little bit the legs would turn around and I would be able to ride the way I knew I could. But that was not the case, I tried my best to hold 180-200w the rest of the ride while holding my HR in control as much as possible in the high 140’s. Then it became a problem-solving day, just do what I can to get to the finish of the ride. I always have faith in my run and just knew I needed to get there as I just wanted off that bike by mile 70…I did have a little concern during that ride as I felt like my quads were cramping slightly on the ride after the first major climb up Gunlock. I pushed that negativity aside as best as possible as I didn’t need to make any decisions about the run before getting it started. Coach’s note: I believe that I got John’s taper wrong for the bike. John has an anaerobic background as a pole vaulter (yup), and could probably have benefited from more bike work late. We really only did one threshold session in the final ten days before the race, and everything else was very light or short. We will play around with a different taper for John’s next 70.3 to make sure we have a solid plan for John’s next Ironman, in Kona.

Closing in on the finish line

Run

• 3:21:30

• 11th in AG and 67th in males

• Nutrition:

  • One Clif Blok every two miles

  • Started with 200 calorie bottle and finished most of that in the first 1.5hr

  • Coke starting at mile 8

  • Two gels

Same as the bike, just start easy! Straight out of T2 an uphill is not a great way to start a marathon. I looked down at the watch and saw my power at 340 and immediately slowed down significantly to drop down to 310. It was hot and I knew some lower power was going to be needed to get me through to the end in the best way possible. Mentally this marathon went by quickly as I just focused on one mile at a time and doing my best in that specific moment without thinking about what is to come. Every aid station was the same thing, slow down and grab water and as much ice as possible to pour down the kit. Between aid stations I would hold ice in my hands to help keep myself as cool as possible. I turned to coke by mile eight as gels just didn’t sound great and I was only putting down the Clif Bloks every two miles. I must have been a bit low on sodium during that run as I had to pee so much during that marathon! It was like the water was running through me. Half way through, I had to take a bathroom pit stop as a bit of gas had showed up and I knew I didn’t need to risk holding that off very long. That second lap of the run was an interesting one, passing so many people was exciting and even running with a couple guys for a while kept me engaged on the process at hand, but I dropped them all eventually.

The final 10k was a rough one, I started to feel my hip flexors and hamstrings tightening up when I tried to press a little harder, rather that pushing harder I focused on a quicker cadence which seemed to help me move a little faster without completely seizing up. The last uphill was absolutely crushing, but I was the only one running up that hill at the moment which made me feel strong. I finally crested the top with only 2.5 miles to go. This was also the first time I saw my girlfriend Alex that day as she started her first loop and that gave me a little reprieve going into the final miles. I wish I could have ran faster at that moment, but the cramps were on the verge of sending me into a walk so just tried to keep the cadence up and get down that final hill. What a relief it was to hit that finish line after getting through some low moment during that bike.

Finisher medal in hand, 10th in the world in the 30-34 AG

Summary/Resolutions for Next Time

• Swim

  • Did what I expected to do. Could I have swam harder and a little faster, probably. I have swam between 56-58 in every IM I have ever done so this was where I expected this one to be too.

• Bike:

  • Keep the bike legs working through the taper. I may have just gone into this one too rested and resulted in being flat on the day.

  • Nutrition worked great, don’t change it.

  • Good job not getting too down on yourself not being able to push the power you wanted. Great job and using all the information I had to pace the ride (HR, power, PE). Coach’s note: this is my absolutely favorite thing that John wrote in his reflection. Staying positive when things aren’t going to plan is so important in long-distance racing, and at at LEAST two to three things will not go according to plan. Instead of wasting energy on worrying and self-recrimination, John managed what he could control and got a great result anyway. This is the big takeaway lesson for him and for anyone reading.

  • Good job staying focused on the process to get to the run in the best shape possible.

• Run:

  • Pacing was pretty damn even all day long, 308w for the fist half and 305w for the second. Great job at adjusting for the heat and holding steady all day long. Cadence increase just slightly for the second half.

  • Get more salt in on the run, I was peeing so much!

  • Would have liked to get one more long hill workout in prior to this race. The hip flexors were gone for the last 10k and I think that had to do with all the climbing.

How Two Days of Time Trialing Will Make you a Better Cyclist

by Campfire Head Coaches Molly Balfe and Chris Bagg

Putting in the work at the Deschutes River Valley Time Trial Festival

Campfire athlete Jenny G. sets off on stage 3 of the Deschutes River Valley Time Trial Festival

Every April, in a small town in central Oregon, a strange event called the Deschutes River Time Trial Festival takes place, put on by Race Across Oregon. Over the penultimate weekend of the month, athletes participate in three different time trials, those with the lowest aggregate times taking home victory, but this event isn’t about results—it’s about challenge, assessment, and fun. The awards ceremony, MC’d by the race director George Thomas, is a madcap affair with fake rubber checks, mallets, and dollar store prizes curated for each racer. DRVTT is a mixture of mundane suffering on the bike and sublime oddness, all surrounded by the austere beauty of central Oregon. Today we’ll tell you a little bit about George, the race director, check in with head coach Molly Balfe about her return to DRVTT, and then assess the benefits of this kind of event for all athletes: triathletes and cyclists alike.

George Thomas, RAAM-finisher, former RAAM race director, DRVTT and RAO director, podcast host…so many things!

A history of overcoming

George Thomas is a unique individual among unique individuals. In the late 1980s he was hit by a vehicle and tossed a few hundred feet through the air. Told he’d never walk again he said “hold my beer” and not only returned to walking but also to riding his bike. No stranger to setback, he developed another complication from the crash that forced him to stop riding for a few years. Depressed and trying to figure out what would come next, the cycling and downhill skiing great volunteered for an experimental treatment that worked, allowing him to return to riding. George doesn’t do things in halves, so he took his return to riding like a matador, signing up for a four-person Race Across America team. “That felt like cheating,” he says, “so the next two years I did it solo.” Still looking to increase his personal adversity, George spent the next two years doing RAAM on a tandem. Yup, you read that right. 13-15 days of staring at someone else’s butt while you hallucinate the weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit chasing you through the Nebraska cornfields, pointing at you and laughing (true story—ask George).

After his 5th RAAM, George directed the race for several editions before becoming the finish line announcer and race director emeritus. He began his own race series in Oregon, Race Across Oregon (RAO), which included quirky relay time-trials across the state, often in the Maupin area. DRVTT remains one of his more popular and visible events, due to the large number of triathletes and cyclists who view it as a great training weekend, but RAO also puts on 12- and 24-hour time trial races (The Ring of Fire), double centuries, and several other excellent cycling events. A true renaissance man, in the winter George pursues “his first love,” which is coaching and teaching alpine skiing in the mountains of Colorado and Oregon.

“I don’t want my events to get too big,” George says, “because I want to be able to remember everyone’s name at the award ceremony.” No slouch on the bike himself, George has logged hundreds of thousands of miles on the roads around Maupin, Oregon, and Nederland, Colorado, and is planning to return to RAAM as an athlete next year. His only caveat? He has to get ahead of the solo riders so he can be on time to announce the finish line in Annapolis, Maryland.

Our narrator, unhappy about number placement

The Athlete’s Perspective

This weekend I returned to Maupin for my second Deschutes River Valley Time Trial Festival. DRVTT holds a special place in my race season because of the beautiful scenery, the strong community, and the heaping dose of early season humility that it piles on my plate. I have a lot of gratitude for the work that George Thomas puts in to ensure that athletes have the chance to race three challenging stages in his RAAM training grounds. It is a perfect chance to test your early season legs on beautiful road and seemingly endless climbs.

Some things come naturally to me. I’m pretty good at math, I’m a decent swimmer, and I will challenge you to a karaoke battle any day. Cycling is not one of those things. The gains that I’ve made over the past few decades in the sport have come from lots of work, and all that work has put me squarely in the middle of the field at most triathlons. This year, in an attempt to change that, I’ve been doubling down on bike volume to hopefully make some gains in speed and strength. The progress is slower than I’d like (right?), but it is happening. Races like DRVTT are a perfect way to gauge improvement and see what those hours on the trainer have wrought. This year I’m a little faster! No one is going to mistake me for Marianne Vos anytime soon, but improvement is definitely there.

There is a real beauty in inviting yourself to places where you feel like you don’t belong. Last year I had no idea what to expect and I barely knew anyone who would be racing. I worried about doing the wrong thing and looking like a dork in an environment that holds both my business and much of my social circle. I also worried I’d get my ass kicked by all the fast ladies. It turned out I didn’t need to worry about any of that; I absolutely did things wrong, looked like a dork, and got my ass kicked by the fast ladies. I also walked away with new friendships and a whole lot more confidence. Racing like this isn’t about what you look like or where you land, it is about how willing you are to test yourself. There is a place for everyone who is brave enough to show up.

Doing something you’re bad at is awesome. So many athletes sign up for races that will feature their strengths or showcase their talents, but there is so much freedom in taking on big challenges that are outside your comfort zone (I’m looking at you, gravel bike). The events that stand out most in my mind aren’t necessarily my fastest races, they’re the ones that tested me and showed me how capable I am. They gave me the stories I tell and many of the people I tell them to. Take some pressure off your performance and sign up for that thing you’ve been wanting to do! Make mistakes. Look like a dork. Get your ass kicked.

Maupin’s surroundings can make a bigger-picture view easier

A Coach’s Perspective

DRVTT’s format seems built for a coach. Athletes take part in three different time trials, each hitting a different energy system and making different demands upon an athlete. The accumulated stress from the weekend (3-6 hours of near maximal riding) makes for a huge dose of effective training, and Saturday in particular is difficult, with two near-threshold efforts coming only a few hours apart. Here’s a quick breakdown, and why this race is such a great stimulus for triathletes and cyclists alike.

Stage One—26 miles, rolling

Stage One (as every stage at DRVTT does) starts with a three mile climb. That’s just what you get in Maupin as you climb out of the Deschutes Canyon. After summiting that initial climb, stage one deals with flat but windy terrain, technical and steep descending, and then a long false-flat drag through the canyon, very often into a headwind. Stage One takes most participants 60-90 minutes to complete, and provides coaches with a sense of what an athlete’s just-slightly-sub-threshold capacity is. Due to the rolling nature, averaging near threshold power or HR is difficult on this course, but you will get a real sense of your 60-90’ mean maximal power, which is a nice warmup for…

Stage two—8 miles, all uphill

…Stage Two, which is this coach’s least favorite stage. Stage two takes most athletes between 30 and 60 minutes, and gives that athlete’s coach a sense of an athlete’s true threshold power. The climb doesn’t relent on its eight mile journey, peaking on the eastern plateau of the Central Oregon landscape. Coming on the heels of stage one, your athlete will get a real sense of how they manage fatigue, and how their habits around fueling, hydration, and recovery serve them (or don’t serve them!).

Stage Three—46 miles, out-and-back

Stage Three is the nail in the coffin for your energy. Tired from the repeated efforts of day two, you put your fatigue resistance to the test in a 46-mile out-and-back that includes several long climbs, and then (typically) a head wind on the way back to town (so cruel). Newer athletes thinking that the course gets easier after the turnaround will be disappointed, as the return trip somehow can feel harder than the outbound leg (if that’s the case, perhaps your pacing needs work…). Stage Three tests an athlete’s speed, durability, climbing strength, endurance, and their self-care. If you haven’t been eating steadily all weekend, you’re going to suffer today.

Recovering from Stage Two in the “Refreshing” Deschutes

A Community Event

But the real gold of DRVTT is the community. From George’s antics to the hospitality of Rob and Suzie Miles, owners of the host hotel Imperial River Company, this race offers friendship and fun and camaraderie hard to find anywhere else. You live and suffer together for two straight days, finally gathering on the IRC’s outdoor patio for George’s amazing award ceremony. Here are some images of Campfire athletes from the 2022 edition, and we’re already making plans for a return in 2023. Thank you, George!

George et al mugging for the camera

Campfire athlete Mo C., stoked to be here

Local food carts supply meals

Campfire athlete Kirby A., reconnoitering the course for 2023

Head Coach Molly enjoying some well-deserved sun in Central Oregon

The pizza (and the race) really is this good

Every athlete gets a TT-hold to start (and jokes abound)

We’ll see you in 2023! Start making plans now for the end of April, 2023!

Hey, Campfire Coaches, What's With the Pancakes?

by Amy VanTassel

You should really bring your own maple syrup.

Ed. Note—race season is upon us! Locally, Campfire athlete John Brenteson took the win at the OSU Beaver Freezer triathlon in truly freezer conditions, and this weekend sees the opening of the North American Ironman circuit with Texas on the calendar. Campfire athletes will be in action near and far, and probably tucking into large plates of…pancakes tomorrow morning? What’s up with that?

“The Grand Slam breakfast already comes with pancakes and toast, sir.”

“I know, I’d like an extra side of pancakes and additional serving of toast. Oh, and do you have real Maple Syrup?

It was Denny’s so they didn’t have real maple syrup (we now travel with our own), but our server was clearly more confounded by our breakfast order, in general, than the syrup request. If you’re a Campfire athlete, then you’ve been prescribed the standard colossal pancake breakfast the day before your race. It’s not necessarily a widespread practice throughout the long-distance triathlon community, though, so what gives?  We’re committed to this pre-race nutrition plan, and if you wonder if there’s any proof in the pancake batter, then note these success stories who’ve followed the same ritual: Justin Metzler, Heather Jackson, and Linsey Corbin, among many others. 

Why breakfast for the carb load?

Someone got the memo in the end of the 20th Century that you should have a huge pasta dinner the night before, and eat oatmeal the morning of your race. Coach Chris Bagg has studied endurance nutrition for years, and has, with the influence of experts such as Jesse Kropelnicki of QT2 Systems, determined that the latter is problematic because oatmeal can be fibrous and high(er)-glycemic. He’s confident debunking the former, too, because it’s not necessarily the best idea to load up your furnace before bed the night before a race. 

“You need to load up on carbohydrates the day before a race to bolster your glycogen stores. It doesn’t matter, however, when the carbs go in during those prior 36 hours, so breakfast makes the most sense for your biggest intake. That way, you get it done before your busy pre-race day, and conquering the feat as early as possible ensures you can process it all (and expunge it all) before the start line the next day.”  

Campfire athletes pre-Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene 2018

Why Denny’s?

We’ve done the math: roughly 75% of major half- and full-iron-distance events take place in a city with at least one Denny’s. It’s reliable, convenient, fast, and easy. Moreover, it boasts a kitschy novelty that makes for awesome memories and photo ops. The first time my coach proposed it I was appalled by the joint: it seemed emblematic of American nutrition follies that can lead to health issues. The last time I went there, however, I was giddy and skipping before we opened the front door. 

It obviously doesn’t have to be Denny’s, though. My fave memory of a non-Denny’s pancake breakfast was in Kona when Wattie of PLUSH Global fame flipped a gajillion chocolate chip pancakes over the griddle while we were swimming. Can you imagine how stoked we were to come home to that smell and taste?  I’m drooling just thinking about them. My fave story of an athlete adapting to a non-Denny’s environment was when CBCG athlete Greg Dufour was in Paris for the marathon and found a crêperie and ordered eight crêpes, to the amazement of his Parisian crêpeier.

Camping? Not a problem at the Wildflower Triathlon Festival 2018

What if I’m gluten free?

You can do it!  You might not be able to revel in the glory of Denny’s, but most North American locations should have some local breaky joint with GF options. Better yet, if you’re staying somewhere with a kitchen, then just pack some ridiculously affordable Trader Joe’s® GF pancake mix. They even make pumpkin flavor in the fall.  If you don’t have a kitchen, then pack or buy some GF frozen waffles and toast them in your hotel lobby. 

How do I fit it into my busy pre-race day?

Great question. I always say if I’m in my room watching the Bourne Trilogy by 4pm, I’ve done it  right. It’s so hard, though!  Having to “shake-out” all three sports and check in your bike and bags and everything can be involved. Once, at Kona, I left for bike check-in at 10am and got back at 3pm!  

But we can’t skip breakfast, so the biggest trick I’ve learned is to either do my run or swim (depending on logistics) as soon as I wake up (even before coffee!), and then report to breakfast by 8am. If you get one quick workout in before breaky, you should only have one or two little shake outs, bike check-in, and bag drop off for the rest of your day. Prepping everything the day before is clutch: your bags, nutrition on your bike, and mixing and filling ALL the bottles you’ll need the next morning. You’ll be maxin’ and watching a movie marathon before you know it. 

Matt Evans with an absolutely amazing pancake breakfast

Send us your pics!

Campfire athletes and coaches thrive on community, and the mandatory pre-race gorge sesh is one of our fave ways to get together. In fact, it makes for some forced moments of relaxation before things start goin’ down for reals. By the end of 2022, we hope to amass an individual pic of every single Campfire athlete in front of a plate, er, plates of pancakes. If you’re a current athlete, alumnus, friend, or family member, send us your pics on Instagram over at @campfire_endurance, and happy travels to #CarbTown.  

Former Campfire athletes Doris Steere & Marc Nester courted over pancakes, and married in 2019. Mazel tov!

5 Techniques to Improve your Run Technique

Bottom line up front: we’re putting on another one of our Run Video Analysis Clinics in a few weeks (April 16th, to be exact), and if you want to learn everything below and get your run form analyzed, you can just pull a TL;DR and sign up for our clinic right now.

Most triathletes will pursue a swim analysis to improve their stroke, and few athletes (cyclist-only or multi-sport) skip a bike fit at the beginning of their seasons, so why do so few runners take the time to evaluate their run technique? We’ve heard all of the excuses, starting with “I’ve heard that you should just run and you’ll find your most efficient form.” While there is some truth to that chestnut, the truth is more nuanced and—as with much in this world—more information won’t hurt. The truth is that evaluating your own run form is easy and can be accomplished with a phone and a friend. If you don’t have a friend, well, this can be accomplished with a phone and a tripod, but where’s the alliteration in that?

So you may have heard a statement we’ve alluded to already, that “athletes will find their own most efficient running form as long as they keep accruing run miles.” While that is mostly true, what the statement leaves out is that you’ll achieve the most efficient run form that your body can presently accomplish. If you have some very common physical limitations, then “your most efficient running form” may actually be quite inefficient. Today we’ll point you in the direction of identifying those limitations and give you some suggestions for addressing them. 

So what was that bit about “a phone and a friend?” Right. You’ll need to capture some run footage. Head to an athletic field and set up an equilateral triangle (you don’t remember what that is? C’mon, yes you do), with your friend situated at one of the points, facing to the inside of the triangle. You start on the opposite leg (that geometry class from sophomore year is, like, taxed to the max right now, isn’t it?), facing your friend. Run towards them, departing perpendicularly from the leg you started on. They capture you running towards them. Having joined your friend at the triangle’s point, jog away from them along one of the two legs. When you reach the next point, turn and run across the next leg, passing your starting point along the way. Your friend will film you from the side while you do this. When you reach the last point, jog along the only leg you haven’t touched yet back to your friend. Arriving at them, turn and jog through the center of the triangle again, retracing the first path you took—your friend films you from the rear, this time. Boom—you now have the angles you need to evaluate your run form:

1. Hands Crossing Centerline

When you run, you probably don’t give your arms enough credit. After all, who runs around on their arms? But your upper body carriage is crucial to proper running. Don’t believe us? Next time you run, keep your arms at your side and see how it goes. Not good right? OK, now we can continue. Your legs will do what your arms do, so keeping your arms light, springy, and controlled is important. One sure sign of improper run form is arms that come across the runner’s centerline of their body—your hands should come just up to that centerline but not cross it. If you are crossing the centerline, it’s a clue that your body is searching for rotation and finding it in your arms (rather than your thoracic spine or your hips). There are two fixes for this issue, the first one you can practice while running and the second something you’ll have to do at home or the gym. During running, think about driving your elbow straight back with some real zip, and then relax and allow the arm to swing forward. At home, you’ll do something called “John Travolta Peanuts,” which we learned from the great run coach Jay Dicharry. You can tape two lacrosse balls together, or pick up one of these. Regardless, add this movement to your daily routine in order to start getting your thoracic spine a little more mobile.

2. Insufficient Hip Extension

John S. displaying PROPER hip extension

You’ve probably heard someone say “run with your butt,” but what in the world does that mean? Well, the gluteal muscles (the big ones that make up your rear end) are the primary extenders of the hip, which means they work to drive the foot back behind you. The more hip extension you can get, the better (generally—as with all of this stuff, there can be too much of a good thing). Generally we’re aiming for between 15 and 30° of hip extension, measured when you reach toe-off (your toe is flexed, touching the ground, the moment before it lifts off), drawing a line from the big bone on the side of your hip to the knee. In the picture above, our runner displays excellent hip extension (31° is within measurement error). If yours is lower than 15°, you very likely have tight hip flexors and weak glutes. Correct those with hip flexor stretches and glute exercises such as clamshells and glute bridges.

3. Leaning from hips, not ankles

John S. displaying proper lean, although, if we’re gonna critique, John IS collapsing a bit through his hips—when you see a runner with a few too many “bends” in his/her frame, that runner is losing power somewhere

You may have heard coaches shouting “lean from the ankles, not hips!” and thought What the hell does that mean? When you run you actually fall through the air, catching yourself from tumbling on your face with each footstep. Want to know what it feels like? Stand up straight and start leaning forward from the ankles, rather than bending from the hips. If you lean from the ankles, soon you’ll be falling, and you’ll have to catch yourself with one of your feet. Oh, you didn’t read that far ahead? Your nose is bleeding? Sorry. Comes with the territory. When you run properly, you should feel as if you’re going to fall and bang your nose on the ground, but you save yourself at the last moment by swinging a foot under yourself. Now let’s look at your video. When you are at “mid-stance,” which is the moment your swinging leg’s knee lines up with your standing leg’s knee, you should be able to draw a straight line from ankle to hip to shoulder. Most people lean forward from the hips, rather than the ankles, robbing themselves of the momentum that comes from gravity. Free speed! To fix this, try this drill, where a partner stands behind you with an old inner tube or band looped around your hips. Start running while leaning forward. The band should keep you from falling down while illustrating the feeling of leaning.  Your partner gradually allows you to start running, finally letting go of the band altogether. Maintain that sense of leaning, even though you no longer have the band around your hips.

The runner in the band could literally lean into this a little more and push his hips forward, so his body is a bit more of a plank

4. Foot in front of knee/overstriding

Cam displaying a slight overstride

Many of us, taught to run by misinformed but well-meaning P.E. teachers, have heard that we should “lengthen” our strides to cover more ground. This mistake is understandable, but it is still a mistake. Longer strides are less efficient, as you basically bound through the air. Great for gazelles, or ibexes (ibices?), who have evolved to do that, but we are not made to bound—doing so requires huge amounts of explosive force, and that will make us tired really soon. Basically our foot should load (the moment our foot supports our mass above) when the foot is under our knee, slightly in front of our center of mass. In your video, look for the moment when your calf muscles flex, as that’s when the lower leg is experiencing load. At that point, is the heel under the knee, or in front of it? If it is in front, you are an overstrider, and may experience issues and injuries. How to fix this fault? We suggest counting the number of strides you take in a minute (counting either one foot or both feet), and then trying to raise that number slightly. So if you take 80 strides per minute (counting one foot) try to raise it to 83 over the next few months. Doing so will require a slightly shorter stride, bringing your foot under the knee. A tool such as a Finis Tempo Trainer can be great for this, and you’ll get to use it outside of the pool!

5. Overpronation/Ankle Collapse

You’ve probably heard of pronation, which is a natural reaction to your foot experiencing the force of your body as you load the feet. Every footfall while running is in the ballpark of four times your body weight, in terms of the force your foot experiences, which is why good mechanics are important. Pronation is simply our body’s suspension system, and it works like a leaf spring in a vehicle. Your foot rolls to the inside when it lands, spreading that force over a greater surface area and saving you from injury. If you have weak or poor form, your foot may simply collapse to the inside as your body searches for better suspension. You probably need to make sure your feet aren’t crossing the centerline of your body (see point #1, above) and that you have good, strong feet. We suggest at least one minute of toe yoga every day. 

So that’s it! This is definitely something you can do yourself, but if you want to get your run form analyzed at our upcoming Run Video Analysis Clinic, you should come and join us. Don’t live in Portland? This is something we can do remotely and would be happy to help make happen, so reach out to us to learn more.

FTP is Good—Fatigue Resistance is Better

Start measuring a more pertinent metric in search of performance

Ed. Note—Coach Chris (looking rather grim, above) raced the Shasta Gravel Hugger this past weekend and…didn’t have the best day. That got us thinking about fatigue resistance. Don’t be like Chris in your races—respect the distance, do the proper preparation, and then don’t ride like a Broheim. Scroll down for a much happier Coach Molly, who did a much better job sticking to her abilities and her race plan.

Functional Threshold Power (FTP) has long been the god statistic when talking about cycling performance. Strike up any casual conversation about training with cyclists, and soon enough the subject meanders around to comparing FTP size. Mine’s 370 right now, says Broheim, confidently, as he’s tossing a leg over his Pinarello and quaffing the dregs of his pour-over. Unfortunately for Broheim, those three digits don’t mean as much as he’d like them to mean. As the old saying goes, it’s not the size that matters—it’s how you use it. Most cyclists, we opine, arrive at their FTP incorrectly, and then don’t know how to utilize their power threshold effectively. Today we aim to fix that by introducing (re-introducing, really) a more useful concept: fatigue resistance.

Fatigue resistance has been making the rounds recently, as a new generation of coaches try to discern what the best in the world do during races. What those coaches have found is that once you standardize a population of athletes in terms of FTP, the trait that matters most is how long they can maintain certain percentages of that FTP, or how many times they are able to repeat a certain number of hard efforts. The cycling world has been the quickest to adopt fatigue resistance as the metric of choice, with coaches tracking riders’ capacities to perform as close to their fresh numbers as possible when fatigued. When you consider that many cyclists race dozens of times each year (as opposed to triathletes, who often race only a handful of times), and that cycling races are sometimes multi-day affairs, you can see why durability rises to the top of a list of desirable traits. 

The fatigue resistance of professional versus U-23 cyclists

Here you can see the fatigue resistance of two populations, as measured in a study by Leo and Spragg in the Journal of Physiology and Performance. The top graph represents full-time professionals, while the bottom graph shows under-23 athletes (typically younger than full-time pros). Each of the lines on the graph represents a certain amount of work done, measured in Kilojoules (KJ). Those lines were 1000 KJ, 1500 KJ, 2000 KJ, 2500 KJ, and 3000 KJ. You may not know this, but your power meter does a great job of recording the work you’ve done, also measured in KJs. What you see in the top (full-time professional) graph is that the lines are closely grouped together—so closely you can’t tell the different lines apart. That grouping means that full-time professionals perform almost as well after burning 3000 KJ than they did when they were fresh! The U-23 riders, in contrast, see lines that begin to drift apart. This means that their performance suffered as they rode longer, harder, or both. What’s the big difference between U-23 cyclists and professional athletes? Most of the time it’s just…time. Many of those U-23s will keep riding, and by the time they are in their late 20s they will see improvements up to the level of their professional peers.

So what does this mean for us as triathletes? Triathlon, much more so than cycling, is less about achieving big numbers and more about slowing down as little as possible. You hear that, Broheim? Your 370 FTP doesn’t matter if you can’t hold a high percentage of it for as long as possible. Let’s compare Broheim with his much less cocky younger brother, Broseph.

Broheim

Broheim’s fatigue resistance chart

FTP: “370” (but probably more like 355)
Best 60 minute Mean Maximal Power (highest average power recorded for 60 minutes in the last 90 days): 348 (nice work, Broheim! Must have been drinking your macchiato that day)
Best 60 minute MMP after burning 1500 kJ: 262
Percent decline: 25%, which puts Broheim in the “poor” category.
WHY IMPORTANT? So say Broheim wants to do an Ironman. He is certainly going to burn through more than 1,500 kJ on his way to “brag for the rest of your life.” So if Broheim’s ability to hold power drops by 25% after only 1/3 of the Ironman, he’s going to struggle for the rest of the ride (to say nothing about the run). Broheim will probably make things worse by going too hard at the beginning of the ride, too, since “I dunno, man, I felt good at the time.”
HOW WE CAN HELP BROHEIM: First of all, Broheim, you need to stop trying to swing your FTP around—clearly it’s not helping you. What you need to do is ride your bike more, and develop some durability by increasing your endurance. This means riding longer at certain intensities, not just riding harder all the time. Also—pace your bike rides better. Don’t burn through so many kJs at the beginning of your rides.

Broseph

Broseph’s much better fatigue resistance chart

FTP: 295 (accurate)
Best 60 minute MMP: 275
Best 60 minute MMP after burning 1500kJ: 227
Percent decline: 17%, which puts Broseph in the “average” category
Why important: Broseph fatigues less than his older brother after spending 1,500 kJs, a fact you can see by the closeness of the red line (his “fresh” power duration curve” and the green line (his power duration curve after 1,500 kJ). Since getting fatigued is akin to slowing down, Broseph is going to spend less energy on the bike, slow down less, and have more energy available for the run.
HOW WE CAN HELP BROSEPH: Broseph can also benefit with more aerobic development (i.e. more riding) and continuing to lengthen his intervals rather than making them higher all the time, but Broseph is in a pretty good spot at the moment.

how to do this yourself

OK, this won’t be comfortable, but true development never is. First of all, we want you to go out there and ride as hard as you can for an hour. Yup. You heard us right. Nope, it’s not a test. Just ride as strongly as you can for 60 minutes and measure your average power for that amount of time. If you use WKO5 or another program like Golden Cheetah it will capture the information for you. Heck, find a 60’ Zwift race if you must, since there’s a lot of that going around. However you do it, record what you did. This is your 60-minute mean maximal power. Now, a week or so later, here’s what you’re going to do:

1. Go out and ride around, tracking your kilojoules burned on your bike computer

2. When you get to 1,500 kJ, stop and eat something.

3. Ride as hard as you can for 60 minutes, recording the average power.

4. This number is your Peak 60 Minute MMP after 1,500 kJ

5. Divide the smaller number by the larger number (you’ll get some decimal less than 1.0, like .78 or something)

6. Subtract that number from 1.0 and multiply by 100

7. You have your % decline from fresh

Now you can see how you did.

• If you fatigued less than 10% that’s pretty remarkable—you are very fatigue resistant already. You are probably best suited at trying to raise your FTP

• If you fatigued 10-20% you are in the “average” category, and you should make sure you are doing plenty of long rides at a moderate effort, and your tempo, sweet spot, and FTP-style intervals should aim at going longer, not higher.

• If you fatigued more than 20% you are in the “poor” category. You really need to spend your time simply riding more. Intervals will help, but they should mostly be high endurance (around 70-75% of FTP), tempo (76-85% of FTP), or sweet spot (85-95% of FTP) and you should also focus on making them longer rather than higher.

Same spot, much happier!

conclusion

Above you can see Coach Molly at the same spot of the Shasta Gravel Hugger. Smiling, even, while Coach Chris had on the “1000-yard-stare-of-death.” Coach Molly has been riding more than enough to have success at this race, and she stuck to her race plan, fueling appropriately and spending her kilojoules wisely. The result? A much better performance than Chris, and a much better feeling all day. How is this pertinent to triathletes, you might ask? Well, if you don’t work on your fatigue resistance, then you are going to be exhausted coming off the bike. If you’re exhausted coming off the bike, you just won’t run effectively. So be like Broseph, but try not to be like Broheim.

Want to get some help with all of this? If you’re interested in getting guided to better performances, a coach can really help with prescribing these workouts and then analyzing the data. Head on over to our Coaching page to find out how Campfire can help you resist fatigue.

Welcome to Our New Coach Accelerator...Coaches!

Sam Kristensen (left) and Adam Goulet (right), inaugural members of the Campfire Coach Accelerator

We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Sam Kristensen and Adam Goulet to Campfire Endurance Coaching as the first members of the Coach Accelerator. Both bring an enthusiasm for making other athletes happier, faster, and healthier, which makes them a perfect fit here at Campfire. Sam and Adam will work with participants in the Athlete Accelerator, providing high-value, lower-cost coaching to those athletes. We will work with Sam and Adam over the next twelve months, mentoring them in the Campfire Endurance Coaching process. The end result? Amazing coaching with an amazing coach at a lower price point.

Sam Kristensen

Sam Kristensen lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife Tara, daughter Olive and son Branch. Sam has been a USAT Level I coach since 2016 with his coaching business/platform Playing for Purpose in partnership with his local tri shop, Tri Town Bicycles since 2016. Sam has 6 years experience coaching triathletes in Idaho, Utah, Washington and California for sprint, olympic, 70.3 and 140.6 distances. Sam served as the volunteer triathlon club coach at Boise State University in 2018. Sam has worked with new athlete's to the sport of triathlon, intermediate and experienced triathletes. Prior to endurance focused coaching, Sam worked 19 years in high school education as a school counselor, baseball coach and athletic director. Sam left the education sector in 2021 to focus more time and energy on triathlon and endurance coaching. Sam's personal triathlon history includes racing at sprint, olympic, 70.3 and 140.6 distances in the United States, Mexico, Germany and Austria.

What is something you wish you had known when you were starting out as an endurance athlete?

Training and racing development takes years, not months to build an aerobic engine needed to sustain fast long course finish times. I could not force results by training harder, more intensely, too quickly. I also wish I understood the value of strength work for injury prevention early on. It was an area I neglected and sustained some run-related injuries from over training without strength work and recovery.

What is a coaching accomplishment of which you are proud?

I have worked with many different types of athletes and my focus has always been to connect with them and understand what they are looking for, in support of their endurance development, training, and racing goals. Some athletes want to finish their first short course event safely with no performance time goals. Some want to finish an Ironman 140.6 safely, and some want to work to finish fast/PR/Qualify for an opportunity at a World's Slot. I really focus on trying to connect with each athlete to support them and develop a plan that works with their unique challenges, lifestyle routines, training limiters, and desired outcomes. Recently, one athlete gave me the most heartfelt compliment. They told me I was a really good coach for them and contacted them out of the blue and knew exactly what was going on without talking to them. That lets me know that they know I am paying attention and doing what I can to support them and that feels great.

What is a personal accomplishment of which you are proud?

Writing my Playing for Purpose Pocket Book a few years ago about key events in my life that developed who I am today and sharing those short stories/lessons with others. Specifically, my former high school students when I did classroom presentations with them.

Burritos or tacos?

Burritos

Star Trek or Star Wars?

Star Wars

Biggest "aha" moment around coaching or working with others you've experienced in the past five years?

In my work as a coach and with others in general, my biggest aha moment is you can't force something faster than the process requires/deserves. There are no shortcuts and short cuts lead to frustration and bad outcomes. It is important to slow down and communicate with positive energy, a sense of humor, authenticity, and empathy.

adam goulet

A sports rehabilitation focused chiropractor and former collegiate middle distance runner, Adam started his endurance career after finishing a Masters Degree in Exercise and Sports Science and becoming a Strength and Conditioning Specialist., Adam has become a multiple time age group national champion in sprint triathlon, duathlon and aquathlon, as well as an age group world champion in duathlon and on the bike at the 6-hour time trial world championships. Now focusing on competing at the 70.3 triathlon distance and coaching, Adam wants to bring his knowledge and experience in multi sport to help you achieve your goals. Success in training is 90% mental and the other half is physical (Yogi Berra didn’t exactly say that but if he had done endurance sports he would have). Adam wants to help you become the best endurance athlete you can be, not only with an emphasis on helping you understand how to train, how to become stronger and how to race, but with a holistic approach to optimize training to the various demands of your life. Adam’s goal is to help make your endurance dreams a reality and show you that, while the journey may have ups and downs, overcoming and achieving your goals is worth all the effort.

What is something you wish you had known when you were starting out as an endurance athlete?

I had been told that nutrition and hydration are the biggest race day factors in competition; however while I could say “knew that” until experiencing the many effects of dehydration it’s really hard to appreciate how big of a factor it truly is.

What is a coaching accomplishment of which you are proud?

An athlete achieving a goal that they did not think was possible. Sometimes athletes will come in and say they want a Boston Qualifier or another objective goal but you can tell they don’t really know if it’s possible. When I can help an athlete learn to believe in their abilities and achieve that goal it is particularly rewarding.

What is a personal accomplishment of which you are proud?

Qualifying for triathlon pro card.

Burritos or tacos?

We are an “and” household, not an “or” household… but tacos.

Star Trek or Star Wars?

I’ve evolved on this, and now full on Star Trek

Biggest "aha" moment around coaching or working with others you've experienced in the past five years?

Coming to realize that working with people to achieve their goals is more about instilling a philosophy, and building a relationship then about any objective outcomes. The goal is rarely about achieving a time, but more often about learning to enjoy the time within the process.

How to work with them

Want to work with either of these two rockstars of the coaching and education worlds? Head on over to the Athlete Accelerator page to learn how to do so.

Below the Base: foundation training for 2020

by Campfire Head Coach Chris Bagg

Hey! You survived your offseason. Nice work. Haven’t taken your off-season yet? Go back and read the first part of this series: Why you Need an Offseason (Even a Short One!). Once you’ve hit the goals of that slice of your training year (rest, enthusiasm, acute training load almost to zero) it’s time to turn your attention to the first part of the year, which I call Foundation Training. One issue with teaching in general, and endurance training specifically, is that few standards in vocabulary exist throughout the particular subculture. What I call “foundation” someone else might call “base.” What I call “base” someone else may call “early season.” The issue truly gets thorny once we begin discussing training intensity (I’m looking at you “tempo,” you chameleon), but as with any issue of nomenclature, the goal of any piece of writing that aims to educate and edify is to move past the labels and provide understandable frameworks so we all can move forward productively. It matters little that I call something foundation that someone else calls base—we both can probably agree that this type of training returns a resting athlete to motion safely, setting him or her up for a productive remainder of the season.

Campfire athlete Bridget F. rocking her off season in New Hampshire

OK, credibility lift out of the way, what does a season look like, anyway? Well, I like simplicity, and I think a season consists of at most two macrocycles that each include most of the following phases (the second yearly macrocycle most likely omits the phase we’re going to talk about today). Those phases are:

1. foundation—checking and preparing the engine

2. base training—building the engine

3. pre-competition—sharpening the engine

4. competition—maintaining and tuning the engine

5. transition—mid-season break or offseason

Depending on your particular level and your goals, the competition phase may be short or quite long, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Today we’re going to talk about part one, the Foundation Period. Some coaches may include this period in their Base Training. That’s fine, and I can understand why they would do that. I separate them because the Foundation Period carries with it more flexibility than the Base Training, allowing athletes to train as they feel on a given day, provided they hit their weekly targets in terms of number of workouts and volume of training. It is a more unstructured period that allows the athlete to discover his or her ideal, repeatable, and sustainable weekly structure of training, something that will become crucial in the heavier Base Training period.

Campfire athlete Becky B. re-entering with a cold run in Massachusetts

Frequency, Consistency, Fun

When you’re starting back up (or starting out for the first time) your primary goal is frequency—that is, the number of times you can engage each discipline over the course of your training microcycle. For some people this is the seven-day week, but for others it may be as short as four days and as many as ten. Let’s stick with a seven-day week for simplicity, and you can extrapolate in either direction, depending on your needs. I think 11 sessions per week is a good number for the vast majority of athletes, broken down as follows:

• 3 sessions of your strongest discipline

• 3 sessions of your second strongest discipline

• 4 sessions of your weakest discipline (for 90% of triathletes, this is the swim)

• 1 strength and mobility session

OK, now the question that’s already on your mind: how long should each session be? Here’s the trick about the foundation period: as long as its longer than 20 minutes, it doesn’t matter. Remember, the first goal here is frequency, which we’ve already established. The second goal is consistency, and to achieve that goal, the workouts must excite and engage you, rather than daunt you. Since an athlete’s weakest discipline is most likely the swim, here’s how you decide how long those are: as long as you can swim while still enjoying yourself (and making it over the 20-minute time boundary). So if that means four 20-minute swims during this period, I’ll take it, as long as the athlete is enjoying him or herself in the water. If that’s too much time in the pool, it may be time to consider duathlon, or…checkers. For me, the run has always been my weakest sport, so here is what my foundation week looks like:

• bike (or skate ski): three one-and-a-half to two-hour sessions

• swim: three one hour swims, totally around 10k per week

• run: four runs: one 30-minute, one 45-minute, one 25-minute, and one 60-minute

• strength (another weakness): one 45-minute session, outlined at the bottom of this article

 What if your enthusiasm is through the roof, and you want to do four-hour rides and 15-mile runs right off the bat? Remember, again, that our second goal is consistency, both now and later in the year, and starting off aggressively only leads to burnout later. Here are some limits I would impose upon my more gung-ho athletes.

• bike: no longer than 90 minutes on the weekdays, and up to three hours of easy riding on the weekend (but only one of those)

• run: no longer than 45 minutes on the weekdays, and up to 90 minutes on the weekend (but only one of those)

• swim: no longer than 60 minutes, with a possible exception of up to 90 minutes if I’ve got a real swimmer on my hands

Finally, our third goal is fun, and to most athletes this means their weekly dose of intensity. Intensity is enjoyable, because most people are drawn to this sport in order to go fast and to feel fast. Intensity also feels hard (well, it is hard), and many athletes correlate that feeling with improvement and with the endorphins that hard exercise releases into our bodies and brains. The problem with intensity is that it is tiring, and we want to be careful with anything that makes us fast in February but jaded in June. What’s the upper limit on intensity during this period, and just what constitutes intensity? This is a far more nuanced topic than I can get through here, but the whole point of an article such as this one is to avoid complexity, so here goes. First of all, how intense? There are many ways to calculate intensity, but many studies show again and again that an athlete’s own rating of “hard” correlates closes to his or her second lactate threshold. If you’re a numbers person, “hard” usually shows up at seven out of ten on the standard rating of perceived exertion scale (RPE) or 15 and higher on the more useable 6-20 Borg scale of perceived exertion. For each sport, limit yourself to no more than ten minutes per seven-day microcycle at or above 7/10 or 15/20.

Gettin’ re-entry rides done on the Wahoo Fitness® KICKR trainers

How Long and What Order?

I would suggest 30 days of this style of training, which is enough to ease you back into the sport, give you a chance to reconnect with your training partners (which is probably the most important part of this period), and touch some of those higher intensity windows. At the end of those thirty days, you’ll be able to look at your training log, and you’ll be surprised at how much training time you’ve racked up, with ideally little logistical effort or stress. In terms of when the workouts fall during the week? I don’t really care. As long as you’re hitting the number of workouts required, you can put them in whenever they work. At the end of thirty days, look at your log for patterns—this is most likely your regular sustainable training calendar, arrived at organically based off of your schedule—not an arbitrary decision imposed upon you by your coach. For me, here’s what my sustainable foundation week looks like:

• Monday: strength, 30-40’ run (Mondays are usually my second-busiest day of the week, and this is about all I can get in)

• Tuesday: 60’ swim, 90’ ride

• Wednesday: 45-60’ run, 60’ ride

• Thursday: 60 minute swim, 90’ ride

• Friday: 60-90’ swim (Fridays are my busiest day of the week, spent all day on the phone talking with athletes, and all that is possible is an early morning swim)

• Saturday: 90-180’ ride or skate ski, 25’ run

• Sunday: 60-90’ run, 60’ recovery spin

Once you’ve settled into your schedule over the course of a month, you and your coach can simply begin to turn the dials of duration and intensity as the year progresses and your fitness builds, all while sticking to the skeleton you’ve established here in the foundation period. The goal is to make training habitual and easy to begin (if you start a workout, you’re likely to finish it), and routine goes most of the way to achieving that goal.

This dynamic warmup is essential for the following strength training sesh

Keep the Strength Simple

I’m not a strength coach, but I’ve had the privilege of working with many great physical therapists and conditioning coaches over the years. Strength work in the foundation period focuses on improving durability of connective tissue and waking up dormant or unused muscle fibers. Coordination is key, as movement quality in your strength sessions will make for improved movement quality in your swimming, cycling, and running. Every session you do should have a warmup, some lower leg pushing actions, some lower leg and upper body pulling actions, and some work designed to improve your core’s ability to limit rotation during action. Here is a sample session, below, with vid links to demo the more unusual ones:

• 5’ basic dynamic warmup

• 2’ Thoracic John Travoltas on a Peanut

• 20 banded arm pull-aparts

• 20 banded arm circles

• 20 deadbugs with or without ball crunch

• 20 hamstring curls on stability ball

• 2x8 single-leg landmine deadlift (each side)

• 2x8 Bulgarian split squat (each side) 

• 2x8 Romanian dead lift or hex bar deadlifts

• 50-100 med ball rotations

• 2x8 front squat

• 3 sets of pull-ups to failure (you’ll very likely achieve a total number in the single digits, even over three sets)

Campfire athlete Annick A. religiously practices the above routine

So, remember that lethargic feeling you had during your off days, when you panicked you were losing water-feel or speed? Find new, fresh, excited energy for your first workouts of 2022. Envision your first race (do you know the course?), and remember: frequency, consistency, and fun!

Your 12-Week Sprint Triathlon Training Plan

by Molly Balfe

Ed. Note—Campfire Head Coach Molly Balfe checks in with thoughts as to how to prepare for your first sprint-distance triathlon. The former president of Tri Team PDX, coach for Team in Training, and co-founder of Campfire Endurance Coaching checks in with both a complete 12-week plan for your first triathlon, AND a complete, free guide to the process, which you can download from our website here.

So you’ve just signed up for your first triathlon!

Whether you were reluctantly roped-in by a spandex-clad friend, or the feat has always been on your bucket list, we, the Campfire coaches, would like to congratulate you on deciding to try your first triathlon. Unlike stepping into a simple running race, tris take an exceptional deal of courage, likely testing your comfort zones in at least one of the disciplines, and this plan will help you along your way. So here is some expert guidance that our Campfire athletes have valued while preparing for their first races.

Approaching your first triathlon with a smile is always the best approach

Necessary Gear

If you’ve begun to gather information for your first tri, you’ve encountered a seemingly endless array of toys and tools you can spend your money on. The fastest and lightest gear may help you at certain points in your triathlon career, but we recommend starting out with the basics. That way, if you conclude that triathletes are nuts, you didn’t waste your comic; but conversely, if you find you‘re up for more triathlon adventures, you can slowly fill your gear closet as needed, with smart gear appropriate for you.  That stated, a few pieces of equipment are necessary to train for and complete your first race:

• Bike – Repeat after us: “I do not need to buy a race bike for my first triathlon.”  Pretty much any bike with working gears and brakes will get you through your first sprint. If you already own a mountain bike, hybrid, or entry-level road bike, that will work! True, a heavier bike may slow you down a bit, but you’ll have the chance to experience your first race and see if you want to invest something more sport-specific. 

• Helmet – This one’s a non-negotiable. All bicycle training and racing should be done wearing a CPSC approved helmet. Same thing as above applies, though: it would be total overkill to invest in a race-specific “aero helmet” for your first one.

• Running shoes – Want to know which running shoes are the best?  Guess what: it totally depends.  Campfire coaches  highly recommend you visit your local running store to have someone help you select a shoe that works for your specific stride and biomechanics. Fashionable fitness shoes may look rad, and deals on online warehouses can be a steal, but they might not protect you from injuries. You’ve likely been running already, so you shouldn’t make any major changes in terms of going minimal or more structured.  In fact, the only major change you should make is considering quick-draw laces.  Invest in a pair of running shoes, and break them in a bit before your race.

• Swimsuit, cap, and goggles – Think about where you’ll be racing when you pick your goggles. If you’ll be in a pool, or a foggy or cloudy lake, get clear lenses. If you’ll be staring down the sun at dawn, go for something tinted. Try them on for at least the distance of your first race, and when in doubt, get something pretty.

• Watch – While this one isn’t entirely necessary, a cheap running watch can make a big difference in your triathlon training. You don’t need bells and whistles, but a watch that can show total time elapsed (and ideally lap splits) comes in very handy. Many people use their smartphones for this function, but we believe it’s best to keep your smartphone technology far away from sweat.

Following the Plan

Campfire Endurance coaches have created a plan that contains two workouts per week in each discipline (swim, bike, and run) as well as one strength session. Check out the plan here, empowering yourself to perform your fastest, happiest, and healthiest first triathlon possible! Ideally, you will complete each workout as written. However, Campfire coaches understand that life can get in the way, so if you’re time-limited, focus on completing the two workouts for the sport you struggle with the most (do it!), and at least one workout each for the other two sports. 

We also included a few “brick” workouts in this plan, instructing you to run right after you ride. “Bricks” should be considering key workouts: they’re a perfect time to practice your bike-to-run transition, and grow accustomed to how your legs feel right off the bike. These workouts are also great opportunities to practice your race day nutrition (more info on nutrition below).

If you need a day off, or you’re just feeling blasted, take a day off! If you’re unsure, we suggest at least attempting the workout to see if you just needed a warm up to blow out the cobwebs. If you start the main part of the workout and it’s just not happening, then call it quits.

The majority of these workouts will be at an easy effort, especially during the first 6 weeks of training. In order to safely build up your endurance, you need to gradually increase your training volume. Even if you feel good, keep the effort level low unless otherwise indicated.

Campfire Athlete Kirk L. on the race course

Nutrition for Training and Racing

Your diet makes a huge difference in how you feel during (and after) your workouts. It is important to pay attention to what you eat while training and what you eat during your regular life. A lot of newer triathletes make the mistake of training to eat, instead of eating to train. While a workout in this plan may feel difficult, it probably hasn’t created a caloric deficit that only an entire pizza can fill. Conversely, if you have been restricting your caloric intake, you may need to eat more to ensure that you are meeting the needs of an increased training load. 

Perhaps most importantly, if you find yourself feeling depleted throughout the day, take a look at your total caloric intake to ensure that you are eating enough. Fueling with training and recovery in mind can help ensure that you enjoy your workouts and feel strong throughout your day. When in doubt, maintain a healthy diet focused on vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains. 

While training and racing, you’ll probably need to explore the sugary world of sports nutrition. For any workout over an hour, you should plan to take a bottle of sports drink to help replace calories and replenish sodium. You should also plan to practice using gels, chomps, or beans during a few of your longer runs, since they are what athletes typically use during races. 

Your nutrition needs for the race itself should be relatively low (provided you aren’t dehydrated or under-fed at the start line). Plan to use a bottle of sports drink during the bike, and take sports drink at each aid station on the run. You can also take a gel or other 100-calorie snack towards the beginning of the run – many Campfire athletes including coach Molly prefer the type with added caffeine.

Campfire Endurance coach, and author of this blog and the training plan, Molly Balfe practicing good post-race nutrition

Preparing for Race Day

It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with USA Triathlon’s rules and regulations prior to your race, especially their most common violations.

On race day, plan to arrive early enough to set up your transition area. Transition is where you will rack your bike and transition from swim to bike and bike to run. You do not have much room for your equipment, so pack only what you will need during the race. For reference, here is a picture of a well-organized transition area:

An exceptionally, if not obsessively well-organized transition area

While it may seem obvious, make sure you know the layout of your race, including where you will enter and exit the water and where you will enter and leave the transition area for the bike and run legs. Knowing where you are headed will save you valuable time during your race.

A Final Word of Advice

Have fun! We love this sport, and we hope that you will love it too. Triathlon is an individualized sport, with a lot of potential hyperactivity and focus on expensive gear, so it can be easy to allow yourself to get caught up in the pressure, anxiety, and competition of training and racing, so remember that we do this for fun. Be generous with your gratitude and give copious high-fives. The more fun you allow yourself to have, the more likely it is that you will continue to come back to this sport for years to come. In fact, it’s been empirically determined that if you smile during a race, you will go faster. Happy training! Need the link to that plan again? You can grab it here. Want to talk to a coach? Reach out to us here. Thinking about your very first race but need some basic guidance? Consider the Athlete Accelerator.

How to Choose the Right Triathlon Coach for You

A good coach stops to explain workouts and sessions clearly, compassionately, and enthusiastically

by Campfire Head Coach Molly Balfe

Interested in finding a coach? Read on for what to look for, and if you’re ready to take your training and racing to the next level, becoming a faster, happier, and healthier athlete, check out our coaching page or The Athlete Accelerator!

So you’re ready for a coach. You’re committed to taking your triathlon training to the next level, and you’re cognizant that expert guidance and accountability is the best way to get there. Hiring a coach provides you with an ally and guide who can help you achieve your goals, manage your time, and take the guesswork out of your training, but the complex worlds of triathlon training, racing, gear, and nutrition can be overwhelming for new (and seasoned) athletes. For the self-motivated athlete, there is no shortage of info available online and in print, but you will quickly find that not only are there are several different schools of thought, but many of those theories directly contradict each other!

How should you proceed? If navigating the online options for coaching can be overwhelming, then how could you even begin to search specifically for the right person with whom you will forge a meaningful relationship? How do you find a good match? What is a good match?A cheerleader or a drill sergeant? Someone who pushes you or reins you in, or both? Whether you’re looking for someone to help you out for a few months as you find your bearings or are set on finding a long-term coach to help you continually improve, it can be tough to begin this process.

Look for a coach that pushes you but also helps you enjoy the sport!

We at Campfire Endurance Coaching are passionate about the coach-athlete relationship. We love this sport, and we want you to find an ideal coach who doesn’t just have that love in common, but whose style and approach creates the best rapport to empower you to be the fastest, happiest, and healthiest you want to be. To help you along your way, we compiled a list of suggestions that we think will help you identify a qualified coach who is the right match for you.

Dive in. The first thing we recommend is to stop second-guessing your desire to hire a coach. We are inundated with disclaimers from athletes about not being fast enough, young enough, fit enough, strong enough, or whatever enough to take their training seriously. In all honesty, very few coaches make a living working with elite athletes. Most coaches were drawn to this profession because they are passionate about the sport and want to support athletes as they work towards their goals. Athletes participate in triathletes for a myriad of great reasons; they want to stay fit, get healthy, challenge themselves, and create a healthy lifestyle. These are all serious reasons, and we take your commitment seriously whether you are looking for podia or finish lines.

When you have made the decision to hire a coach, begin with a self-assessment. Define your reasons for seeking assistance so you can articulate them to the coaches you meet with. Here are a few recommendations to help you clarify what you are hoping to get from your coach: 

Know your limiters. Where do you struggle the most? If you aren’t sure, take a look at your recent race results and where you ranked in the swim, bike, and run (and while you’re at it, check out those transitions!). If you had the fastest bike split in your age group, but you ranked 30th in the swim, your coach may well want to focus on what is happening in the water. If there are big improvements to be made, it may help to spend a few weeks or months focusing on one sport, as it is extremely difficult to make considerable gains in all three sports at the same time. Many coaches use the “off” season to spend targeted time on the sport that holds an athlete back. This way, as the race season approaches, the plan can focus more on intensity and volume across all of your training.

Identify your short- and long-term goals. How will you know that your season was a success? Where do you want your training to be in five years? You and your coach need to be on the same page about where your training is headed, so tell them what your goals are and ask for their feedback about whether they think your goals are achievable. If your goal is to complete a race, you may only need a season of training to get there. However, improvements take time (and the faster you become, the harder those minutes and seconds will come by). Most coaches are looking for athletes who are in it for the long haul and hoping to get stronger and faster each year. The longer we work with you, the more we know about your specific needs and how you respond to training. Short-term goals can be extremely motivating, but should ultimately move you toward where you hope to be in the long-term.

The author, in her element, working with athletes on swim technique

Consider your capacity. Think about how much time you have to devote to training. We all know that life gets in the way of training sometimes, but it is helpful to be aware of whether an athlete’s job requires frequent travel or if they have other obligations (family, other hobbies, getting the band back together) that will determine their available time for training. Especially for longer races, the weekend time commitment can be significant, so make sure that you have the support of the people in your life. If you do travel frequently, you should expect to integrate your workouts into your travel schedule so your training isn’t derailed. If your schedule is typically flexible, but you know you have a few busy weeks each year, make sure you communicate that in advance so your coach can design your plan with these periods in mind. Every coach-athlete dynamic is different, so after you have determined your needs, we recommend embarking upon your search by taking into account the following: 

1.  Strengths – Make sure that the coach you choose has the sport-specific knowledge to help you improve on your limiters. If you are one of the many triathletes who struggles with their swim, make sure you choose a coach who has a history of helping swimmers become more competent in the water. If you know nutrition is holding you back, make sure the coach you select can provide you with the information and feedback you require to help you manage your diet and race needs. Most coaches can provide some level of guidance in each of the three sports, but if you are hoping for specific improvement, make sure you find someone with specific expertise. Likewise, if you already have a long history in one of the three sports, make sure you find someone who is able to provide you with workouts and training that will match your ability and experience.

2.  Availability – How often do you need/want/expect feedback? Are you looking for a static plan with little or no direction or do you want to be able to communicate directly with your coach about a schedule that is tailored specifically for you? Regular email and/or phone communication allows coaches to make real time decisions based on how their athletes are responding to training. In person meetings are rare, and are typically more expensive (especially if they involve evaluating your technique, which is generally a consultation and comes with an additional fee). How frequently you hear from your coach should be explicitly agreed upon by the coach and athlete. The amount of access you have to your coach varies considerably - be clear about what you expect and what your coach is offering.

3.  Style – Are you looking for a cheerleader? Someone to tell you to get off your butt and stop making excuses? Some combination of the two? Know what keeps you motivated and look for someone who can work with you in a way that you find motivating and productive. If possible, talk to some of their former or current athletes to find out more about their experience. If a coach has a reputation for being hard on athletes and you know you need a little fear to keep you motivated, this could be a great match! However, if you know you tend avoid conflict, you may well end up hiding from this coach so you don’t get in trouble. This is not an effective form of training, and does not benefit you. Find someone who works with you in a way that will best ensure your success.

4.  Experience/Education – Make sure your goals align with your coach’s interests and expertise. If you are new to the sport, ask whether a coach has worked with beginners. If you are hoping to qualify for Kona or get your pro card, make sure your coach has a specific plan to help get you there. If you are hoping to balance a busy schedule while getting fit and having fun, choose someone who knows how to be flexible and supportive. Great coaches never stop learning about the sport – they want to be aware of the best new techniques and any worrying trends that are emerging in triathlon. Ask your coach how they stay sharp and increase their sport-specific knowledge. Many coaches hold certifications in the sport; these do not mean that they are more skilled than other coaches who do not, but it does guarantee a baseline level of knowledge.

5.  Cost – There is a lot of variation in coaching fees. In general, coaches who are the most experienced and accessible (meaning how often you can contact them) are also the most expensive. These are typically career coaches who give a good percentage of their time and energy to their coaching business. They work with several athletes and tend to have a great deal of experience. The most economical choice is typically buying a static training plan, but you lose the benefit of a coach’s guidance. When making decisions about cost, be honest with yourself about how much you can afford and how your investment aligns with your goals.

6.  Location – If you want to be part of a triathlon team or are hoping for one-on-one evaluations, it can be helpful to look for a coach that is nearby. However, with the constant evolution of new internet-based evaluation tools and techniques, this may less critical. Many coaches are using video analysis to determine where their athletes can make improvements. Phone and Skype communication can also help bridge the geographical gap between you and your coach. If there is someone who you really want to work with, location can often be overcome.

Finally, we maintain that the absolute best way to know whether a coach is right for you is to talk to them. Much like finding the best house, car, bike, or trainers, sometimes if you simply feel like you click, and you like what they have to say about their style, that should indicate that you will work well together. Remember that you are accountable for at least 50% of the relationship between you and your coach. If something is missing, or if you feel like you need additional help in a specific area, make sure you ask for it clearly. Coaches are highly invested in their athletes’ success, and we want to see you happily and healthily participating in this sport for years to come.

The athletes at Campfire Endurance Coaching are all bound by the same goal: to become faster, happier, healthier people. It's an ethos shared by all the coaches at Campfire, and nicely wrapped up in our motto: Go Fast, Have Fun, Be Nice. We think that keeping these three principles in sight at all time lead to strong performances and happier lives.

We are taking new athletes! Our roster of experienced coaches is ready to form a relationship with you, and help you get better, faster, happier, and healthier for your next training and racing season, so meet the coaches , learn how it works, check out The Athlete Accelerator, and become a member of the Campfire family, if, and only if, we’re right for you.

Mastering Coach-Athlete Communication

Five tips to start and maintain good relationships between coach and athlete

We’ve all heard that all relationships rely upon regular, high quality communication, and the coach-athlete relationship is no exception. In fact, other than the primary relationship in your life and your immediate family, your coach may be the person who knows the most about your life, your goals, your fears, and your dreams. For coaches, your athletes—even though they are probably customers—will make up a close circle of acquaintances. These connections are valuable on a personal and professional level, and maintaining them should be a priority for both coach and athlete. Today we’ll talk about ways to do just that. A good coach-athlete relationship is a collaboration, not a dictatorship, and all of your work should aim towards that eventual goal.

First, though, we want to identify some approaches that will torpedo the communication between athlete and coach. At Campfire Endurance Coaching, we’ve always strived to avoid these pitfalls, as poor communication leads to poor results, and poor results lead to high athlete turnover, which leads to business failure (or, at least, not delivering on your mission statement, if it has anything at all in it about being athlete-centered).

1. The No-Contact Coach. One of our athletes says that in a previous coaching relationship, they would leave comments in TrainingPeaks that said “Is there anyone actually reading this?” to see if they would get a response. Nothing says you don’t care about your athletes and their development more than ignoring them. Is there really anything else to say about this? Don’t ignore your athletes. Athletes, don’t ignore your coaches, but if you’re doing that...well, we don’t think we can save that relationship.

2. The “Just Do As I Say” Coach. “Trust the Plan” has, unfortunately, become code for “Just stop bothering me.” Coaches can sometimes interpret athlete questions or concerns as a lack of trust, but it’s important to remember, coaches, that you are an expert in your field with A LOT of information that is now just part of your basic knowledge. What sounds like a challenge may be interest, so when you feel compelled to shut down communication by saying “Trust the plan” take a breath and do some educating instead.

3. The Absentee Landlord. Similar to No-Contact, but this coach sets up a plan and then sends notes from afar: “Lemme know how the block went” is not coaching, it’s plausible deniability and an abdication of coaching responsibility!

4. The Smoke-Blower. If you are dishonest with your athletes (even in an “encouraging” way) they will eventually recognize that tendency and lose their trust in you. As with any relationship, if you don’t trust each other you don’t have anything. Make sure to set challenging but achievable goals for your athletes and then hold them accountable to those goals (remembering that renegotiating goals is also OK, as long as there is a conversation about it). Athletes—if your coach keeps telling you that you can do something you know that presently you cannot, you might want to look for a new coach.

5. The Athlete-Led Coach. Similar to the Smoke-Blower, but this coach finds a way to agree with their athlete about everything. This is VERY difference from “Athlete-Centered,” to be clear. The result is a program where the athlete does what they want to do and the coach justifies that decision. The result is a co-dependent coaching relationship where the athlete simply does what they’ve always done and the coach makes them think that that’s progress. That kind of coaching usually leads to the same results the athlete has always achieved.

OK, negative coach archetypes established, let’s get into five tips for improving communication between coaches and athletes.

Don’t Make Assumptions About Your Athletes

We all know the saying about what assuming can do, and all of us at Campfire have made asses of ourselves at one point or another because of it. Athletes are humans, which means their moods and goals can fluctuate on any given day. Coaches, be careful of coming up with a set identity for your athletes, like “Alistair is dedicated most of the time, but whenever work gets busy he stops doing his training,” or “Cassie clearly doesn’t believe in the workouts I’m prescribing her,” or “I would be surprised if Jim actually signed up for Ötillö.” The problem with assumptions is that you are taking some real-world data (what an athlete says or does) and then layering your own judgments and beliefs on top of that information. The result is something that is neither your athlete’s or your creation, and isn’t actually true for either of you. NOT a good place from which to make decisions, and an excellent place for miscommunication.

Be Curious and Non-reactive

Your next step, after not making assumptions, is to be curious about what your athletes are saying and doing. If you’ve followed the point above and held off making assumptions about your athletes, you’re in a great position to be curious. Try using phrases like “Tell me more about that decision,” or “How did you get there?” Make sure that your curiosity doesn’t sound like sarcasm, which communicates a different meaning to your athletes. Hand in hand with curiosity is avoiding reactivity with your athletes. If an athlete has done something different than what you had intended, it is very likely NOT about you as a coach. Much more likely is that there are a set of circumstances that make following the plan not possible for the athlete at that moment, and your job is to find and illuminate those circumstances so the athlete can see them. If you react defensively, however, and think that the athlete is judging you and your coaching by making a different choice than what was on the plan you will only make your athlete defensive in return. Now communication is much more difficult, with each army setting up positions in each camp. Not a good model for collaboration.

Create Systems for Several Types of Contact

When we polled Campfire athletes about their communication preferences, the loudest message we heard was that they valued being able to communicate with their coaches in a variety of ways: TrainingPeaks workout comments, email, phone/video conference, and text message. At Campfire we use scheduling software where athletes can book phone calls with their coaches, and we have standards for reply times, which are:

• A coach will respond to an athlete’s TrainingPeaks workout comment in one business day

• A coach will respond to an email within 24 hours

• A coach will do their best to respond to a text message that day (but there are boundaries to this one—coaches have lives and workouts too)

• Athletes can sign up for 45 minutes of phone contact once a week

Setting up clear parameters for contact tells the athlete that communication is a priority for you, and they know that they can get a hold of you in several different ways. Communication systems suggest that you as a coach are professional and deploy different methods for different athletes, which will widen the number of clients you can attract. The biggest upside? By opening several avenues of information, you learn more about your athlete, which will only make you a better coach.

Listen, Empathize, Plan, and Protect Yourself

Athletes go through tough patches, and you will be one of the people they reach out to when they pass through those patches. If you want to avoid being an athlete-led coach (see above), it’s important to recognize your role in this situation. First of all, you are not a counselor or a trained mental health professional, so if an athlete is in a situation outside your scope of care, it’s important to recognize that fact and ask them if they have access to that kind of resource. Having determined that you are talking about a coaching-related issue, you should listen to the athlete’s situation, empathize with them, and then make a plan to help the athlete through the rough patch. One of our athletes says “I had a micro meltdown this summer. I was four weeks out from IM Madison and just mentally couldn't do the training anymore. I had just come back from what had been a punishing and unsatisfying long ride when I texted my coach to ask if we could connect. We were on the phone 12 hours later, talked through what was happening, came up with a plan, and moved on. The expeditious nature was part of the value, surely, but the better piece was not getting wrapped up too much in the why it happened, and focusing more on what to do in the moment. Having a plan of how to move forward brought me back to earth and pulled me back a bit from the ledge.” Your role in these situations is to provide a sounding board for your athlete’s situation, and then to take the lead and offer some direction, since athletes can spin around in one place for a while. Finally, make sure you protect yourself—empathy is a powerful thing to offer someone, and you need to make sure that you don’t become a permanent and ongoing sounding board for your athletes. Draw clear boundaries around communication and your athletes will have better outcomes.

Motivate but Hold Accountable

Athletes sometimes need help with motivation, and during those moments it can be appropriate to give your athletes a pep talk, reminding them of what they have set out to do, that the path is long, but that the outcome will be worth it. You will spend some amount of time pointing out to them reasons to be confident (but don’t become The Smoke-Blower, above!) and appealing to their sense of excitement and vision. You will be a cheerleader, from time to time, in other words. But if an athlete always needs encouragement, the relationship is heading in a bad direction. Athletes need to come into the sport with their own intrinsic motivation (part of your job might be uncovering that motivation for them), and if they rely upon you to furnish that for them you will run out of steam at some point. One way to make sure that they stay motivated is to return ownership of the process to them by holding them accountable to the goals they established when they began working with you. If an athlete has told you that she wants to qualify for Kona but has been shortening her long rides by half, you probably won't be able to cheerlead that athlete to doing what she needs to do to be successful. Holding someone accountable, although it can feel tough at first, is a huge gift for your athlete. It reminds them that only they are responsible for their achievements, and the people around them (coaches, family, training partners) are simply buttresses to their actions. If an athlete learns that lesson and integrates it into their life, then you, my friend, are Coach of The Year.

CONCLUSION

In wrapping up, we can summarize these tips fairly easily: make communication a priority and make it possible via several avenues; be patient and curious with your athletes, remembering that no one knows them better than themselves; keep your assumptions to yourself and delight when your athletes surprise you and defy your assumptions; learn how to empathize but offer solutions, and then hold your athletes accountable to those solutions (if they decide they like those solutions, of course!). Communication is hard, but it is the bedrock skill of great coaches—without it, you literally have nothing.

A Real-world Summary of Kona Qualification Training

Scott G. qualifying for his first Ironman World Championships

We’ve talked before about a big-picture, general view about qualifying for Kona, but what about one real-world example? We are going to walk you through Scott G.’s Kona qualification at Ironman Arizona in November of 2021 so you can see a practical example of what we prescribed and how he was able to achieve his goal.

A Five Year Plan

Although many of you may not want to hear this, qualifying for Kona will probably be a multi-year process, taking some athletes fewer years and other athletes more. Scott started working with us in 2017, coming from a robust cycling background (he raced bikes for many years), a running background in high school and college, and no swimming background. We talked at the beginning about building his abilities over the long term and that we would start thinking about qualifying for Kona after his third year of training. In the meantime we began building for his first Ironman, Whistler, in the summer of 2017. Here were our training goals as we prepped for that first Ironman:

1. Swim a lot, and put a big focus on technique (too much kicking!)

2. Shift his cycling engine from the high-revving world of bike racing to the steady burn of long-distance triathlon

3. Build his run volume to necessary Ironman marathon loads without injury

Happily, the goal of any first Ironman is to finish, and although Scott had some “secret goal” ambitions (he really hoped to be under 12 hours), we knew that the goal was simply to reach the finish line. Scott did so, getting to the finish line in 11:41:53 and 42nd in his age group. An excellent first effort with the following splits:

Swim: 1:32:32
Bike: 5:49:11
Run: 4:11:50

Having set his benchmark Ironman, we set out on journey to get down to the ten hours or slightly below range so he could qualify in the M45-49 age group. Scott has a busy job and full family life, so we couldn’t aim for the traditional 20 hours/week average qualifying for Kona in the <49 men’s and women’s age groups. Here are the volumes we achieved over the next five years:

2017: 487 total hours, 97 swim, 221 bike, 144 run
2018: 486 total hours, 112 swim, 217 bike, 152 run
2019: 561 total hours, 128 swim, 250 bike, 146 run
2020 (COVID year): 654 total hours, 118 swim, 315 bike, 168 run
2021 (Qualifying year): 635 total hours, 150 swim, 275 bike, 160 run

So over the course of five years, we build total volume by 30%, from 487 hours to 635, or roughly 13:20 per week for 48 total weeks. Looking at these numbers, I would guess that maybe Scott had a qualification in him in 2020, but with all of the race cancellations we will never know.

Slow Down Less Rather Than Go Faster

Scott has certainly sped up over the course of these five years, but not hugely. The difference between his second Ironman (Arizona in 2018) and his qualifying Ironman (Arizona in 2021) was only about 15 minutes. Here are some details:

Arizona 2018
Swim: 1:25:59 (Scott’s PR for the swim), 2:00/100
Bike: 4:59:08, average power 208 average HR 138
Run: 3:42:07, average pace 8:28 average HR 136

Arizona 2021
Swim: 1:26:42, 2:03/100
Bike: 4:55:27, average power 211 average HR 136
Run: 3:28:46, average pace 8:00 average HR 137

These are pretty similar races, other than the huge difference in run times, which is what allowed Scott to qualify for Kona. I would say the swim and bike are statistically identical and within the realm of measurement error—we can’t say much about them other than the possible fact that maybe the course in 2021 was slightly faster on the bike. HOWEVER, a 30” per mile difference on the run is well outside measurement error, especially when you see that Scott’s heart rate was effectively identical on the run while going much faster. In the words of…someone, “it never gets easy, you just go faster.” I would amend that to say “you slow down less as you improve your fitness.” In 2018 Scott ran the stereotypical IM: out the gate fast, only to struggle in the second half: he averaged 8:02 for the first 1:51, and then…8:56 for the second half. Not what we are looking for. In 2021 Scott ran 7:59 for the first half and 8:02/mile for the second half, which I would describe as perfect pacing. But it wasn’t simply pacing, of course, since Scott ran the same speed in the first half in 2018. He was just at a higher level of fitness. Let’s head back to the training tape to see what was different…

October 2018
Total Swim Volume: 14:21:30 and 39,000m
Total Bike Volume: 24:31:37 and 418.6mi
Total Run Volume: 18:00:11 and 141.6mi
Total Volume: 56:53:18

October 2021
Total Swim Volume: 14:42:02 and 38,000m
Total Bike Volume: 34:16:39 and 676mi
Total Run Volume: 20:26:55 and 167mi
Total Volume: 71:46:14

Kaboom. Here we go. Almost ten additional hours of cycling (258 miles) and 2.5 hours of running (25 miles) in 2021 as compared to 2018. Before you all go and blast out huge volumes in the final month before your next Ironman, though, let’s look at the preceding months leading into those big months.

2018
July: 41 hours
August: 40 hours
September: 51 hours

2021
July: 50 hours
August: 53 hours
September: 43 hours

So everything about 2021 was more when you back it off and look at strategic volume, and that is what allowed Scott to run so well at Ironman Arizona in 2021: more bike volume which simply made the bike leg less taxing then before, allowing him to run effectively without slowing down the same way he did in 2018. “Hang on,” you might say. “What about that drop in volume in September?” Well, in a real impressive step for a triathlete, Scott took a full week off in September. Seeing that maybe he’d gotten a little tired, we figured he needed a mid-season break, so we took one. The result? PR’s at Oceanside 70.3 and then Ironman Arizona in the subsequent two months, and qualifications to two different World Championships.

Don’t Ignore Your Weaknesses…OR Your Strengths!

It would be easy to look at Scott’s swim times and think that qualification was out of reach: not many Kona-bound athletes get to the big island on 1:26 swims. I know many triathletes who would look at their improvement curves and abandon swim training. Scott hasn’t, as you can see from his historical swim volume over the past five years. With the exception of 2020, when pools were closed for long periods, he has increased his swim volume each year. It speaks volumes about him that he’s been willing to go along with that while seeing relatively stagnant times (1:32 in 2017 to 1:26 in 2021 is not the kind of improvement upon which coaching empires are built). We believe, though, that Scott’s economy has improved in the water, allowing him to ride and run with less fatigue. How can we prove that? Well, we can look at his pool times. In 2018, a 4000m swim would take Scott close to 90 minutes, while in 2021 he would get through the same distance in around 80 minutes. Sure, it would be nice to be faster in the water, but we’re guessing this is a case of technique and relative open water comfort. 2022 will see A LOT of time in the open water.

On the other hand, we never sacrificed cycling or running volume in order to focus on swimming. Scott is a gifted cyclist and runner, and we have seen year-over-year increased in those disciplines’ volume, too. It’s important to remember that your strengths are what will get you 90% of the way to your goals, and until you see a relative plateau-ing of performance, there’s no reason to expect you won’t be able to continue improving them.

Final Thoughts

Building volume over time is crucial if you want to develop as an endurance athlete, but rest and tactical bursts of training are probably just as important. Along with those considerations, balancing the athlete’s life, work, and motivation are also equally important. Qualifying for Kona will require keeping all of these elements in front of the athlete where he or she can see them and not get tripped up by them. It’s your job as a coach to help the athlete manage their training load, and to tell them to take a break when they seem cooked. On the other hand, you will probably have to encourage them to push through some difficult (but not dangerous) periods of fatigue. Remember: the best coaching tool you have in your toolbox is a question: “Hey, how are you feeling?”