Loop it up

A great way to monitor your improvement and work on appropriate pacing strategies is to set up training loops.  Depending on the length of your ride or run you would ideally cover the loop between 3 and 12 times…or more.  This then gives you a tremendous amount of data to look at and see where you start to slow.  If you keep track of your average HR and lap splits, you can also compare week to week or month to month to ensure you’re making gains in your training.  There are a few different ways to go about tracking your loops:

#1. Peg your HR at a particular level and just keep running or riding while taking splits every lap.  You’ll most likely notice a drop in time after every loop – but the fitter you are the less that drop will be and the faster your overall time will be at the conclusion of your chosen distance.

#2. Start slow and get faster throughout.  This is a great way to learn how to pace properly.  If you can do the first loop in 10 minutes, try and drop a few seconds every subsequent loop until you hit your last lap.  This will take practice, no doubt, but it will give huge insight into how hard you can actually ride or run at the beginning of an Ironman leg and sustain that pace right till the end.

#3. If you can find a shorter loop, probably no longer than 5 minutes, use it as a pace loop where you don’t slow down at all…but give yourself some rest after each loop.  Typcially use this type of loop for training your race specific pace -  If you want to run 8 minutes miles for your next Ironman, find out what an 8 minute mile feels like by doing that loop over and over again at the same speed.