Ironman Triathlon Tips » Racing

What gears should I use?

IronmanTips — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:53:30 +0000

Despite using an 11/23 rear cassette with 39/53 front chain rings for many years, our favorite gearing for racing and training has shifted to an 11/26 rear cassette and 39/53 front chain rings. This set up allows you to keep a higher cadence on hills and prevent that excessive leg burn that can be so detrimental to finishing your race with a strong run leg. On extremely hilly, long-distance courses such as IM St. George, we’ll even use a 12/28 rear cassette. A general rule of thumb is that if there is any question at all – go with the easier gearing.

Long, steep climbs aside, having the larger gears in back can also help save you from that oh-so-annoying shift to the small chain ring when you hit some small rollers or false flat sections. Having the ability to stay in your 53 front ring and get into the 23 cog on the back without crossing the chain over too far can be nice advantage.

One small disadvantage to having a cassette like a 12/28 is that you lose the ability to pedal hard at over 40 miles per hour. I.e. when you’re going downhill. In our opinion that little bit of lost speed on fast downhill sections is more than made up for on the rest of the hilly course.

When making equipment decisions it is important to look past the macho stigma of pushing big gears. There is no shame in throwing on a 28 tooth cassette if it’s going to help your overall finish time – and it always feels good to cruise up a hill past all those mashing away and having to stand in their 23.

The Mental Game

IronmanTips — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 01:00:40 +0000

No matter your level of experience you can benefit from a positive mental attitude going in to race day. Today we’re simply going to share a great blog written by pro triathlete Heather Wurtele, A.K.A. the better half of Ironmantriathlontips.com. No matter what your goal is, be it for an epic training session, a big race, or an important job interview – find your happy place.

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Heather here. Has been awhile since I’ve written a blog. In a way it’s a good thing – I’ve been training hard and spending my down time doing stuff like stretching, reading, finding my happy place and generally trying to avoid stressing myself out with triathlon magazine reading, or blog following. I get so competitive and driven that I have to be careful to stay within myself sometimes and just have faith in the work that I’ve been doing. Social media is cool, but I think that we can get a bit scattered by knowing instantaneously that X did an epic ride today or Y did a 7 k swim and oh, shit, I had an easy day… maybe I need to do more…

I just finished reading the fantastic book – “The Perfect Mile” by Neal Bascomb about the quest to break the 4 minute mile and there is a section where Roger Bannister starts working with coach Franz Stampfl that really stuck with me (p.160).

Physically Bannister was already very close to being capable of the achievement when they met. Stampfl just needed to push him a little further…. As the coach wrote, “Training is principally an act of faith. The athlete much believe in it’s efficacy: he must believe that through training he will become fitter and stronger… He must believe that through training his performance with improve and continue to improve indefinitely for as long as he continues to train to progressively stiff standards.” Stampfl simply helped to set these standards.

But Stampfl’s greatest contribution to Bannister’s attempt to make history was his ability to inspire the miler. Although Bannister had the scientific understanding to refute the notion that the mile barrier couldn’t be broken, believing that you were the one to do it was altogether different. “The great hurdle was the mental barrier,” Stampfl said. The Austrian’s experiences as a coach and a survivor of great hardship had proved to him that no obstacle was insurmountable. His unwavering belief was infectious. He loved sports and what they symbolized in life as a whole: the ability to overcome.

I love those lines. So much about success is about belief, and so much of what I love about sport is the ability to overcome: injury, doubt, your own mental hangups, fatigue, negative factors/people in life that seem to want to drag you down or make you feel like you can’t achieve your goals.

I think that one of the hardest things about tapering before a big race is that you actually have more time in the day and mental energy – our brains are glycogen burning machines after all – to reflect. This can lead to confidence and to doubt, and you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t harbor negative thoughts.

As Johan Bruyneel put it in his great book “We might as well win” -(I am just going from memory here; it’s something along these lines) strength and weakness exist in everyone and you are a fool if you look at a competitor and do not see them both.

The field for Ironman Arizona is deep. There are so many phenomenal athletes toeing the line, and as always, there are so many things that can happen on race day. Some suffering is self inflicted, some is not, but there is always suffering! That’s what part of makes us feel so alive. It is also an especially interesting time of year: near the end of the season, with a lot of racing in the books. Mental and physical fatigue from a year of hard work will likely cause more carnage than it does at most races. For me, all that’s left to do (outside of the million minutia that crop up race week) is get rested and excited about racing and finishing the year off right!

I will sign off with a great one from Goethe:

Whatever you can do,
Or think you can, begin it.
Boldness has power, and genius,
And magic in it.

Dialing in your race bike

IronmanTips — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 02:05:30 +0000

Three or four weeks prior to an important race we like to make sure our bikes are in fine working order. This generally means putting a little time and money into sprucing them up, but it’s well worth it when you consider how much training has been invested in your race. Our biggest worry on race day is to have a mechanical issue on the bike. We always breath a little sigh of relief when we get off the bike after an incident free ride. Things can go wrong on the run, but most of them are under your control.

The two big bike upgrades we always take care of a few weeks out from race day are new tires and new cables. More often than not the tires we’re taking off our race wheels are still in really good condition. However, they may have small nics in the rubber, or small cracks in the rubber surface or sidewall. Perhaps some of the tubular tape is pealing away from the underside of the tire. It’s best to have a good look at your tires and if you notice anything at all, swap them out. The same goes for clincher tires, check them over and swap them out if you have any concerns about their wear and tear.

We also take out our old cables and put in some new ones. Twice per year we also change all the cable housing to help improve shifting performance. The primary reason for swapping out your cables, however, is to prevent breakage. Yes, we know, how often do cables break? Not often, but with time trial bikes that have shift levers out on the aero bars, and with most new frames incorporating internal cable routing, there is added cable length, added friction inside the frame, and increased wear on the cable and cable housing. If you want everything to work perfectly on race day and avoid any unfortunate breaks or miss shifts, then definitely swap out your cables. Do this at least a few weeks prior to race day, that will give the cables time to settle and stretch a bit. After which you can get a final tune-up and dial in that perfect shifting a few days prior to race day.

A few other little things we check over include:
-New bar tape, you HAVE to have clean bar tape for race day!
-Make sure your bottle cage bolts are done up tight.
-How old is your drive train (chain, cogs, chain rings)?
-Make sure your bottom bracket is tight and solid (no worn out bearings, or lateral play)
-Ride around for a few days with your race day spare attached to your bike. It’s always nice to know it’s not going to bounce out. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen unused CO2 cartridges and a $100 tubular tire sitting on the road.

The Key to Kona

IronmanTips — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 01:22:52 +0000

We’re not Kona veterans, but in the 4 starts between us we can absolutely, without question, give you the key to having your best race at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.

What is it?

Keep yourself from overheating.

It sounds pretty darn simple, but in the ‘heat’ of the moment on race day, you can easily get carried away with racing and forget about keeping your body in control of the thermostat.

Here are a few quick rules to make sure you don’t overheat.

Rule #1. Stay hydrated.
Forgetting to consume water for the first 30-45 minutes of the bike is about the easiest thing to do wrong. You’ve just come out of a 3.8 km swim in the Ocean, you’re raring to go with life-best fitness, people are cheering and all the other athletes around you are hammering through the first 20 km that take place right in the hustle and bustle of town. Calm yourself down, take in some light calories, some fluid to help top up what you lost during the swim, and get yourself sorted for the upcoming 180 km of sun and humidity. On the run, keep drinking as much as you can handle. Here’s another tip on Ironman Nutrition worth a read.

Rule #2. Do not get sun burnt.
Do everything you can to prevent yourself from getting burnt by the sun. Not only will a sunburn cause you to overheat, it’s just plain bad for you. You’re body will start trying to repair the damage caused by the suns rays instead of allowing you to put 100% into your day. If you have fair skin, think about wearing a very thin, white ‘Rash Guard‘. If you keep it wet it will not only protect your shoulders and back from the sun, it will help keep you cool. Or, if you’re against the short sleeve idea, carry a small flask of sunscreen and reapply after a few hours. It only takes a second to get your arms, shoulders and the top of your quads where sun hits directly for most of the day.

Rule #3. Don’t over-do it.
Be conscious of the heat-load you’re putting on your body while riding hard. You may not feel hot on the bike, but once you stop in T2, that ‘oh crap’ sensation of insane heat can set in if you’ve overdone it. Not saying that you shouldn’t ride hard, just be wary of the red zone. This also holds true for the marathon. It is a very good idea to use the first couple miles of the run to assess your core temperature. If you’re overheating already, slow it down a bit and hit up the ice at the aid stations. If you can get things under control soon, you’ll have 20 miles to put the hammer down!

Rule #4. Weigh the benefits of an aero-helmet.
One thing we like about aero helmets is they keep the sun off your ears and neck. Plus, they are faster most of the time. In Kona, however, the wind is almost always hitting you in gusts from the side. We’ve actually felt wind tugging sideways on the rear of an aero helmet, negating any aerodynamic benefits. Also, most aero-helmets are pretty hot, and they definitely restrict your ability to pour water on your head. So, take the ‘I want to look fast’ issue out of the question and decide for yourself what will keep you ready to run 26.2 miles.

Rule #5. Ice Ice Baby.
We’ve heard anecdotal evidence that dumping cold water on yourself can stop the sweat response for awhile but we’re pretty skeptical that it would seriously hinder performance. You’ve all seen the sponges, especially those immortalized in Chris McCormack’s ‘Man Cans’ and that cool water feels good. Torbjorn Sindballe actually wore a latex glove on the run in order to hold ice in the palm of his hand, and ice down the shorts and sports bra can help as well.

Ironman Nutrition

IronmanTips — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:56:57 +0000

There are various approaches to fueling your body for an Ironman. We’ve tried them all. From consuming solid foods, liquid meal replacements, taking GasX, using chocolate bars, gummy bears, gels, protein drinks, chicken soup WITH noodles. We’ve tried it all.

Finally, in our last two Ironman events we’ve settled on something that really works for us. Perhaps with time we’ll have to adjust again, but right now we’re golden. Keeping in mind, however, that we’re finishing the event in 8.5-9.5 hours. We’d be interested to hear what others are doing, perhaps those of you looking at the 12-17hr range. That would be a long time to use liquid nutrition so perhaps you find a bit of solid food is what you need. Let us know in the comments!

Regardless of what you ‘eat’ during your race day, there are still some important points to keep in mind.
-Keep track of the calories you put down. 500 calories per hour would be a lot, even for a very large athlete. The lighter you are, the less you’ll need.
-Make sure you’re not taking in too many calories relative to the amount of plain water you consume. Sports drinks have calories too, so be careful what you use to ‘wash down’ your gels.
-Depending on your effort level for the day, you don’t need to take in any fat or protein. This may be different for the 12hr + athlete. In order for you body to process fat and protein into usable calories while exercising you have to be going quite easy. Stick to Carbohydrates (sugars) while putting out a bit of effort.

Anyway, here’s what we do, and it works very well for us.

Morning breakfast:
Bowl of cereal – rice/corn based cereal with banana
150 Calories worth of Ultragen
Coffee
…wish I could have ate more, but I was NOT hungry. Nervous energy and early mornings!!

T1
Had about 100 calories of Ultragen while running to my bike. Ultragen has a small amount of fat and protein in it. Used it while HR was low and was starting to ease into the day.

On the bike:
-Aimed for 400 calories per hour
-1350 calories of EFS liquid shot (carried 1600 with me) in a water bottle that stayed with me the entire day. Liquid Shot is basically a gel, but with no gelling agent. This makes it thinner, easier to swallow, and easier to digest.
-650 calories of EFS Drink (started with 2 bottles of 200 cal, picked up 2 more at special needs, had to lose one for water when I started feeling like caloric intake was too high).
-Lots of water, can’t even estimate how many bottles I went through.
-2 salt caps, but it was a cool day and didn’t need it given the electrolyte content of the EFS drink and EFS liquid shot. Had 10 pills with me, which I would take on a hot day.
-No solids, no fats, no proteins. Had I needed something solid I would have grabbed a banana from an aid station.
-Grabbed a couple sips of Gatorade for a change of flavor, but never kept a bottle with me on the bike.

On the run:
-600 calories of EFS liquid shot. I carried one 400 calorie flask, sipping at every aid station. Then picked up a new flask at the half way special needs station. Did not empty either flask.
-Lots of coke, at least 15 cups, not all of which made it in my mouth.
-2 big swigs of EFS drink from a frozen bottle with ‘Pre Race’ mixed in at special needs. Pre-Race is similar to Red Bull.
-Water: at least double the amount of coke. Maybe went a bit overboard here, peed three times on the run, clear each time. Would have been great if it were a hot day!
-4 Salt stick caps, carried 13 with me

So there you go. All liquid calories, all day. Never felt hungry and stayed strong throughout. We’re working on a better morning breakfast!! Products like Coconut Oil, Agave Nectar, Dark Chocolate are going to find their way in next time.

Power Averages

IronmanTips — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:22:42 +0000

For those of you that train and race with a power-meter, you may have thought about holding a specific average power for your given event. There is a lot of talk about trying to eliminate power spikes and hold a steady wattage throughout your race. It makes sense to use your power meter to keep yourself in check if you tend to blow yourself up early on, or are insensitive to how the legs feel when you are pushing too hard. It seems, though, that some folks are taking this to the extreme and really looking to hold the same wattage on a downhill as they are on an uphill, no matter the course. This may work for a flat or slightly rolling type of course (i.e. Kona), but if you’ve got some actual climbing and fast descents to contend with, it’s not the most efficient way of getting the job done.

An example: if your goal is to hold 200 watts you would be far better off riding upwards of 220-240 watts on the uphills and keeping the power output down around 150 watts for the downhills. A 5% increase in output will net you far closer to a 5% increase in speed on a climb than it will on a decent. Say you’re going 60 km/hr on a decent, it would be much harder to go 63 km/hr (5%), than it would be to go from 15 km/hr to 15.75 km/hr (5%) on a climb. At higher speeds you’ve got more forces working against you – friction and wind resistance especially, so the speed gains from higher power output are less.

It is worth your while to concentrate on being as aerodynamic as you can while descending, but as long as you don’t go too hard, pushing more watts than your planned average while climbing will gain you more time overall.

Pre Race Mental Prep

IronmanTips — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:30:00 +0000

The last week of before a big race can be one of the hardest for a triathlete to bare. You’ve done all the work, your training volume is way down and you may feel lethargic and antsy all at the same time. This is a perfect time to sit down and spend some time writing mental training notes for your big day. Sometimes we are super prepared on every other front, but we forget to have a concrete set of form cues and positive affirmations ingrained in our brains for easy access on race day. Writing things down in a journal before each race can help calm you down and give you concrete focus points. It is also great to go back and look over what you’ve written post race to see where you may have missed something or where you really succeeded mentally/strategically now that your performance is in the books.

Here are some suggestions for things to write about:
- put down realistic goal times for each discipline e.x.: I will swim 1:05, I have trained well in the pool, my form is improving all the time, remember that last time trial, this is totally within my reach
- write key words for each discipline that help you remember essential form cues or things that make you smile to get thru hard times. e.x. for swimming: “long an strong”, “catch”, “fishy”, riding: “pull up”, “patience”, “I rule”; running: “light”, “quick”, “chest up”, “Kenyans move over” etc… whatever works for you and makes you remember important things.
- don’t write passively, use powerful positive language: I will succeed, I will focus on my form and this will enable me to maintain my speed, my body is infinitely more powerful than I know I just need to be in the moment and free myself to excel, if I feel bad I may just need more electrolytes – do a body scan, I will get through hard times…
- write a newspaper headline about yourself “upcoming age-group athlete sets new bike course record”, “Mother of two conquers her demons”, “Irongeezer takes the day”…

Make some notes that fill you with confidence and keep you feeling grounded and mentally prepared. Re-read them every day during race-week, and prepare yourself to go out there and rock out!

Gluten Free

IronmanTips — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:56:19 +0000

Over the past winter and spring we’ve been playing around with a gluten free diet: going completely gluten free for a few weeks then consuming gluten to see if it really makes a difference. The answer: Yes, but more so in some cases than in others. Turns out that Heather is quite sensitive to gluten and instantly notices basic discomfort from increased bloating, gastric distress, and diarrhea. Those symptoms indicate a lack of nutrient absorption as well and she feels more energetic on a gluten free diet. Trevor, however, isn’t that sensitive to gluten but likes to avoid it race week to limit any potential affects that it may have on his digestion.

If you have any un-explained GI issues, or even just find that you have to take bathroom breaks rather frequently during or right after long runs, it can be useful to try going gluten free. Try two weeks without gluten (you’ll be surprised how frequently it crops up), and then re-introduce pastas and breads (basically anything at all to do with wheat) in the third week. Make some notes in a food log about how you feel and see if there are any changes in your digestion when you consume gluten again. If it doesn’t bother you, then great, but if it does, you can take steps to eliminate a dietary stress to your system. Training and racing is hard on your body – the food you eat shouldn’t be!

Other food items to consider knocking off the shopping list for race week:
Dairy: Consider swapping for Almond milk if you need that bowl of cereal or glass of milk – a bit higher in sugar content, but it’s a great vegetarian source of calcium, protein, carbohydrates.
Peanut Butter: I think we’d all be surprised by the number of people in the world that have a very mild allergy to peanuts. You may not feel it, or even think you have it, but we like to scratch it off the list for a week or so before our ‘A’ race just in case there’s some underlying energy affect. Almond butter, sunflower seed butter, or cashew butter are great alternates.
High fiber items: We’ve never really bothered to alter this much on race week, but do be aware of taking in more than you’re used to. Avocados are very high in fiber, blackberries, raspberries and prunes as well. And of course the high fiber cereals and muffins you may like to snack on.

A happy stomach is a happy athlete.

Cabohydrates and Endurance Sport

IronmanTips — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:59:39 +0000

This winter has been the winter of a complete nutrition revamp for us (Heather and Trevor Wurtele – coauthors of all posts on the IMTT site). Some race issues that were slowly becoming a trend (in a bad way) had to be changed.

This post is not about all the factors that affect your race nutrition, just the nutrition itself. Specifically, the concentration and dilution of your carbohydrate intake. Okay, we’ll mention a couple issues first. Adequate training being the number one concern – if you haven’t done the work you will fall apart before the finish line, regardless of what you eat. Issue number 2: Pacing. Simply put, know your limits. 50% of the ‘nutrition’ issues in a race are actually pacing issues. You’ve gone too hard on the bike in order to keep up with stronger cyclists, then blow up half way through the run. There’s a reason why more men fall apart at the end of race than do women…and it’s not because woman are tougher, it’s because most are better at controlling their ego on the bike.

With respect to ACTUAL nutrition issues, here’s what we’ve found after talking to many ‘people in the know’. First off, be wary of anything containing complex Fat or Protein (as opposed to nice, easy to digest, amino acids and cabohydrates) making their way into your stomach during the race. Calories from those sources are very hard to breakdown efficiently and can cause some intestinal shut down once the intensity (on the run) picks up. If your race intensity is low enough, you can most likely digest fat/protein properly without adverse affects to your performance. So, if you plan on walking the entire marathon or half marathon, go for it! The other item to consider (as if there were only two!) is how you dilute the carbohydrates you take in. Most drink mixes out there give you a suggested serving like 1 scoop per 12 Oz. TURNS OUT, there’s a reason for that!!! Wow. On our First Endurance EFS drink for example, they say exactly that (1 scoop per 12 Oz), and because they’ve done their research they know that this the optimal dilution for our bodies to process those carbohydrates without leaching water from our cells – therefore keeping you hydrated and fueled properly over an endurance event.

If we look at that EFS drink label a bit further: 1 scoop has 24 grams of carbohydrate. Convert the Oz. to ml (not sure why the United States must use both the metric and imperial system on their labels, seems kinda ridiculous) which gives you 355 ml.

Don’t lose focus yet, it’s worth knowing this stuff, trust us.

24 grams of carbohydrate divided by 355 ml gives you just under 7% solution. That’s an optimal dilution for keeping yourself fueled without compromising hydration. (Hydration is another post altogether. Here we’re dealing with carbohydrate dilution – how to best absorb your calories). Another piece of the puzzle is that the human body can actually only absorb about 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, but you can bump that number up close to 80-90 grams of carbohydrate per hour if you use a product with multiple types of carbohydrate (sugars – sucrose, dextrose) which have different receptors in your cells.

One more multiplication to keep in mind – carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram (fat has 9, protein has 4), so your upper hourly limit to carbohydrate intake, assuming optimum absorption, is ~360 calories (4 x 90). If you take in that many calories, you need to take in about 1.25 liters of water in order to achieve that happy number for your stomach ~7% dilution. 7% isn’t a hard fast rule, but a good approximate. If you are good at drinking water during races, you could lean towards 8% and assume that the water will dilute the carbohydrates you consume. For a shorter, higher intensity race you could even go closer to 9 or 10%.

So, what if you need more than ~360 calories per hour? You can certainly take in more than 90 g of CHO per hour, but they’ll sit around waiting to be digested. In the last hour of the bike, leaning towards an extra 25 grams of CHO may be fine, because you’ll almost certainly be consuming far less during the run. You could also throw in small amounts of fat/protein from a bar (quarter bar per hour, as an example). Another 50 calories per hour (5.5 grams of fat) is most likely not going to cause any stomach issues unless you’re redlining your heart rate for too long. Play around in training, but really think about it. Look at labels and do some math, don’t just wing it and threaten your race, like we did in the past!

How to spectate an Ironman

IronmanTips — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:27:50 +0000

This tip is for all your family members, and admittedly we may need some help with this one so feel free to comment if you’ve got a tried and true method for spectating.

Items required for spectating:
Lawn chair, blanket, pillow – something to sit on or lie down on
Laptop, iPhone, netbook, other smart phone – something to get online with
Food and water
Money for buying beer, food, coffee, water
Camera
Map of the course
Start list with numbers

A book to read
Binoculars
Noise making device – bell or something to smash together
Flag and sign to cheer on your crew!!
Sunscreen
Stop watch
Skateboard, rollerblades, bike – something to navigate the run course effectively and watch from multiple locations.

Aside from watching your friend or family member come across the finish line, you definitely have to watch the swim start. Don’t even think of sleeping in, 2000 people throwing themselves into the water at the sound of the gun is something that will spark your adrenaline and get you going no matter how tired you are. Getting a good vantage point is hard, though, so stake your spot early and have some binoculars handy.

You also have to watch either the swim exit or the start of the bike. It’s next to impossible to watch both except perhaps at the most spectator friendly Ironman venues. Find shortcuts and RUN! Use noise making device here, great for camera time as well.

Now pull out that lawn chair or blanket and find yourself a spot on the course to watch the next available viewing point. Most Ironman events are getting good at having the athletes come in and out of town for at least the first 30-40km of the bike – but there are events out there where your athlete will be completely gone for at least 5 hours. This is where your WiFi or 3G enabled device comes in handy. Check out this website: http://www.trakkersgps.com/, with that little piece of equipment you can track your athlete online and find out exactly how they’re doing. Pretty cool stuff.

Grabbing a nap or going for your own little swim is a good idea while they’re on the bike. It’ll keep you refreshed and ready to go once they come back into town.

Now they’re getting close to the run, hopefully you’re still cheering. If not, you need more beer, coffee, and food – choose your weapon. Mount your trusty steed (skateboard, bike, rollerblades, segway) and get out on the run course armed with your camera and motivational words to keep your athlete going. Find out what they want to hear before the race starts. Perhaps they’ve been working on a particular aspect of their run form – remind them to do it well. Perhaps they forget to drink enough – remind them. Maybe they want splits. Maybe they just want you to keep quiet – that’s ok too!!

Now get yourself to the finish line and cheer them across. The day is almost over. If you’ve done it right, you will be emotionally drained and exhausted, but hopefully not starving and completely dehydrated. Then it is on to waiting outside the med tent, helping pick up equipment, puke patrol, and hopefully a good party the next day!