Your first transition is usually the most hectic and crowded. Depending on what you’re trying to get out of the race you can attack T1 two different ways. Go through with the intent of getting out as quickly as possible, or use it as a chance to regroup and get ready for the long ride ahead. This tip relates to trying to get you through quickly.
Like anything, practicing transitions in training is important. Visualizing the transition frequently before the race and the morning of the race is also important. Know what you’re going to do. With about 2 minutes left in your swim, it’s also a good idea to start thinking about what you’ll be doing in transition. All this will help you get through smoothly.
Continue reading Transition Zone 1 – A.K.A. T1
 Your feet are a very important but generally neglected part of your body. We may get leg massages but often don’t do a thing to loosen up our feet. Achy heels in the morning can be the initial signs of plantar fasciitis, and you want to do all that you can to avoid that.
First start by walking around in bare feet as much as you can to get all those feet muscles working. Wiggle your toes around while you are eating breakfast, try to move your pinkie toes independently. Roll the underside of your feet out on a golf ball or a full water bottle that has been frozen.
An excellent thing to do after your runs, while your are stretching, is to use toe spreaders (those things that women use to paint their toenails) to separate your toes and help stretch your feet. They feel really odd and rather uncomfortable at first, but they can really help loosen up your whole posterior chain (the fascia that run from the underside of your feet to the top of your head). One exercise is to stand with the toe spreaders on and, with your heels and big toe still on the ground, try to raise your big toe knuckle as high as you can, repeat.
Continue reading Toe spreaders
 This drill is from Matt Fitzgerald’s ‘Brain Training for Runners‘. A great book.
Lace the fingers of your two hands together and make a big circle with your arms at shoulder level, like you are simulating a basketball hoop for someone else to toss a ball through. Run 100m at a moderately fast temp with your arms in this position. Jog slowly and normally back to your starting position and repreat. This drill will force you to activate your deep abdominal muscles and to maintain an upright posture and therby teach you how to activate these muscles with running. It will also help eliminate rotational asymmetries by taking away your ability to compensate for these rotations with shoulder movements.
 Swim cords are a great tool to help work swim specific muscles out of the water, and they can help your mental game tremendously when you can’t get in the pool because your schedule doesn’t mesh with lane swim times. Just loop them around a pole, tree, stair banister, shut the middle part in a doorway… and have at it. Gordo has some nice pictures illustrating a few swim cord exercises here. I would also recommend lying face down on a bench or (using a ball for even more of a core stability challenge) because this lets you feel bit more like you do in the water and this can help with muscle memory. Remember, you want to have a strong, high elbow catch, without totally losing your roll.
Continue reading Swim Cords
 As is the case with your Pre Race Dinner - practice in training to make sure you won’t run in to difficulties on race day. It’s extremely hard (impossible actually) to simulate the nervous stomach and anxiety of race day in training. But finding a simple breakfast that sits extremely well with you on a day to day basis will help ease those race morning nerves. Ultimately, it will come down to trying a few different things on race day before you dial it in perfectly.
Continue reading Pre race breakfast
Today’s post comes to you from Chris Brown and Sara Gross. If you’ve thought about, but have yet to try a training camp, here’s some motivation to make it happen.
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Why Camp?
For many of us, it’s that time of year when we are putting in some miles on the three T’s; trainer, treadmill and track. I recently spent 3 ½ weeks in Calgary, Canada… burr…. I have to admit, I have become soft when it comes to cold weather. I forgot what its like to have your lungs burn on a long run when it’s -25! Enter the perfect solution: the warm weather training camp.
Taking part in a warm weather training camp is not only fun, but can help us get a competitive edge for the season. Here’s my list of top 5 reasons for attending a training camp:
Continue reading Benefits Of A Training Camp
 Anytime of year, but especially winter, is a great time to jump on to the treadmill. Unless you are lucky enough to live somewhere with warm weather or an indoor track, many runs are happening on the treadmill. In our observational surveys of treadmill users it seems that very few people ever adjust the incline. Treadmills can be great tools for speed work because you can precisely control the pace, but they are wonderful tools for hill training too. Be sure to throw on your HR monitor and adjust the speed in response the the incline and your desired HR targets. You can make your training session mimic a run on undulating terrain (10min at 1%, 5 min at 3%, 5 at 6 %, 5 at 0%, 10 at 10%…), you can do hill repeats like none found in nature (e.x. up and down a 6% incline, -2% decline), you can do a steady uphill run forever. The options are endless.
Continue reading Don’t forget about the incline buttons
 Trying out a few meal options the night before a big training day will help decrease the surprises come race day. You’ll want to avoid taxing your digestive system with hard to digest meats and processed foods. However, finding something that you’ll enjoy is equally important.
The timing of your pre race dinner needs to be thought out as well. Try not to leave it too late at night - it can be hard to sleep on a full stomach. Eating late will also leave you feeling too full to have a decent breakfast on race morning. We like to give ourselves 9-10 hours between the pre race dinner and our pre race breakfast. That way you can still take in sufficient calories in the evening without worrying about having a full belly for the 3-4:00am wake up call.
Continue reading Pre race dinner
 Many of us don’t take the time to properly prepare our bodies for our run training sessions. We step out the door and start running, maybe with an easier jog at first but often not for long. Taking longer to warm up into your runs is an excellent tool for injury prevention. Walk for 5 minutes (just let go of your ego!) and then do some drills to engage more of your lower legs muscles. Walk pulling a knee up to your chest with each stride, walk on your tip toes, your heels, pigeon foot, duck foot, do some skipping, some rhythm bounding, some a b c’s and leg crossovers (aka jogging grapvines or karaoke steps) and even some strides as you get warm. This will help activate all those stabilizer muscles that will enable you to keep your form and improve your run economy through the latter part of your run.
 Depending on your bike strength, the race you’re training for, and the terrain you have to train in, it may be worth looking at changing the size of the chain rings and cogs on your bike. Most bikes will come fit with the standard 53 tooth big chain ring and a 39 tooth small chain ring. On the rear of the bike you’ll typically see a 12/23 cogset. If you live in a mountainous area, you’re probably best sticking with this standard set up. Even so, there are some pretty good alternatives that you may want to try.
Some may find that the 53 tooth chain ring is just too big, or too hard to ride most of the time. And rightly so. How often do you find yourself in the 53 tooth front ring and the 12 tooth cog a the back? I would wager not very often at all unless you have some long descents in your training grounds. Even then, you’ve got to be going over 60km per hour to spin that gear out. Then there’s always the situation where you hit a hill that’s not quite long enough to bother switching to your 39 tooth chain ring so you just grunt it over the top in your big ring. Or the dreaded, ‘oh crap I’m not going to make it in my 53, I need to switch half way up but can’t because I have to keep pedaling and I’m not going fast enough.’
Continue reading Choosing the right gear
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