 Ensuring a proper recovery from your training sessions is potentially the hardest thing to do when working full time. However, if you can find a way to incorporate recovery into your working day you’ll come out all the better for it. If you have to sit, definitely put your heels up on a little box or stool under your desk as much as you can. Have a tennis ball handy so you can roll out the muscles in between emails. Stand up and take mini walk breaks often. You can also do some fairly decent stretch routines while sitting in your desk chair. Getting the hip flexors is easy to do even while talking on the phone or hammering out that spreadsheet. Simply stick one leg out behind the chair and the other out in front, much like a lunge, but still use the chair as a bit of a prop so it’s not a struggle. It may look a little weird to people walking by your desk or office, but such is life.
Continue reading Ironman Training Recovery At Work
 Adding flax seeds to your daily nutrition plan is an easy way to improve your diet. Use them as an added recovery tool in your smoothies. Throw some on your cereal or in your oatmeal; top off your salads and pasta sauces. Use them when baking muffins. Even down a glass with warm water or orange juice(gag).
Look at that nutritional information. Granted that’s for 100 grams, but you get a significant dose of protein with all the other good stuff like thiamin and magnesium…and it’s not processed like all shoddy whey protein is. These things are stacked with Omega 3 oils, plenty of really good fat. All in all they can only do you good.
You have to grind them up in order to fully digest all the good stuff. Your cheapest and most effective way to do this is to get bulk flax seeds and use a hand held coffee grinder. Over the long term, it works out far cheaper than buying the pre-ground stuff and you never have to worry about the oils going rancid.
Continue reading Ground Flax Seeds – Do a body good
 We are taking a break from our daily tips for Christmas, but we will be back at it come January 1st. Have a great time visiting with family and squeezing in as much training as you can manage!
If you have some time off, and a good couple of hours to spend swimming, it can be a great time of year to challenge yourself with a big session in the pool. Often the lanes are quiet, but be sure to double check the holiday schedule so you don’t show up to the “free entry with food bank donation, play time- family swim” by accident! Here is a big swim that I did today as my last hurrah before we take off. Have fun with those kick sets…
Warm Up 1900/35 min
300 warm
2 x
4 x 50 k down, build back
4 x 100 25 catchup, 25 7/8’s, 25 3/4, 25 build
4 x 50 #1 ½ fast – ½ slow, #2 ½ slow- ½ fast
#3 long and lovely, #4 build to 95%
Continue reading Happy Holidays! (and a long swim)
 A drive train encompasses all the parts of your bike that chain touches – chain rings upfront and cogs in the back. Indicators that you need to replace your bike chain may be sloppy or slow shifting, mis-shifts, or grinding.
A simple test to find out if things are getting a little too worn is to pull on your chain with your fingers while it’s in the big ring. If the chain moves and wiggles around all the teeth on the chain ring, and you can see spaces between the ring and the chain, you can bet that it’s time to look at swapping everything. When your chain has been used for a long time and has stretched out, the gap between the rollers on the chain will grow larger. This will cause the chain to be misaligned with the teeth on the gears. Another visual cue is to look at the shape of the teeth. The older things get the pointier each tooth will get.
Continue reading Worn out bike chain?
 If you live somewhere that gets snow in the winter, avoid falling into hibernation mode. Consistency is key to successful triathlon training so throw on lots of layers and get out the door. You may think that you can’t benefit from trying to run in 2 ft of snow, but the white stuff can actually lead to a really good low HR session. Your muscles will get a break from the impact of running on the road or the treadmill, and you will work your lateral stabilizers in a big way. Go out with the intention of having a fun adventure. You will be pleasantly surprised by the quality of the workout.
 Not many triathlons, especially Ironman branded events, are going to be non-wetsuit. If they are, you can bet the water is usually warm enough for the no-wetsuit rule to not effect even cold water susceptible athletes. Every once in awhile, however, you may hit a race that is just barely over the wetsuit limit (or has a crazy race director) and you’ll want to be prepared.
From first hand experience we have been on the sharp end of this stick early this year. We were very unprepared for a cold water no-wetsuit race and paid for it dearly. Some things we’ll be bringing with us to any potential non-wetsuit race in the future are:
**Double cap it – A definite must. Try to get a silicone cap underneath the race cap. Or, if you can handle the neoprene-under the chin caps then those do a great job too.
**Heat pack in a plastic bag – You know those little hand warmers (see picture) that stay hot for a few hours or so? Put one in a plastic bag between the two caps, and another somewhere around your belly or lower back. Hopefully your swim skin is tight enough to hold everything in place. Simply drop it all in T1.
**Go for a light run with plenty of clothing on 10 minutes before your start. Break a sweat, but don’t tire yourself out.
**Warming oil on the skin – Slop this stuff on and don’t rub it in too much so as to leave a little water repellent layer on your skin. Careful if it’s a sunny day as you may open yourself up to sun burn. Belgian cyclists are famous for this little trick. The start line in a chilly Euro bike race smells oh so sweet.
Continue reading Swimming in cold water
At the request of a reader we’ll do a little tip on aero positions. We will, however, refer you to a great photo essay at Slowtwitch. They took amazing pictures of some of the best Pro athletes at the Hawaii Ironman World Championships this year. (Unfortunately I can’t find the link to that particular article - but here’s another with some pictures for your interest.) If anyone happens to find the other article please feel free to leave a comment pointing the way.
Our take on aero positions (like most) is to be as aero as possible without compromising your power. Aerodynamics are indeed important, but time saved due to less drag will pale in comparison to the time you lose if you are so uncomfortable you can’t ride properly, or if you hinder your ability to run afterward. Here’s a couple pictures to show you some extremes on either end of the scale.
Bjorn Anderson – This position is CRAZY. It works for him on the bike – but it’s hard to say what it costs him on the run. He usually has the fastest bike split outside of Kona, but rarely has a good run. He did win Wildflower, but I think his Ironman attempts have been lackluster. Maybe he can’t digest food properly, maybe he rides too hard. Whatever it is, the point is to show a very extreme aero position:
Continue reading Good and Bad Aero positions
 We spend a lot of time worrying about run mileage, frequency, and intensity but your running form is equally important. A lot of us assume that the way we run is the way we run and that there is little we can do to improve our natural gaits. Wrong. Focusing on proprioceptive cues (being mindful of specific things that you are doing with your body) while you run can make a world of difference. Those that paid attention to Craig Alexander’srun form in this year’s Ironman World Championships were super impressed with how he “popped” forward off the ground with each stride – basically he minimized his time on the ground and maximized the effect of that time on the ground. In the book “Brain Training for Runners” Matt Fitzgerald gives great examples of run cues and drills to help us do just that. One is to imagine yourself running on water. To avoid breaking through the surface you have to be quick and light, yet forceful. By thinking about actively driving your feet to the ground instead of passively allowing them to drop while running, you can increase leg stiffness on impact and improve your ability to generate forward thrust quickly, with minimal ground contact time. Also, if, in the instant before your foot makes contact with the ground, you contract the muscles in the glutes on that side of your body and keep them engaged thru the ground contact phase of your stride, you will minimize wasteful side to side rotation, maintain greater stability in your hips and generate more forward thrust. Next time you are running pick a single cue “run on water” or “butt squeeze” and focus on it.
Continue reading Run on water
 Have you ever watched a world class swimmer on video? It’s as if they have gumby feet, acting like flippers pushing them through the water. You may have heard, or believe, that your kick is not a huge part of your Ironman swim stroke. This is true relative to a flat-out pool race, but if you can give yourself a strong and efficient kick it will most definitely benefit your longer triathlon swims and leave you fresher coming out of the water. Obviously training your kick in the water is step #1, but working the foot and ankle flexibility while you’re at work or lying in bed will do wonders for the efficiency of each kick as you push down through the water.
Continue reading Stretch your feet for a better swim kick
 One of the best things you can do in the off season (if you haven’t been doing this all year) is to pay attention to your hip flexors and IT bands. Throughout the year we all tend to neglect the side to side motion as we busy ourselves running, riding, and flutter kicking our way through each training session. Doing so can easily bring on the dreaded IT band syndrom or unfortunate knee and back pain related to tight/weak lateral legs muscles and stuck muscle fibres and tendons. A secondary effect of week hip flexors is to have your run form fall apart in the later stages of your race. You may not notice during the race, but if you look at those race pictures from mile 10 and mile 20 where you seem to be about to fall sideways into a heap on the ground, you can bet your stabilizing muscles – hip flexors being one of them – are not helping you look good.
Continue reading Stretch and strengthen your lateral leg muscles
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