tricoachdara

https://myswimpro.com/blog/2018/06/20/test-sets-whiteboard-wednesday/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WOW062518

https://myswimpro.com/blog/2018/07/04/what-is-swolf-whiteboard-wednesday/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WOW0716

You can use/measure SWOLF if you have a garmin 920XT or higher, and here is an example of a workout using this metric. Again, it’s from the smart people at myswimpro (a great app).https://myswimpro.com/blog/2018/07/11/advanced-analytics-swolf-workout/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WOW0710

https://my.socialtoaster.com/splash/auth/DrcRmtGFJC/

https://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/how-to-climb-hills-faster-51374/

https://www.mytimetotri.com/training/general/injury-prevention-checklist

Your Injury-Prevention Checklist
You hear stuff every day about things you can do to stay injury-free and keep swimming, cycling and running consistently. But, be honest, do you actually do this stuff? Do you put it off hoping that you won’t get hurt? Action works better than hope. And most type-A triathletes thrive with to-do lists. We know the athletes we coach thrive off getting their training plans and checking off the workouts. So how about to-do lists for injury prevention — an injury-prevention checklist? We’ve got a three-part checklist for you that contains more than the surface-level injury-prevention stuff you hear all the time. Do this stuff and you will create a deep well of wellness and ward off injuries proactively. Have at it — check off as many items as you can!

Daily or Near-Daily Checklist

(Aim to check most of these off daily or close to daily.)

Get to bed by 10 p.m. and sleep at least eight hours in a very dark (free of artificial light) bedroom. Sleep is your most rejuvenative state. While sleeping, your body repairs itself through a cascade of hormonal reactions. With good sleep (quantity and quality), your body literally builds itself back up from the breakdown of your workouts and work.
Spend at least one hour resting (reading a book for fun, watching a funny movie or doing something similar). When resting, you are awake, but not putting out energy. If you are putting out energy from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep, you are wearing down every cell in your body. You must balance putting energy out with taking energy in. Rest is one of the keys to taking energy in. Take a break for crying out loud.
Eat a hearty breakfast. Breakfast starts your day right. You get the nutrients you need to run your body well. Plus, people who eat breakfast tend to eat better all day long. Don’t have time? Make a blended drink—you can make, drink and clean one of those up in no time. Or have leftovers.
Drink at least half your body weight (in pounds) in water (in ounces) each day as a base and drink more for workouts. Water is the most important nutrient in your diet. A well-hydrated you is a strong you. Make this a habit. Drink all day and enjoy how good it feels. If you don’t get enough water, you don’t assimilate the food you eat well. So even with super meals, you will not be well-nourished. You are not what you eat—you are what you digest. And being well-hydrated is a key to good digestion.
Eat until you feel satisfied. Avoid food restriction of any kind. A hungry athlete is an injured athlete. Eat like you did when you were a baby. That is, eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full.
Eat a nutrient-rich diet. A nutrient-rich diet is high in food (found in “nature”) and low in food products (made in factories). Your body is made from the food you eat. Are you salmon and broccoli or crackers and diet soda?
Eat protein-rich foods at every meal. The muscle you eat becomes the muscle of your body. To repair your muscles on a regular basis, you need a steady supply of protein. Don’t skimp. Eat some food rich in nourishing fats, like grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, wild-caught fish, free-range eggs, meat from wild animals, avocados, nuts and/or seeds. Fat is required to manufacture hormones. A diet void in fat will leads to an array of hormone imbalances that substantially increase your injury risk.
Enjoy work and minimize work-related stress. Stress breaks you down. The cells that get stressed out all day at work are the same cells that you run with. Are they getting hammered all day at work? If they are, you are more likely to get hurt.
Spend time with a good friend. Being with a good friend with whom you can be your full, uninhibited real self relaxes you far more than any “relaxation technique” ever could. Think of time with a good friend as the best spa treatment you could ever get.
Have sex. Sex is how you connect with your romantic partner. Again, deeply intimate connection is an essential part of wellness and relaxes literally every cell in your body.
Do the workout(s) in your training plan. Don’t do more and don’t go harder than is called for. Do the workout(s) as planned. If it’s a rest day, don’t workout—at all. Whether you make your training plan or a coach makes it for you, each workout has a purpose. Follow your plan.
Have fun. Have fun with life. Have fun with all aspects of your training. Keeping things fun keeps you well and keeps you injury-free.
Regular Checklist

(Aim to check some of these off every few days to every few weeks.)

Do a power workout (aka strength workout) that involves squatting, bending, twisting, lunging, pushing, pulling, jumping and/or similar movements in various combinations. Good power workouts (like the Tri-X workouts we use with our athletes) create total-body integration so you can effectively transfer forces through your body from your feet and legs through your hips, pelvic girdle, spine, rib cage, shoulder girdle, arms and hands (and vice versa). Workouts like these go a long way to keeping you strong and injury free.
Cross-train by hiking, playing a game sport (like basketball, soccer, tennis or similar sports), rock climbing, inline skating, cross-country skiing, or doing other workouts besides swimming, cycling and running. Varying your movement patterns via cross-training reduces repetitive stress and maintains optimal posture and body balance. Restricting yourself to only swimming, cycling and running can lead to imbalances which can lead to injuries.
Swim strokes other than freestyle. (A great way to build in swimming other strokes is to do some in the warm-up and/or cooldowns of your swims.) Swimming other strokes has similar benefits to cross-training.
Run on trails. Trail running makes every step different, reducing repetitive stress. You also experience lower impact forces when running on grass, dirt and similar surfaces.
Get a professional massage. Massage is probably the best recovery technique and can go a long way to keeping you injury-free.
Take a nap. Like a mini night of sleep, a nap offers a small dose of all the benefits of sleep including secretion of growth hormone, a powerful repairer of tissue.
Do an Epsom-salt soak. (Soak in a hot bath with three cups of Epsom salt dissolved in the water.) An Epsom-salt soak is an age-old recovery technique for a reason. It’s a great way to sooth a tired body. It’s a great way to deepen the relaxation you experience when you rest and thus a very effective recovery technique. On top of good sleep, rest and nutrition habits, recovery techniques can really help keep injuries at bay.
Do some self-massage using the various self-massage tools available to triathletes. When you don’t have the time or the money for professional massage, the do-it-yourself version can offer similar benefits.
Employ other recovery techniques you find helpful. Any recovery technique that feels good is good for you.
Periodic Checklist

(Aim to check these off every year or two.)

Get an injury-risk assessment with a physical therapist or similarly qualified professional. Through an injury-risk assessment you can screen out for potential injuries. A qualified professional can then help you create a plan to correct your body imbalances before they become a problem.
Get a bike fitting with a professional bike fitter. Periodic bike fittings ensure that you are in a bike position that is well-suited to your body.

Poor management of race week stress is a sure way to derail the countless hours of preparation you have put into getting ready for an event. During the final week, all the physical training has been completed and there is little that you can do in the final seven days to bump up fitness. However, there is a lot that can affect your race day in a negative way.

Staying focused on the goal ahead rather than worrying about “what might be,” is a key attribute. Much of this anxiety can be real or imagined. Stress or anxiety is technically an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness or worry about something that is happening or might happen in the future. One of the simplest ways to control these anxious feelings is to adopt the Boy Scout motto- Be Prepared. As renowned author Dale Carnegie once said, “First ask yourself: ‘What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.’ ”

Factors that can affect your mental state are logistics, the course itself, and finally, actual competitors. Below are tactics you can use to manage your time and tasks leading up to a key event. The explanations are written for an athlete who is travelling, however the same principles apply if your race is in your hometown or close by.

Logistics
It shoud go without saying, but plan your stay well in advance of the event. The goal is to make your stay at the venue as close to what you experience at home in terms of habits, food, and sleep. Start preparing at least two months prior to the event, even more if it is a World Championship or in another country. In addition to relieving the stress of getting all the travel arrangements finished, early preparation typically allows you to get the best rates as well as the shortest or most direct flights.

If your room has a kitchenette and you plan on making your own meals, bring a few of your usual recipes and lay out the week’s menu in advance. Cooking your own meals also gives you control of serving sizes and nutrient content of the food. Sticking to a normal routine will help keep nerves calm and also avoid unwanted gastric surprises. You can even go so far as to make early reservations at a favourite restaurant for the final pre-race meal. Often, in smaller venues, the popular eating establishments are overwhelmed and you could be waiting longer than anticipated or forced to eat somewhere not as appetizing.

Course Specific Preparation
I wrote an article a year ago about doing race specific course preparation for the bike. This should also extend to similar training for the swim and run as well. Knowing that you have prepared to your potential for a hilly or flat, hot, humid, or chilly destination should help alleviate any anxiety that you are not yet ready for the race. The internet is a massive resource and there are plenty of sites like that provide accurate course specific data. Search for previous athletes race experiences and read blogs that provide information and some of the smaller nuggets for a particular venue.

Testing any new gear ahead of time and ensuring your nutrition is effective at race intensities should reinforce positive thoughts for race day. Arrive at race site knowing your equipment is tried, tested, and complete. Hitting the expo looking for magic pieces of gear and not knowing how they are going to integrate with your race plan is not productive.

Read the race guide or website to determine key points of the terrain profile to replicate in training. Have an idea of what each venue looks like and even use Google Maps with street view to analyse where you will be competing.

If you able to train on the course prior to race day, plan and know what workouts you can do on the course. Use this time to place landmarks that you can use in your race. Strong sessions in key areas can give a huge psychological boost come race day.

Research the logistics of races that involve two transitions. Organizers of events like 70.3 St. George or IRONMAN Canada are able to manage two separate transitions, but athletes should pay special attention to when buses run and the times that gear needs to be in transition. Examining maps and getting an overall lay of the land can help avoid being in the wrong place unnecessarily.

Mental Stress
While hard, you should try to relax as much as possible. During race week, let your body recover from the training leading up to the race. The final week is not the time to cram in more workouts. Use your time to read, watch movies or TV. Your mind will often play tricks on you with insecurities, along with physical niggles. Know that this is normal and aim to relax.

Reflect on the goals you are aiming to achieve at the race. Have a clear idea of the effort that you expect to hold during the race using power, heart rate, or pace. To manage stress, these goals should follow the process rather than just time or placing focussed. For example, rather than aiming for a 25 minute swim, visualize yourself maintaining focus for the entire time in the water, being in a draft as much as possible, or sighting properly.

Keep in mind the sport you have chosen is part of your journey as an athlete. The race is a stepping stone along the way to future events and as such, it is also a learning experience. Goals should be focused on the process of racing, not a particular outcome, as this puts added pressure to perform.

Review some of your best workouts over the month leading into the event. These will remind you of how you feel when you are moving well, and give you confidence that you are ready for race day. You are going to swim, bike, and run like you do day in and day out in training.

Keep your thoughts confined to your own race and don’t be concerned about other athletes. By knowing what you are capable of and having a plan for race day, you are controlling your own destiny. How well you stay focused on your own effort will reflect how the day evolves. You can’t control who shows up to race and there will always be faster and slower athletes to compete against. By keeping yourself engaged in the act of racing rather than comparison, you remove a factor that is outside of your control.

Knowing that you are going to feel relaxed during race week along with when and where workouts are going to happen before you arrive will help alleviate most of the stress so you can focus on the race at hand.

Thanks to LifeSport Senior Coach Dan Smith for his contribution to this article.

Here is a great article from Jim Vance and USA Triathlon-https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Triathlon/News/Blogs/Multisport-Lab/2016/May/02/Prerace-Preparations?utm_source=MZ&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=may2016.

Prepare well, race the way you prepared and have a great day!

Dara

Good article from Mental Skills Coach, Carrie Cheadle.
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/developing-mental-toughness-are-you-tough-enough?utm_campaign=Developing_Mental_Toughness%3A_Are_you_Tough_Enough%3F&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=SocialToaster

Mental skills alone can’t give you a PR, but fitness without mental skills will likely result in sub par performances.

Here’s to a happy new year!

Dara

Hello to you all! Have the holiday season crazies hit where you are yet? Are the holidays stressful in terms of figuring out when you can fit your workouts in? Even though most of us are off work, the family guests and all the preparations can make it difficult to find time to get out the door to workout. Add to that that the inconvenience of the pools keeping strange hours, and that you might feel guilty trying to cram in a long workout when everyone else is at the house preparing food and spending quality family time, or perhaps you just want to chill and you are not in the mood for the workouts right now-it can be hard to make it all happen. It’s ok! I suggest that you focus on maintaining fitness (and sanity) during the holiday season and then you can work on getting fitter, faster, stronger when the craziness is over. Additionally, if you are using the off season as a good time to lose some weight, it’s best to focus on maintaining, and not gaining weight during the holidays. No point swimming up-stream and making yourself and everyone crazy and feeling deprived! Enjoy the food in moderation, have a little bit of all that you want in portion controlled servings and then you won’t feel as though you are missing out. Same with your workouts- get just enough done so that you hold on to your fitness, but not so much you are too pooped for the festivities or won’t have enough energy for that one family member who is SOOOO needy. 🙂
Triathletes can aim for 4-5 workouts/week (3 if you are really pushed) in any mix you like. And if you are a single sport athlete, then 3-4 workouts is plenty. January you can kick it all back into gear again, start gradually increasing your frequency of workouts, eat a little cleaner, and all with a clear conscience and a holiday season that went a little smoother.

Happy holidays to you all, stay sane, be smart, and have fun.

TCD.