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Waterlands Newsletter issue 1

Waterlands Newsletter issue 2

Be consistent in your training. Being consistent in your training is not just about completing x number of sessions per week, you also need to be consistent with the various aspects of your training - speed, endurance, technique, hills etc. Now it’s not very good planning to fit everything into one week, so plan your training over a 14 or 21 day period. This should provide you with sufficient variation to keep sessions interesting and you will also start to see some improvement in form. Don’t forget, rest is a vital ingredient to any training programme.

Train with purpose. Before any training session ask yourself this question. What is the purpose of this training session? What are you trying to achieve? Is it speed, technique or just a recovery session, whatever the answer, understand the purpose of a particular session. Plan your sessions in advance, know what you want to achieve and stick to it, the only exception being during illness or injury.

Train hard but within yourself. To get the best out of yourself you will have to train hard but train too hard and you will get ill or injured. Plan your training so a hard session is followed by a recovery session (train with purpose). Also, being consistent with the various aspects of your training allows the body time to adapt to the stress and strains of training. Try and finish a hard training session feeling you could just about do one more effort if asked, but you would rather not, thank you.

Set your goals/targets high but achievable. If your present 10k time is 45 minutes setting a goal of running 30 minutes by the end of the year is very unlikely. However setting a target of 40 minutes though still a tough call is more achievable, goals/targets need to be realistic. If you make a goal too hard, i.e. 30minute 10k, (you have to be a very good runner to run 30minutes for 10k), you will become despondent thinking you have not achieved your goal. Make them too easy and you feel you have not really achieved as much as you could. Don’t be afraid of setting yourself realistic goals/targets, write them down, tell people what they are, you can’t fail, if you give it your best shot you have not failed, it’s only people who dream of doing something but never try who fail. Some goals are achieved early some later than planned some we won’t achieve, but you only fail if you don’t try.

Don’t beat yourself up over bad results. Everyone has a bad race. Sometimes you can work out why, other times you won’t have a clue what went wrong. Try to address what went wrong if you know the reasons, if you don’t, swear, throw a tantrum or whatever relieves your disappointment, then forget it, it’s over. There is nothing you can do or say that will change it. Don’t let the frustration from one bad race affect the next.

• 6 minutes warm up

• 3x 3 minutes at 5k pace, 1 minute recovery

• 3 minutes at normal training pace

• 10x 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds easy jog

• 6 minutes warm down, easy run.

Footnotes

Warm up - gradually increase pace to normal running pace

5k pace will be about 12 seconds per mile (8 seconds per kilometre) faster than your 10k pace

30 seconds fast - this needs to be at as fast a pace as you can maintain for 10 reps without having to walk the recoveries. You are not sprinting.

Here is a variation to the 30 second fast/slow section - Run continuously at your 10k pace for 10 minutes but vary the gradient on the machine every 30 seconds, ie 30 seconds at 4% is hard. 30 seconds at 1% is easy

Warning

As with any new training, or change to your training, be careful. If this sort of session is new to you ease yourself into it. It’s better to finish the session feeling you could have gone a little faster than to finish it and not be able to walk for 3 days!

Also they offer some good sale shoes, my shoes where Asics Cumulus and Mizuno Wave Rider 8 both £50. No I am not on commission unfortunately. www.thetristore.com

He started swimming during the winter of 2004/5, he was a far better runner than swimmer, in fact he could only manage 25 metres before announcing ‘I’m going to f****** drown’, but he is very persistent. Whether studying for his Phd or training, if he is going to do it, he would do it correctly. Having this attitude does make it easier to coach him even if he is a little impatient sometimes.

During this time Pancho said he would like to run the London Marathon in 2006. He had run a marathon before (3 hrs 23mins) in Blackpool but with a very poor training programme. I explained what he would need to do over the coming 12 months and that he was capable of running under 3 hours. I did revise this time during the build-up as his 10k times came down.

During the summer of 2005 I said I was going to enter Ironman Switzerland in July 2006. Pancho asked me if Triathlon training would benefit his running to which I said I believed it would. In the late summer of 2005, Pancho started cycling two or three times a week for about 1 to 2 hours per session. So it was a great surprise when in September 2005 he announced he would also enter Ironman Switzerland. To be honest, I did not think he would. Being a student, I thought the cost to enter Ironman would be too great, but like I said earlier, when he makes up his mind to do something, you’d better take him seriously.

So Panchos Goals for 2006 were: The London marathon Ironman Switzerland Complete his Phd

Fairly easy year, really.

The London Marathon was going to be the easiest option because of Pancho’s running ability, the hard part was keeping him injury free and convincing him how fast he could run. The Ironman was entirely different. There was a lot of work to do on his swimming - he had set himself a target of 1 hour 30 minutes for the swim. Pancho’s biking was OK, he lacked the confidence and endurance - he still screams when descending.The run would not be a problem if he could still stand up after the bike (his words not mine). Like a lot of first-time Ironmen, his goal was to finish but he did confess he would like to go under 12 hours.

So in November 2005 we started training towards pancho’s double header. It was decided he would train fairly hard from November 1st to December 22nd as he was going home for Christmas returning in mid January. Although he would continue to run, biking and swimming would prove difficult. In fact a three week break in the sunshine would do him good - I was so convinced by this that my wife and myself went with him. On returning from Uruguay training began in earnest. It didn’t take long to return to full bike fitness and apart from the very cold weather all went well through the winter.

On one 5 hour ride, Pancho found it hard in the last hour, it was very windy and his confidence sufferred as a result, as I explained to him it was better to suffer when training than on race day - as I would later dicover.

Because Pancho had never competed in a Triathlon, I needed to find him an open water tri. I would have liked him to have done two or three Olympic distance races but because he was running London, I did not want him to race again until mid-May (it’s no good telling Pancho to go easy in a race - he can’t do it!)

This gave us a mid-May to mid-June window but for the first week of June Pancho flew to Argentina for a conference. Why he couldn’t go to Blackpool I don’t know but at least this was during his taper phase of his training. We ended up doing the Blenheim Triathlon which was an open water sprint event. This was Pancho’s first ever triathlon and he insisted I did it with him so I could show him where to go and what to do.

Race day was very wet and not very warm and I hate wet, cold weather. In twenty years of triathlon these were the worse conditions I have ever raced in. Will I ever allow Pancho to forget this? you bet I won’t and to add insult to injury, he beat me, the ba*****. I was very pleased with the way he coped with his first event, it did not seem to phase him at all. I put this down to all the expert coaching he received - no laughing now.

Two weeks before travelling to Switzerland we competed in a super sprint event, this was more about getting Pancho familiar with the triathlon procedure than anything else. This was a warm sunny day and I beat him. One-all but, hey, who's keeping score!

So on to Switzerland. The course in Zurich is a two lap swim, followed by a three lap bike - three hills each lap. The first two hills are both about 5k in length, with Hill one at about an 8% gradient, Hill two at about 3-4% gradient and the third was only 900m long but at an 11% gradient, which I am sure had increased by the third lap. The remainder of the course was flat or down hill.

The run course was four flat laps, in and around Zurich, and mostly on the lake side which is very picturesque when you are not knackered. Pancho found the swim hard, it was very rough with a lot of kicking and punching, but he gave as good as he got, and he did emerge in one piece - just!

On to the bike and he felt a lot better, he did have some problem early on trying to ride at a consistant pace (going too fast) but he settled down and rode a good bike leg, he never did eat all his powerbars and gels. Once on the run Pancho was in familiar territory, I had told him to walk the feed stations to ensure he took on sufficent fluids and gels, this seemed to pay off as he ran a 3hrs 23min marathon leg to finish in a very respectable time of 10hrs 38min 07secs, not bad for someone who would be pleased to go under 12hrs.

As for myself, remember I said about having a bad training day instead of a bad race day. Race day I felt flat from the gun and struggled the whole race, but I did finish though in a very slow time. On reflection I was pleased I had the grit to stay the course when the easy option would have been to pull out and if one of us had to have a bad day, I’d rather it was me, I have completed Ironman races before, Pancho had not. Gee I'm so good!

Panchos build up for London went well in February, he ran a p.b. for a 10k - 33.04 and in March he won a half marathon. Things looked good if he did not over do it, he still did not believe me when I told him he was capable of going under 2hrs 40mins if he was patient and apced himself sensibly, and full credit to him, he did just that and ran 2 hrs 37 mins 38 secs.

So for Pancho’s goals for 2006 it was two down and one to go. Unfortunately (or it may be good fortune from Pancho’s point of view) I have been of no help whatsoever with his Phd, which he has to complete by Christmas. Knowing him as I do, he will complete this with honours.

Interesting footnotes (I think)

1. Pancho’s mother is younger than my wife, Lynn, and myself - great when your friends could be your children.

2. When Pancho informed his friends in Uruguay of his achievement, they were more concerned about someone my age (I’m only 53) doing such a race, saying I would have a heart attack and he must make me stop (On race day I may have believed this).

3. Pancho could eat rice pudding for Uruguay

4. On average, Uruguayans eats 65kg of beef per person per year.

5. Pancho could probably go faster if he stopped posing for photographs!

6. Uruguay is a fantastic country to visit. I would reccommend it to anyone, and if you speak Spanish it would be even better as the people are so friendly. The beaches are incredible - running along a beach one day I asked pancho how far it went, the answer ‘all the way to Brazil’.