Thoughts From Coach Meg

I want to wish my friends, family, clients and followers a very Happy Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for all of you.

–Coach

If you want to become the best runner you can be start now. Don’t spend the rest of your life wondering if you can do it. — Priscilla Welch, who won the 1987 NYC marathon at age 42.

 

I have been coaching soccer.  A Junior Varsity team, that is actually comprised of 6th, 7th and 8th grade girls.  These girls are strong, fit, athletic and most definitely middle school.  Because of the listing of the team as Junior Varsity, these youngsters play girls who are older than themselves.

Such was the case yesterday, Friday, 21 October.  We played another team from the area/league in which we are listed.  The girls that arrived to play were clearly older and more mature than ourselves.  It was evident that we needed to play our absolute best to hold our own on the field.

In such  a situation, it is challenging.  Age and physical maturity create differences in children.  The height and stature of the opposing team was definitely different than that of ourselves.  They were taller.  They were ‘bigger.’  Their fitness levels were different because the team was older.

The result:  contact.  And then injuries.  In a contact sport like soccer, the hits taken are harder and more powerful when playing a team that is older, stronger and more composed as a team.  We suffered two injuries.  Two of my girls were flattened.  One suffered a concussion; the other got the ‘wind’ knocked out of her.  Both scared me when they went down.  Both shed a tear in pain.

And their teammates pulled together and played hard.  For the most part they held their own.

Unfortunately, the age difference won.

While our scenario creates pause, there are many situations where children are playing up, competing in an age group older than themselves.  I have mixed feelings about this during development.  In some sports, it can be valuable for the talented athlete to provide competition, if she competes up.  In others, it can be detrimental.   If the athlete gets injured because she is competing against bigger and stronger girls.  If it is a team sport, what is she learning from her teammates.  Conversations of a sixth grader are different from an 11th grader.  If held back, are we creating opportunity for leadership or are we hindering athletic development.  If pushed forward, is the athlete willing or able to maintain the commitment necessary?

All of these are important to consider for athletes competing outside their age group.

Sometimes, the child, like my team is placed in a scenario that she is not ready for because of the infrastructure of the team.  I am proud of my team and their level of play and their demonstration of teamwork on friday.  I hope they take the lessons we have learned from soccer this season and apply these as they move forward.

 

 

On 18 September 2009, Elizabeth Fry swam around Manhattan in eleven hours, forty-one minutes, and five seconds, setting a record for completing the 28.5 mile swim — at age fifty and with asthma.

 

…… well, water aerobics, aqua fit, deep water running…. whatever you want to call it, the non-swimming version of water exercise.

 

I get to play in the pool daily all year round, and the ocean in the warmer months, as I live on the South Coast of Massachusetts.  It’s pretty cool.

Just being in the water changes things.  Water revolves around the laws of buoyancy and not gravity (except that water is being held on the earth or in the pool) and when we exercise in the water, we experience those laws when we float.

• What does this mean? When I immerse myself in the water, my body weight displaces water.  The more that I am submerged (or the deeper that I stand) the more water I have displaced.  I tend to be more buoyant if I have a higher density of body fat, and thus would displace more water.
• Why is this important? The amount of water I displace, influences my buoyancy and ability to stand with my feet touching the bottom of the pool.  If I am struggling to stand balanced, it is likely that I will struggle to run, jump, hop, skip or perform any other activity in the water.   Balance and how I handle the buoyancy influences my ability to effectively participate in water exercise.

My thought (and the aquatic exercise community can exhale later):

WHY ARE WE PUTTING EQUIPMENT IN THE HANDS OF PARTICIPANTS WHO CANNOT MOVE EFFICIENTLY IN THE WATER?  THE EQUIPMENT IS NOT GOING TO ASSIST IN MOVEMENT; IT WILL HINDER THE MOVEMENT.

The majority of equipment available to class participants is buoyant equipment–meaning it floats on the water.  This includes (but is not limited to) kick-boards, ankle belts, floatation belts, dumbbells, barbells, and noodles.  Even some shoes are buoyant.  Yes, shoes can be considered equipment– they create resistance as the exerciser moves his foot through the water.  The shoes designed by AqX are the only shoes that have drag capabilities.  They have wings on the sides.

(BTW, I love, love, love these shoes for deep water running!)

 

Drag….. what is this thing called drag???  In the water, when you move your arm or leg, you are also moving the water…. and anything that is close by gets pulled by the flow of the water.  And then you change directions and have to move against that water flow…. well, the flow, is drag.  Kinda like racing… when a cyclist tucks in behind another cyclist and gets pulled along (which is illegal in a race, but helps you understand drag).

We use the drag in the water to create MORE RESISTANCE. And what is really cool…. we don’t have to overcome buoyancy to do this.

• Why is this important? When we use equipment that is buoyant, we have to overcome buoyancy.  For someone who doesn’t have the strength to balance herself, it is a struggle to maintain balance and posture and move a dumbbell through the water.   As this person struggles, posture breaks down and the exercise is not completed appropriately, and the participant can get injured.

Drag Equipment permits a participant to move his arm or leg through the water without having to worry about pushing the equipment ‘down’ against the buoyancy to move it.  Breaking the surface of the water can be a strenuous feat.  Examples of drag equipment include webbed gloves, paddles, the shoes pictured, a kick board can be used for drag, as well as other pieces of equipment that permit you to create a larger surface area and move through the water without buoyant resistance.

As professionals teaching classes and participants taking the classes, we need to understand the importance of both drag and buoyancy.  Both have pros and cons.  The buoyant nature of the water may permit movement that is otherwise not permissible.  Drag creates resistance without buoyancy.  Both equipment types need to be utilized.

Most importantly, we need to remember to have fun.  Yes, water exercise is challenging.  But if the game is not fun to participate in, why bother?

An interesting statement was made at an educational conference…. ‘A triathlon is three different sports, and the athlete needs to have proficiency in all three sports.’ At the time, the statement made sense and yet, didn’t make sense.  But as I am training for a half-iron, the statement makes perfect sense.

To develop proficiency in each sport, the athlete needs to practice each sport.  The athlete also needs to learn how to perform each leg of the race consecutively, as the race is done without a break or a rest period.

Training each segment of the race is imperative, and then training part of the race together helps teach the athlete how to combine the segments.

Like any sport, one needs to practice to develop proficiency.

 

* And then I saw this article on the USA Triathlon website– Great Advice… Work those hills, work your weakness, and learn your sport.

 

Five Ways to Blast Your Competition — By Jason Gootman and Will Kirousis

You know who you want to beat: your friend, your sister-in-law, that guythat always seems to win your age group. The only way you’re going to beat them is to better yourself.

Here are five ways to do just that and blast the competition this summer.

Devour Hills

If it were possible to swim up hills, we’d tell you to do that. That’s how great hill workouts are. No matter what your current ability level is, riding and running up hills will make you better. There’s no better workout.

For both cycling and running, find hills in your area that take you anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes to ride or run up. Sandwiched between a good warm-up and cool-down, work up to a set of 15-30 minutes of work intervals.

For example, 16 x 1:00, 8 x 3:00, 6 x 5:00. Ride/run up the hill at an intensity that is +/- eight BPM of your average heart rate in a 12-mile or 30-minute time-trial (for cycling) and a three-mile time trial or recent 5-k race (for running).

For example, if you averaged 160 BPM In a recent 12-mile time trial for cycling, do your work intervals at 152-168 BPM. Go hard, but pace yourself; parcel out your effort for the whole set of intervals, just as you would do in a race. You want to get as far up the hill, or further up the hill, on your last interval as you did on your first interval.

For the rest interval, for cycling, coast down the hill practicing your descending skills. For running, run easy down the hill, staying light on your feet.

For cycling, stay seated for most intervals and most hill workouts. But mix in some standing climbing for variety. For example, you could do 8 x 3’ where you stayed seated for the first 2’ 45” of each climb, then stood for the last 15”. Or for 16 X 1’, you could stay seated for all intervals except for numbers 4, 8, 12, and 16, for which you’d stand. Mix things up, but keep climbing those hills.

Do the Best Bricks

Make your bricks perfect race preparation. Most importantly, do portions of them at race intensity. Too many athletes do their bricks and other long workouts at too easy of an intensity (and thus at slow speeds/paces). If you train easy and slow, how are you going to be able to go hard and fast in a race? Instead, start putting some snap into your bricks. It will boost your race-readiness and the speed you can hold in races.

Here’s a sample progression of bricks used to train for a half-Ironman:

10 weeks out	Ride 40 miles, last 10 at race intensity.  Run 6 miles, first 1 at race intensity.
9 weeks out	Ride 40 miles, last 20 at race intensity.  Run 6 miles, first 3 at race intensity.
8 weeks out	Ride 40 miles, last 30 at race intensity.  Run 6 miles, first 5 at race intensity.
7 weeks out	Rest week, no brick
6 weeks out	Ride 50 miles, last 20 at race intensity.  Run 8 miles, first 3 at race intensity.
5 weeks out	Ride 50 miles, last 30 at race intensity.  Run 8 miles, first 5 at race intensity.
4 weeks out	Ride 50 miles, last 40 at race intensity.  Run 8 miles, first 7 at race intensity.
3 weeks out	Taper phase, no brick
2 weeks out	Taper phase, no brick
Race week	Taper phase, no brick

To make the most of your bricks:

1. Keep the distances modest and focus on intensity. Really long, really slow rides are generally a waste of time. For example, a brisk 50-mile ride is better preparation for a half-Ironman than a 75-mile ride that more resembles touring than racing.

2. Thoroughly practice your race nutrition.

3. As much as possible, do them on courses similar to the race you are training for and in conditions similar to what you expect on race day.

4. Use your equipment similarly to how you will use it in the race (except for race wheels; save them for the race and a few rides in your taper phase).

Eat Like a Champion

You are what you eat—literally! Your body literally makes new cells out of the food you eat. Many athletes think that since they workout so much, they can basically eat and drink anything and “get away with it”. And if the goal is simply maintaining a pretty good-looking body, they’re generally right. But if the goal is really elevating your game this summer, you’ve got to do better than that.

Champion eaters:

1. Drink water all day long, a minimum of 64 ounces.

2. Eat whole, unprocessed, real foods. There are foods and there are “food products.” Foods are naturally occurring. They are whole, unprocessed, and by their nature, they are real foods. “Food products” are man made by taking foods and processing them in some way. Processing decreases the nutritional value of foods. Foods trump food products every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Foods have the highest nutrient value because they have maintained their natural integrity. Eat meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds–this is the high-octane, kick-butt stuff! Other than spices and mildly refined oils, eat everything else sparingly, if at all.

3. Front-load your intake. Eat a large breakfast or at least a solid breakfast and a mid-morning snack. You should have about two-thirds of your food intake by 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Many athletes skimp on breakfast, if they eat breakfast at all, and gorge themselves at dinner and after dinner. To best fuel your workouts and to best provide nutrients for recovery, you are better off eating evenly throughout the day, such as having about one-third of your intake at breakfast, one-third at lunch, and one-third at dinner. Did you know that as a means of packing more fat on their bodies, some sumo wrestlers employ a strategy of skipping breakfast and feasting in the evenings? Don’t be a sumo triathlete — eat breakfast!

Do What You Stink At

You know what we’re talking about. There’s one discipline that you’ve never really gotten good at. And there’s probably one that you always feel pretty solid in. Chances are, you continue to spend more workout time on your strong discipline and very little time on your weak discipline. Maybe that’s why they are you’re your strong and weak disciplines?

To reverse this trend, commit to working on your weakness. You can usually do the same number of workouts in a week, while making the smart shift to more workouts in your weakness and less workouts in your strength. In most cases, you’ll maintain your ability in your strength and substantially boost your ability in your weakness. Strong swimmers, for example, often continue to swim as much as four times a week, when they could maintain their ability swimming twice a week and free up more time for cycling and/or running.

Here are some ways to make your weeks of workouts more productive:

Strong Swimmer, Weak Cyclist
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Current Workout Layout	–Swim  –Cycle	–Swim	–Swim  –Run	–Swim  –Cycle	–Rest Day	–Swim	–Run
Better Workout Layout	–Swim	–Cycle  –Run	–Swim	–Cycle  –Run	–Rest Day	–Brick	–Cycle

Strong Cyclist, Weak Runner
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Current WorkoutLayout	–Rest Day	—Cycle	–Swim –Run	–Cycle	–Swim –Cycle	–Cycle	–Run
Better Workout Layout	–Rest Day	–Cycle –Run	–Swim	–Cycle –Run	–Swim	–Brick	–Run

Strong Runner, Weak Swimmer
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Current Workout  Layout	–Cycling  –Running	–Running	–Cycling  –Running	–Running	–Swimming	–Running	–Rest Day
Better Workout Layout	–Swimming	–Cycling  –Running	–Swimming	–Cycling  –Running	–Swimming	–Brick	–Rest Day

Sleep Like a Baby

Of all the factors that go into your recovery from workouts, sleep is easily the most important. By upping your sleep game, you will up your triathlon game. That’s because of the following important formula:

Workout Stress + Recovery = Improvement

Without adequate recovery, you will not improve, no matter how consistently you are executing great workouts. This summer, be the recovery king by sleeping better. Here’s how:

1. Get as much sleep as you can. You can try and convince yourself that you can “get by with 5-6 hours a night” and maybe you can. But if you are getting by on 5-6 hours, you’d be racing better on 6-7, and even better on 7-8. Within the realistic confines of your life, get as much as you can. Of course, you have responsibilities that you just cannot avoid and that take up time. But maybe you could watch a bit less TV or simplify some aspect of your life and get to bed a half hour earlier. With sleep, every little bit helps and more is better.

2. Keep a consistent bedtime. Make winding down in the evening and going to bed at a regular time a habit. This helps foster the deepest possible sleep.

3. Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet. Heat, light, and noise can all disrupt your sleep.

4. Use your bedroom only for sleeping and sex. No working on your laptop, paying bills, etc. This way, when you go to bed at night, you associate your bedroom as only the place to get a good night’s sleep.

There you go—five things you can do right now to blast the competition. Now get after it!

Learn more about Jason, Will, and their coaching company Tri-Hard at www.tri-hard.com.