You train, you compete and repeat the cycle week to week. Although your friends think you are superhuman (okay so you probably are since you choose to compete in triathlons), you know that there is more speed to be gained. You ask yourself, “Why is bib # 345 riding faster than me?” After the race you commit to riding more miles in hope of improved times. Unfortunately, this is not the answer. When you first started in the sport, more miles and volume definitely made you faster since your body reaped the benefit of this new stimulus. However, once this low hanging fruit is gone something else needs to be done.
I’t’s a bit of a paradigm shift but the rewards are worth it. I’d like to tell you about an athlete I coach. She was initially hesitant to reduce volume because, in her mind, she wouldn’t be ready for her target Ironman. Instead of the usual mega long rides we replaced these with focused and targeted rides that had very specific goals. Volume was reduced and targeted work replaced it. I knew these workouts were making her faster and stronger and I just needed her to race to truly “believe”. Despite her initial hesitations, she made great gains and this is what she had to say, “I improved my Ironman by 48 minutes from 5 years ago (on a tougher course), and I was able to PR an Olympic distance Triathlon 2 weeks after my Ironman by 13 minutes. I was so very happy with my training and how it improved my performance I am still looking forward to improving and setting new PR’s.”
So what did we do? We focused on the key training phases that are essential for peak performance – Strength, strength-endurance, speed, speed endurance and race specifics.
On November 1st we will begin our 5 week Off Season Bike Program which is designed to focus on teaching you about all the phases of training as well as guiding you through the strength and strength-endurance phase of your training. This program is for a very specific type of athlete. If you would like to build the foundation for a faster bike split in 2015, then check out the details of our program.
Enrollment ends on October 28th and our program begins on November 1st.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.