Oopsie

I spent a number of hours this weekend re-reading Joe Friel's Triathlete Training Bible. I was re-impressed with what a great book that is.

When I first started this little coaching stint, I knew I had a lot to learn. That's why I did it. I read through the book, which is very detailed, and came up with a basic plan for Basta's first couple of months. I knew I'd need to go back at some point and learn more to get proper workouts designed for his last few months prior to the big event.

That point is now. He's entered the "Build" phases, and I wasn't exactly sure what those Build phases were supposed to entail.

I do now: levelled-off durations but building intensities. Anaerobic threshold workouts for the first time. Ok, bueno, we can do that.

But I also learned that I sort of skipped over one key piece of advice . . . Adjusting the workout schedule for the over-50 athlete. Oops.

It's a little worse than that, actually. I read that part initially and decided not to use it for Basta. Yes, he's over 50. 3 years over. But he doesn't look or act 50. He recovers very quickly, he's lean and fit, and he was so gung-ho for training that I thought I could give him the general Half-Ironman plan and he'd be fine.

Well, no. He hasn't been doing the training volume that I've prescribed. Honestly, I've been finding it hard to even schedule the volume, knowing what I do about his available free time and his willingness to do workouts. For instance, I know he won't do a three-hour bike ride very often so I'm scheduling him for a two hour bike, 1 hour of cross-training instead. Of that he might do the two hours, or he might do just 90 minutes on the bike. Then he'll skip the cross-training.

And he bitches about being tired and looking forward to his rest days and his recovery weeks. A lot, he bitches.

Weeeeeeellllll . . . . . The Bible says that the over 50 athlete needs more frequent recovery weeks and less overall weekly volume. Each phase should last 3 weeks, not 4, with the focus on quality intensity instead of greater volume. Mr. Friel seriously knows what he's doing.

So I redid the master plan. The plan that tells me how many hours per week to schedule and what workouts types to focus upon. The resulting plan is much better. MUCH better. I can schedule the workouts that he needs and it takes up the minutes needed. I don't have to throw in cross-training and long workouts I know he won't do just to meet the high weekly volume. He's happy doing intensity, so I can bump the intensity of one workout per sport per week.

And he gets to hit it hard two weeks, then rest & recover for a week. He's very happy about that.

I also realized that I had picked the middle of the annual-hours-recommendation for the Half Ironman distance. I went down to the low-end of that recommendation and came up with perfectly reasonable weekly workout hours. Less. Better. Since he wasn't hitting the high hours anyway, this just means that he'll get the personal satisfaction of actually meeting his prescribed hours each week.

Basically it turns out that his body knew his limits and was only doing what he should have been doing all along. Impressive.

In other news, we're sticking to our conviction to boycott the Chicago Marathon this year. This as a protest of gross mismanagement starting with the stupid decision to put a slick sponsor's mat down at the finish and causing the winner, Robert Cheruiyot, to slip and crack his head on the pavement, giving him a concussion and headaches that last to this day. The race director, Carey Pinkowski, took no responsibility for this and said, 'he collapsed from exhaustion.' No, he didn't. You made a mistake, immediately removed the slick mat for the rest of the finishers, yet refused to take responsibility for accident and blamed the athlete instead.

Then last year, same race director, high heat, no plans for extreme conditions. Water stations quickly ran out of water, one person died, and the race was cancelled. Race director? "Some runners didn't do adequate preparation." Yeah. No admission of fault, again. It's the runner's fault to expect actual water to be at water stations. It's not like this was free water, either. Each runner paid $125 to be told they were inadequately prepared if they can't run 26.2 miles in extreme heat without water.

Carey Pinkowski. No, you shouldn't still have this job.