It seems every time I turn on the computer I am reading another article about a pro triathlete recovering from a bicycle accident or crash. To all of those still forging a recovery from this setback, best of luck! To all of you who haven’t had a near-death experience on the bike, I am here to say that it’s only a matter of time until Miss Fortune sends trouble your way. This is the first part of a look at tips on how to make riding a bit safer as you train for your next event.
This week has been another blur; this time yours truly has been recovering from the Multisport Expo and another long run. These super efforts are starting to wear me down; thankfully I have some solid guidance coming in from the Marathon Nation contingent to help me make the most of my training without burning out. I have been back in the pool and hard at work on the body composition front trying to get my game back in order (not easy). I hope you have had a similarly challenging and rewarding week!
After much writing, I am please to announce that the FREE version of my endurance lifestyle guide is now ready for you: A Practical Handbook to Living the Fit Life.
As an endurance athlete with a jam-packed schedule, you spend the better part of your day running full tilt. Whether it’s work or play, you probably give everything 110% until you absolutely can’t anymore. Most of the time your body’s way of saying “no more!” is to throw a cold at you…or to give you enough consecutive sub-par workouts that you can’t ignore the fact that you are off your game.
Sunday morning came, and I woke up with cement legs. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised, given the riding yesterday, but still it hurt. I fired up the coffee and searched the room for my motivation, but it was hiding out big time. After two cups of coffee and resetting all the clocks (losing an hour!), I got into the car to drive to the Town Lake.
Day Two found me just a little bit tired from the Friday afternoon bike ride…dowh! I got up early and got in a quick 4 miles + 100 pushups + Crunches. Some quick coffee and it was off to Fitzburgh Road. Some of the Austin Sleeper Cell let me know it was good, and Margot was kind enough to lead me out. Barely any traffic, plenty of hills and great scenery — this was awesome!
With my late arrival from Minneapolis on Thursday night, I knew my early AM plans were already in jeopardy. Surprisingly though, I was up by 4:30 and managed to get some work done before heading off to the pool.
It’s been a while since I put up my weekly training summary, and I wanted to quickly update all of you who have been poking me to find out what’s going on. Bottom line is things are just crazy busy and while I am training, I have had minimal time to log it all in…sound familiar?
The challenge of improving run speed falls primarily to two main physical derivatives: your cadence and the length of your stride. And, either increasing your cadence or increasing the length of your stride — both of those will, or a combination of the two — will lead to an improved overall run speed. But becoming a better runner is more than just improving the speed at which you run.
There are different times throughout your year when you need to be able to prioritize your training in a way that is commensurate with the results you want to achieve. There will come a time in your training cycle when you will need to get really strong and focus in order to make sure the results that you want on race day are readily available to you.
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I'm a 16-time Ironman finisher and the author of Train to Live, Live to Train: How to Build the Ultimate Fitness Lifestyle and Competitive Triathlon in 10 Hours a Week.
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