EN Groups for Florida 70.3 will begin Monday, January 28th. If you are racing Florida this year join us. Also, sure to be another BIG training group, ENGroup for Ironman CDA to start on February 4th. Perfectly bridged for our October Off-Season ENGroupers racing Idaho this year.
To sign up or learn more START HERE
If you are already an EN member follow the links to Upgrade!
More FAQ on ENGroups from Coach Rich HERE !
The EN Coaches organized a virtual training weekend for TeamEN as a way to kick off a season of cool stuff!
About 65 athletes joined us for the webinar on Sunday. The highlight, for me, was Rick Ashburn's presentation on the fundamentals of power-training, CyclingPeaks terms, etc. That dude is SHARP!
If you registered for and/or attended the first session, Training with Power, you should have received links to the podcast and Google presentation yesterday.
If you didn't register for the first session, you can still receive the presentation and podcast as downloadable files, for only $15. Just submit payment via PayPal and I'll get it to you right away.
If you then decide to register for either or both of the remaining two webinars (Racing with Power, Jan 20 or Analyzing Power Files, Jan 27) we will CREDIT you for the $15 above after your purchase (IOW, I'll refund $15, saves me from having to create yet another host of Buy Now buttons)
Series prices for the remaining webinars remain (before credit above, if you want to go that route):
Go here for additional details and registration: EN Power Webinar Series
After the webinar series:
Let me know if you have questions.
The Endurance Nation Beginner Triathlete Project
You're interested in triathlon, run a couple Google searches and are bombarded by an assembly of resources, many of them very confusing and often contradictory. What if there was one page with everything you need to get started in the sport of triathlon, presented in an organized format and unified under coherent and consistent themes? What if this page was created by through the collective effort of top coaches and athletes just like you?
The Endurance Nation coaches and TeamEN members have collaborated to create just this FREE resource for YOU, the beginner triathlete. This is our way of paying forward the help we've all received from our more experience peers over the years.
The Project is divided into eight chapters on a range of triathlon subjects, arranged logically, with a podcast by EN coaches Rich Strauss and Patrick McCrann as the foundation of each chapter. Rich and Patrick rely on their years of coaching and speaking to hundreds of athletes around the country to deliver the material to you in a manner you can understand and apply. Their TeamEN athletes have then contributed additional resources to compliment each chapter: the best resources they've found by wading through that same confusing mess you found and distilling it through their years of triathlon training and racing.
The result is a resource like none other on the net: a place where the beginner triathlete can learn about the sport through the guidance of more experienced peers, augmented by two of the best triathlon coaches in the business.
Please visit the Endurance Nation Beginner Triathlete Project today! If you feel this is a valuable resources for the beginner triathletes in your life, pay it forward!
January Membership Promo
Register for our Training and Racing with Power webinar series, for $99, and you'll receive a promo code for $50 off TeamEN registration! That's a 3-series webinar + TeamEN membership for only $149!
Series registration for current TeamEN members is only $49!
This month we have FOUR (4) webinar opportunities for you:
Training and Racing with Power, for Multisport
Jan 13: Training with Power, FREE
Jan 20: Racing with Power, $55
Jan 27: Analyzing Power Files, $55
TeamEN Webinar: The Basic Training Week, FREE
Rich and Patrick will discuss the most fundamental elements of a successful training schedule, sharing with you the commonsense tools they've used to coach hundreds of age group athletes.
Please help us spread the word by forwarding this flyer to hundreds and hundreds of your friends and training partners!
Thanks for your support,
The TeamEN Team
Monday, 171 pounds:
Run, 55', 6.5 miles as very hilly, steep climb with Marvin. Hammered the downhill for a good shot to the quads.
Tues:
Run, AM, 45', 5.5 miles, easy run with Sonny and Riley. Sonny did so well! Very proud of the dude!
Bike, Lunch, 1:03, 16.5 miles, 68 TSS, .80 IF, 220 Pnorm, Met Marvin and were going to climb 2 x Chantry as 2 x 20' very solid TT efforts. Gate was closed and rather than risk another trespassing ticket...we did some urban climbing. We were running late so a short ride. Nice to get out out there.
Wed:
Run, AM, 57', 7.4 miles, very hilly and challenging run with Marvin. Riley came along and was a freak, per usual.
Thur:
Run, AM, 1:20, 9 miles, forgot GPS. Thurs long run group leaving from the Rose Bowl at 6:30am. We ran north on the trail to the horse trough. Felt pretty good, no foot pain. Hip tightness but nothing major. Next week will add about 10' as a climb up West and down Salvia Canyon, then add more and more climbing in the last 30'. Will probably top this out at 1:45 for a long time, just running harder instead of longer. Riley joined us, still going more than strong all the way back to the car.
Friday: off
Saturday: Pasadena Tri Club Resolution Ride
49 miles, 2:56, 224 TSS, .86 IF
This is a annual ride we do, intent is to create a wicked hilly and scenic route through the towns here in the foothills. This years route was tweaked from the last 2-3: shorter, steeper climbs, better neighborhoods. Definitely one I want to take people on if they visit me from out of town.
Sunday: Resolution Ride Redo, starting and finishing from my house. We also cut out some of the gratuitous climbs, as we just wanted a ride, not punishment :-)
44 miles, 2:52, 227 Pnorm, 196 TSS, .826 IF
All in all, a great training week and I'm really digging the accountability systems I've created. Week of Jan 14 will be 5 x runs and mid 30s mileage. LOTS of quality and I hope I can keep this up!
As a prelude to this week, today I weighed 169.2lb, so yeah me!
As you know, we are committed to producing one free webinar a month for Endurance Nation members. After the event, we save the audio and PPT files, then post them in the Endurance Nation library for our members to take advantage of on their own schedule.
This month we have posted the audio and PPT files from the Dec 2007 Off Season Webinar. Rich and I cover our approach to the offseason, what to focus on and why, as well as answer a few questions. The files are available inside the EN Library here. Enjoy!
Coach Patrick
Why the Endurance Training World Needs EN
Much like you, I usually register for races via Active.com and receive their newsletters. So, like you, I received the Active Triathlete Newsletter on Jan 7th, the Active Cyclist newsletter today, Jan 10, containing the articles below:
Triathlete: Base Training Basics
Cyclist: High Intensity Training
Triathlete: the same largely anecdotal thoughts that have been recycled year after year until they have become the foundation of a "seasonal culture" within the sport of triathlon. I know...I've written stuff like this in the past, back in the day before I learned otherwise through talking to smart guys, experimenting with my training and applying those lessons to my athletes.
Cyclist: good article, challenges the cultural norms and expectations of what we are supposed to do in the off-season, or in endurance training for that matter.
The conflict: they're both published by the same organization, received by the same athletes with no context or perspective given to link the two. Neither is inserted into a comprehensive framework of coherent and consistent training advice that gives the athlete that "Ah hah!" moment, enabling them to become better self-coached athletes.
As an experienced coach who's been playing inside the traditional triathlon business sandbox, I can tell you exactly why this is: many, many websites, are in the business of selling clicks on their site, whether on ads, race registrations, etc. At the same time, coaches with decent writing skills who are thinking a little bit outside of the traditional box of attracting local athletes realize these sites get lots of traffic and submit articles for publication, exposing their thoughts, communications skills, training knowledge, and personality to large numbers of athlete. Hopefully, one or more of these athletes become coached clients, buy a training plan, attend a camp, etc.
Content host (website) needs content to attract readers and advertising dollars. Content creator (coach) needs venue to host their stuff where it can be read by lots of potential clients. Site eager to take content + many content creators submitting content = confusing hodgepodge of often conflicting advice that you, the customer, have to sift through. See example above.
How do I know this? Google Rich Strauss Triathlon and see how many articles I have out there on the net. Writing has indeed been very, very good to me.
At Endurance Nation we have made a strategic business decision to step out this sandbox by creating our own. One where we:
Endurance Nation Announces FREE MLK Weekend Virtual Training Camp -- January 19-21, 2008.
Challenge yourself, connect with fellow endurance athletes, and have FUN as we get together (online) for a virtual training weekend over the MLK holiday! Endurance Nation co-founders Rich Strauss and Patrick McCrann have created a challenging online schedule that you can modify to suit your personal fitness level. The coaches will begin the weekend with a Friday podcast to deliver guidance and tips, and present a live webinar on Saturday evening to cover epic training and how to use it to your advantage.
The training will be Run+Bike workouts for Saturday and Sunday, with Run and optional Swim for Monday. All workouts can be adjusted for indoor or outdoor execution. Points will be awarded for execution and the awards will be many, including: Most Overall Mileage, Most Run Miles, Most Bike Miles, Most Creative Blog Entry, Best Weekend Race Report in the Race Report Forum, Best Workout Video, the list goes on.
The Endurance Nation Virtual Training Camp is FREE and open to the public. Dupe your training partners into thrashing themselves with you!Register for the VTC by emailing us (virtualcamps@enationcamps.com) and we'll send you an Evite with the details of the weekend. Just RSVP and you're in!About Endurance Nation
Endurance Nation is the brainchild of elite triathlon coaches Rich Strauss (Crucible Fitness) and Patrick McCrann (Performance Training Systems), who have combined communities, resources and training plans to create Endurance Nation. Endurance Nation is a growing community of 380+ triathletes educating and inspiring each other, managed within the framework of a consistent coaching and training philosophy. Members can take advantage of free coaching articles and high quality - yet affordable – coaching. The EN experience is augmented by our community platform, bringing experienced teachers to the desktop of every athlete. Finally, Endurance Nation will provide opportunities for the members to meet, learn from and train with the coaches and other members, through camps and clinics, an organized EN presence at national races, and other cool events.
Membership in Endurance Nation is open to athletes of all ability levels. Join us today!
Listen and read along as Coach Rich outlines the underlying philosophy of the "basic week" that is the foundation of all EN training plans. You'll need to open the audio file (below), then go to the presentation and follow along. Enjoy!
View the presentation here; get the audio here.
Note: The audio runs approximately 60 mins, google might prompt you to sign into google docs to access the presentation.
If you've done an IM, and you've had a bad day, you'll know it was the run. So what do 70% of the people out there do after a bad IM run experience...why, next year they run even more! The other 30% you ask? Well...25% of them are too injured to really train for the next go-round, but the last 5% have it actually figured out. And I am about to let you in on their secrets. Without further ado...
A Poor IM Run Split is the Result of Poor Bike Pacing and/or Poor Run Pacing
Whether you've personally experienced an IM Marathon meltdown, or just heard the horror stories, you know how bad things can get. What you don't remember (or hear, if it's from a buddy), however, is how he cruised through mile 56 on pace for a record bike split, or how she ran the first 6 miles 30-seconds faster per mile than she intended...and they both felt so good...until they felt really, really bad. Improving your next IM can be as simple as executing better on race day; be conservative on the bike and jog the first 6 miles before you run. In otherwords, if you nail your execution off of the same training cycle as last time, you'll be faster, period. (See the EN Four Keys to IM Racing to learn more.)
Overall IM Fitness is Built Across all Three Disciplines.
True IM fitness isn't about one run (or ride or swim), it's about connecting all three via a plan that allows you to training effectively and consistently across about 20 weeks. Sure, we build up to some pretty significant distance benchmarks, but the fitness here is all about the "journey" -- not the "destination." Focus too much on a single discipline and you not only run the risk of injury, but you will also be taking time and energy away from something else.
Try thinking of a basic week of fitness instead of any one workout or discipline (link coming soon). At Endurance Nation we think in a "weekly view" as all of our workouts are connected. And not a week as in Monday -- Sunday (or however you look at it), but as a rolling seven-day window. For example, looking at this Thursday's long run, we consider have you done over the last seven days to get here. There is not magical "reset" that happens every Monday. Run too hard or too long on Thursday and you'll mess up your weekend of riding; or worse yet, you'll fake it through the weekend but blow up somewhere else down the line.
IM Run Fitness has nothing to do with your longest run.
This is a hold over from open marathon training, where folks are training to run hard for the whole event; in this case it makes sense to build that solid pace up to a long run of 20-21 miles. In an IM, however, we are training to not slow down on the run. Let me repeat that: Marathon training = go fast on run; IM training = don't slow down. Instead of being a marathon runner aiming for a pace (8:00 per mile, who cares about HR zones!), you are a triathlete who aims for an HR, not a pace. Race day is a great equalizer; most people end up running an IM at their easy long run pace (roughly 20 beats below LTHR). So instead of looking at a magical distance marker, we look at time. In the case of an IM training cycle. the peak run that a person can do during the typical race preparation week is 2.5 hours in Zone Two. Anything longer (or harder) starts to become a problem regarding recovery and overall running health. Can you run 24 miles in training for an IM? Yes. But when you are out there on the course, no one is saying, "Sure am glad I did that 24-mile run @ week 18, it's really helping me now!!!"
IM Run Fitness is about Frequency, Durability, and Consistency
If you have grasped the concept that your total aerobic engine, developed across three disciplines, is what drives your run, we have almost converted you. While the longest run peaks out at 2.5 hours, that doesn't mean you aren't running a lot; in your biggest run weeks, you'll do 5+ hours of running -- that's a lot, especially when you add it on top of swim and bike time. With the EN model of Iron-distance training, we work first to build durability by increasing run volume deliberately. Then we add "speed" in the form of strides and fartlek work. Once this is accomplished, we back off the intensity and start to increase the distance. When we move to the race preparation phase, "tempo" workouts move from being closer to 10k Pace and instead move to Half Marathon Pace.
Hope this has been helpful! For more info on the long run, be sure to search the EN Library or hit the forums and ask around!
Happy Training,
Coach Patrick
Putting the best tools of EN together = a $13/wk solution
On the Twelfth day of EN we give the final drummers drumming with a Resolution Ride. We've given you 12 days of workouts and hopefully some knowledge to help kick off your 2008 training and racing season. We hope you've enjoyed it. We'll give you one final EN Resolution: ask 12 EN Citizens to be your EN Friend by your key 'A' race this year!
Resolution Ride:
Outdoor Group: 2.5-3 hour steady ride.
Indoor Group: 75' as 25' WU in z1-2, the twice through (15' @ z3, 5' @ z1, 3' @ z4, 2' @ z1).
Read the EN long ride protocol by Coach Rich.
Rich's response to an article post here on TrainingPeaks.
If you like, you can participate in a more detailed discussion in the EN Forum
I think it's a complicated way to explain a phenomenon many of us have seen for years and then propose to use that as a training metric or tool. I call it your HR getting more "sticky" as you become more fit. When you come back from a long layoff everyone has seen how your heart rate, PE and watts/pace can be out of whack. In other words, you're riding your bike and you feel Ok, but yourlook at your HRM and its shows a Zone 3 effort. So it feels Zone 2 but HR says Zone 3 or 4. There is a disconnect or "decoupling," as Joe refers to it. As you become more fit this disconnect decreases and Joe's position is that we can use this as a training metric. More specifically, the movement of this decoupling below x% indicates that we now have permission to move on to other training.
I see this as a rehashing of the "you gotta wait to get faster" style of training. It also ignores (unless I'm misinterpreting the article) the science that says the Number One indicator of fitness, at all ability levels, phases of training, whatever, is watts/pace/speed at lactate/functional threshold. I can most easily explain this by using two athletes.
Waiting Walt
Walt throws a leg over his bike or laces up his shoes, does his training at AeT as Joe describes for the prescribed time periods. To frame Walt in our language, his FT at the start of this is 220w and his 10k pace is 8:00. In the beginning he experiences this decoupling. He tracks his data, the gap between the line decreases and at some point the data says he has put in enough time to enter the Build phase, to train more intensely, most likely.
Get Faster Today Tom
Tom's game is much simpler. His FT is also 220w and 10k pace is 8:00. He is completely focused on watts/pace/speed at FT or LTHR. He experiences the decoupling that Walt experiences...but he likely notices it less because he's focused on the objective data of pace and watts. On the bike, he might set himself of goal of x'/wk at Functional Threshold, increasing the watts he dials in on those sessions as he sees his FT increasing through the data in CycingPeaks. He does similarly on the run, focusing on T-pace per Jack Daniels, but is much more cautious than on the bike. He knows that running intensity is more risky than cycling intensity. He still does it, he's just careful.
At the end of 8-10wks our two heroes meet for some field testing and then have a beer afterwards to discuss their training and where to go from here. Walt's data shows that his heart rate is coupled and he can now move on. His FT is 225w, maybe 230w, and 10k pace is 7:45-50. Tom, on the other hand, has lifted his FT to 235-240w and his 10k pace is closer to 7:30. His heart rate has also coupled, though he has to ask Walt to manage the graphs for him, cuz he hasn't tracking it.
I walk in, sit down, pour myself a Newcastle and give our heroes my observations (folks, I think the cold medicine I'm in on is beginning to kick in 
).
On the Eleventh day of EN its back to the pool!
Resolution Swim:A Group: 4k total swim including 8x200 (20) in honor of the new year (2008!).B Group: 3k total swim including 8 repeats of 4x50 (5) as 50 drill, 50 free steady, 50 stroke choice, 50 free hard.
Learn more about our training protocols by reading the Endurance Nation Manifesto.
Observations After Wildflower 2005, 1st AG, 8th OA
A friend recently sent me an old email I wrote after winning my AG at Wildflower in 2005.
Race Success = Race Specific Fitness + Discipline + Tools + Execution Skills
I had a good day at WF. Actually, I should say I had a good training day which turned into a good race day. That’s how relaxed I was. I think what came together for me was the equation above. I’ll talk more below about the fitness thing, the stuff that most people want to know, but as I see discussions bounced back and forth on the net and in my head, discipline and execution skills come to the forefront.
Discipline is a product of humility + statistics. Humility is a result of you, as the successful, fit, type A person that you are, saying “this race is a lot bigger than me and will kick my ass if I’m stupid. I’m going to put away pride and just execute a smart race.” That smart race is then defined by your time at the finish line, not a swim, bike or run split.
So let’s take a look at the kind of strategy that has statistically produced a good finish time. Believe me when I say that strategy is one that views the swim and bike as platforms to launch a good run. You’re welcome to try out different strategies all you want, or you can believe a guy who has had successful races, has crashed and burned, and has studied what works and what does not. Statistically speaking, if you set up the run you improve your chances of success. Any other strategy is a roll of the dice. And the longer the race the more this odds concept becomes more valid. You can roll the dice in Sprints and Olympics and still win. In fact, fitness increases the odds when you do roll those dice. A very fit person can even roll the dice a bit in a Half and still get away with it. VERY few people, no matter how fit, can roll it at an Ironman and get away with it. You only need to look at two sets of people to see this:
Humility and belief in the odds combine to form the discipline required to execute a good race. How do we express that discipline on race day? Usually by not racing J. Simply execute a plan that has a higher probability of success. Let others around you do their own thing and you play the odds that they will come back to you before the finish. In short, put the blinders on, don’t be “tactical,” just race your race, do your thing.
To this discipline we apply the proper tools and the knowledge to use them in the execution of a race. Tools:
TeamEN Webinar: The Basic Training Week
Sunday, Jan 6, 5pm Left Coast, 8pm Wrong Coast. Please note time and time zone!
Periodization, spreadsheets, tables, Base 1, 2, 3, Build 1, 2, Peak Weeks...it doesn't have to be that complicated! Coach Rich and Coach Patrick will share with you how REAL coaches schedule REAL people in the REAL world!
They will discuss:
| Attendee Quick Reference for Mac® Users (PDF) | |
| Attendee Quick Reference for PC Users (PDF) |
On the Tenth day of EN lets talk about training time. As 2008 gets rolling and the deadlines start filling the 'In' box we'll feel like there is less and less time. Check in with Coach Patricks' article in the ENLibrary here as he explains how "Less is More" when it comes to hours of triathlon training.
Resolution Run:
A Group: 105' total run @ z2 with a strong finish over the last 3 miles.
B Group: 75' total run @ z2 with a strong finish over the last 2 miles.
Review Coach Patrick's Long Run Recovery Protocol.
On the Ninth day of EN we suggest you add some Core work to your weekly routine in 2008. Coach Patrick has shared 4 different core workouts with you in the ENLibrary. I count 18 different exercises to choose from among the different routines - chose a few to do two days a week and you are sure to see the fruits of your labor come race day.
For the Core resources in the EN Library :go to library, click browse, search for 'core'.
Blog today: OK Holidays over. Time to start getting serious. Let's hear about those resolutions for 2008. Bonus points: add your own resource for core exercise to the EN Forum.
