G, Gordo, Gordon

Quick post,

If you have not surfed Slowtwitch lately then I recommend reading this article:  http://www.slowtwitch.com/Interview/The_musings_of_Gordo_Byrn_169.html

That article is an interview with Gordon Byrn.  For those of you busy training, I pulled out the important parts:

“After an athlete has coped with massive volume over a series of days, an Ironman becomes “merely” a single-day event. Emotionally, all of us have to deal with being emotionally destroyed at times. It is the best way that we know to prepare for the challenges of Ironman. There are physiological risks involved in this sort of training. It’s not far off what Peter did when he used to prepare for Hawaii (we eat a bit more).

The first week of the camp will see us complete a minimum of 21,000 meters of swimming, 1,000 kilometers of cycling and 70 kilometers of running. We will race once, or twice, a day and finish the camp with an “uphill” triathlon which ends at the summit of a Kiwi mountain.”

I am not sure Epic Camp is the “best way” to prepare for an Ironman.  There are many great athlete’s that do well without an Epic Camp in their program.  However, it is a good way to prepare in my opinion.  And, it may be the best way to break through a plateau.  I personally like doing 10-15 days of big volume to prepare.  But, I have also cooked myself doing too much.  It wasn’t too much volume but putting in too many hard efforts while I was doing the volume.  So, if you do an Epic Camp you have to be careful not to turn it into your tour de France.  Save your hardest effort for you Ironman.  You also need to be in great shape (big training build prior to the camp or years of solid training under your belt).  I have seen a few good athlete’s end up with overuse injuries that could have been prevented.

“Swim 18-22K, Bike 300-500K, Run 50-80K.” Even if you are focusing on going very fast, you need a period of sustained aerobic volume to prepare your body to train like a champion. “Arthur Lydiard’s advice — Speed is the result of stamina.”

I could not agree more.  Multiple weeks around those volume’s needs to be the backbone of any triathlon program.  If an athlete is not ready for that volume, then their training should start teaching them to handle such volumes.  There are many ways to play it and it really depends on the type of athlete, their lifestyle, their history and their goals. Which brings me to the next point and one quote that I was happy to see Gordo include.  You see, Gordo has been an avid internet writer for years.  I first starting reading his stuff in 2004.  Even then, he was a little one sided.  He was very volume/volume/volume and steady/steady/steady orientated in his training even for those who want to go really fast.  It was not till a few years later that he started incorporating more speed or threshold workouts in his advice and I guess he started to realize the advantages of having more than one protocol in his repertoire.  I have always felt that to be your absolute best you will need steady volume and intense training somewhere in your build up to an Ironman.  There are also times for very easy training and very fast training.  There is no such thing as a magic protocol.  Your protocol should vary but evolve over time.  Here is what he said: 

“When I started coaching, I only had one philosophy, one tool, for my clients. As a novice coach, I could only see one way.”“I don’t have a single philosophy, per se. What I have learned is a range of approaches that can be used depending on the athlete’s goals, experience and background.”

If you are using a coach, make sure they understand training and that there are a variety of different ways to reach different goals.  If you are self-coaching then read up and incorporate different philosophies in your program at different times of year (or across multiple years).  Tie them together with logic and reason.

—Scott