Fixing your weakest link

Race faster with a balanced approach

By Mark Allen

April 16, 2008 -- Several years ago (18 to be exact) I was at a crisis point in my triathlon career. I had raced the Ironman in Hawaii six times with disastrous results and was wondering if I had the strength it took to have a great race on the Big Island. The story was different for me everywhere else. I could win at short distance, long distance and just about everything in between—everywhere but Kona. In Kona, my strengths turned to weaknesses, and the script of disaster played itself out with precision. My run, which had become a dependable weapon of choice when the pressure was on in any other race, was always the scene of my meltdown on the road of truth called the Queen K Highway.

Of the three sports that make up triathlon, we all have a hierarchy of which is our best and which is our least favorite, plus a plan for blending them together to make the whole enchilada look like we know what we are doing. For me, the swim was my weakest sport and the run my strongest, with the bike a close second depending on the course. My workouts reflected this hierarchy. I put time in at the pool, albeit begrudgingly. Cycling got a lot more of my attention simply because I enjoyed time in the saddle. But the run held a special place in my training schedule because I knew this was what had pulled me out of many desperate situations on race day and I wanted to make sure that it was always my trump card held in waiting, just in case.

So why was my run letting me down in the most important race of my season? Why is it difficult for a great swimmer, cyclist or runner to put together a fantastic triathlon based on his or her strength? The answer lies in the secret of what enables one to have a flawless race in the single sport called triathlon.

Reverse engineering your ideal race

This secret of a flawless race is not classified information. It is something that can be discovered if we look at the perfect race from the finish backwards. What does it take to run strong until the end? Most often this happens when you are fresh after the bike and can exploit the skills you have as a runner. And how does one come off the bike fresh? Usually when you exit the water without being totally exhausted from the swim. And how does that happen?

By making sure you are rested and ready to go on race day. And how can you guarantee that you will be able to take advantage of being fresh for each of the three sports? This happens by making sure that you are strong in each discipline. But what if you are weak in one of the three? This is the question I intend to answer here.

If there is one golden rule in triathlon it is this: Make your weakness a strength so that your strengths don’t look like weaknesses. Look at my story. I was strongest on the run, but at the end of the day it was during the run where I fell apart in the Hawaii Ironman. And the reason was simple. I hadn’t developed my weaker sports to the point where I could take advantage of my running strength.

Making your swim a strength

The mantra here is mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. Have a coach look at your stroke over and over to give you advice. What you think you are doing with your body in the water is probably not what it looks like to the rest of the world, and a lifetime of lengths will not help you boost your swim in a race if your stroke mechanics are not solid. It only takes a small shift in swim technique to trim minutes off your swim times. Another benefit of improving technique and efficiency in the water is that it will help you accomplish the first goal of a triathlon: To come out of the water fresh.

If your stroke needs a complete remodel, you might consider taking a swim-technique seminar. One weekend working closely with people who are trained in teaching stroke mechanics can save you thousands of hours of frustration in the pool trying to do it on your own. Keep in mind that even the best swimmers are always working on their stroke. Here are a few drills you can do to keep refining your swimming:

• One-arm freestyle, first with the other arm out front then with it to your side
• Catch-up
• Alternate breathing
• Fingertip drag on the recovery
• Roll drills trying to maximize time spent on each side (flat is the slowest position in the water)
• Slow stroke, trying to minimize the number of strokes per lap

These are just a few drills to do in each workout before your main sets.

After that, faster swimming becomes a matter of conditioning. Due to the low amount of muscle breakdown produced by swimming, you can actually schedule frequent over-distance workouts in the water to get your body used to swimming longer than your race-day distance. You can reap tremendous benefits in swim fitness by adding up to about 50 percent more distance to your workout than the distance of your race. So, for example, if you are doing an Ironman, having a handful of workouts that are around 6,000 yards will enable you to glide through the 2.4 miles of your race and exit the water with enough reserve to begin the bike fresh.

Making your bike a strength

The three main areas to consider with the bike are fit, power output, and cadence. Your position on the bike is perhaps the true foundation of good cycling. Look at the riders in the Tour de France. They all look like they were born on a bike. Going from a poor bike position to a good one can save you minutes without any more conditioning and will also help your body to be fresher simply because it is not fatiguing from an inefficient position.

Start with your seat position. It should be high enough so that if you put your heel (with your cycling shoe on) on the pedal, at the bottom of your pedal stroke your leg should be completely straight. This is a very general rule, but one that will start to get you in the right position.

Next, look at where your saddle is in relation to your bottom bracket. For triathletes, a good starting point is to have the tip of your saddle about two to five centimeters behind the center of your bottom bracket. Again, this is a general rule because saddles can have different-length tips. Also, the fore-aft position of your saddle is going to depend partially on your age and hip flexibility. In general, older riders are stiffer and they will lose power if they put their seat too far back. Younger riders can have a position with their seat farther back because of their inherent hip flexibility, and they will gain power from this.

The third main point regarding bike position concerns stem length. When you are in the aero position, your upper arm should be roughly at the same angle as your forks or even a little steeper than the fork angle. If your stem is too long and it puts you too far back, your upper arms will be at a flatter angle than your forks. This will cause tension in the upper body and force a person to develop a hunch in the upper back, making his or her position less aero. Once the length of the stem is set, make sure the height of the stem is as low as you can go without producing discomfort in the aero position. What will give you the most aerodynamic position technically is not necessarily what will enable you to stay there for miles on end. And if you are not comfortable, your body will fatigue more quickly.

Next comes power output. This has two aspects: muscular strength and neuromotor patterning. Doing leg weights in the gym can develop the first. Leg extensions, leg curls, squats, lunges and leg presses are the main exercises that will help you apply force to the pedals.

Developing the pathway from the brain to the muscle occurs when an activity is performed motion over and over and over. For cycling, this means time in the saddle. There are two ways to maximize neuromotor pathway development. One is with stationary bike training. Minute per minute, this is the most economical way to create muscle movement efficiency. This is a great bonus for those of you who spend winters training indoors. Using a stationary trainer will make you a very efficient cyclist.

The second technique is to do accumulative-fatigue training. What this means in simple terms is to do back-to-back endurance rides. Pick a few weeks when you have extra time and do longer rides on two or three consecutive days. There is a fatigue that starts to set in on the second and third day that requires your muscles to become more efficient. This sounds kind of like stage riding in the world of cycling, and it is. This develops the muscle patterning efficiency that will get you off the bike fresh and ready to run well in a triathlon.

The final issue is cadence. Most triathletes turn the gears at about 80-85 rpm. Most cyclists turn their gears at around 90-95 rpm. Become a cyclist. Use a cadence monitor if you don’t already have one. Even after one week of training at a slightly higher cadence you will notice a dramatic difference in your ability to turn over the pedals.

Making your run a strength

In the sport of triathlon, running suffers from a similar problem as cycling. Most triathletes run at too low a cadence. A low cadence causes one to overstride, which is tantamount to putting on the brakes with every single step. If you overstride, your foot is extending too far in front of your body, slowing your momentum down until your body gets back over and in front of the planted foot. You can guess how this will affect your run speed, especially when you fatigue and your overall speed slows in the race.

Starting today, run like a runner. This means, as with cycling, that you run with a turnover of about 90-95 rpm (counted on one side). If you have been overstriding, this will require you to shorten up the extension of your leading foot so it hits the ground almost directly under the center line of your body’s momentum. It may feel like you are running with a choppy style at first, but over time you will find the correct stride length that maximizes your turnover.
This is something that should be practiced in every single run that you do, even on your easier recovery runs. Every run is a chance to pattern in a faster turnover rate. This is the most efficient way of running, so the point where you begin to fatigue will be pushed much farther out in the race.

A good place to practice this cadence format is in a short running race. Enter a few local 5K and 10K races over the off-season and practice running quickly at this higher cadence.

Training the brain

The final element needed to help turn a weakness into strength is psychological: How do you view yourself in each of the three disciplines of a triathlon? Many people can perform the training to address their weakness, yet they hold onto a past image of themselves not being good at a particular sport. Transform this image. Tell yourself over and over that you are a fast runner, cyclist and swimmer.

While it’s unlikely that any one of us will become the next Ian Thorpe, Lance Armstrong or Joan Benoit, we can take the images of how the best in each sport moves and see ourselves moving with that same grace. Watch world-class competitions in each of the single sports. See how these athletes move their bodies. Now feel that same efficiency inside your own body. It doesn’t matter if you actually look like that when you swim, bike and run. It does make a difference in your efficiency, however, when you feel that same motion happening in your movements. This is what will take the technical training and bring it to life in your racing so your weaknesses become strengths and your strengths continue to be something you can count on.