"Back it Up"

Now that the race season is flying along, many athletes have already charged through their #1 priority race for the year and should be very fit. While some folks may be “done” with key races some may be shooting for another late season peak. Hitting the second peak or improving on the current fitness from a peak is possible, but one needs to really understand their body and how it works to capitalize on the gains already made.

At the end of June we had a large TTE contingent of athletes racing at Ironman Couer D’ Alene. The results were a little bit of a mixed bag: PR’s, mechanicals that led to missing PR’s, learning curve opportunities for coach & athletes, and some first timers who were fabulous in their debut. Of the group two in particular wanted to turn around and back up their performances at our home town Iron Distance Race, Vineman, just five weeks later. Though I don’t know that this is a great idea for everyone, however for some, if you treat the turnaround time appropriately it can be done (well).
These are some of the ways we approached and looked at the 5 week gap, plus other items to consider when trying to “back it up” (these could go for any race distance). First off I should clarify that both athletes are not new to the sport or distance, 1 male / 1 female, both healthy physically going in to AND coming out of race #1. When we discussed the 5 week turn around the key items were:

1) “Let’s do this for the right reasons … because you WANT to”. Not to redeem yourself for something of years past OR even days past. The key here is mentally being engaged to the task at hand.

2) Focus first on recovery, not training, the training is almost completely done. Don’t Get Greedy! There are plenty of ways to focus on recovery from nutrition, active recovery, massage / self massage, and the list goes on.

3) Be prepared and open minded for the possibilities on race day … good, great or bad race / good, great or bad weather. Just be positive and aware there is risk involved. (isn’t there always?) OH, and realize there is no way it’s going to be easy, so you better WANT IT!

4) IMPROVE on the things we didn’t do as well as we wanted to in Race #1 and re-emphasize the items we executed well.

5) Once we felt recovery had moved along well, (I have specific markers that I look for including anything from mental , sleep patterns, food cravings, pace/power/hr/muscle soreness etc.) only then could we shoot for some key workouts. Then the key workouts were sandwiched around a bunch of maintenance and active recovery sessions. NOTE: mentally most people don’t want to get their swim cranking again in this time frame … sorry, it’s the one thing that SHOULD be ramped back up.

6) Having faith that the major training was done long ago, and that the last really big session was done 5 weeks before this new race day. With those items in mind the game plan was straight forward, (on paper anyway) the only thing left to do was execute.

As the clocked ticked down and the suffering finally came to an end the results were fabulous, two personal bests on a not so easy course (though we had very good weather) and two athletes ready for a REAL break. Though they both arrived at their results in slightly different ways, the reality is it is just arriving that counts. Oh yes, did I say there was suffering and hard work involved?

Best of luck in your efforts to “back it up” ... DL