Training Days are Teachers – Learn From Them

“Tomorrow you will find out where you are with your training,” I said. “Take note of what goes well and what doesn’t. It’s just a training day – learn from it. You’ve got 8 weeks until race day to work on whatever needs work.”

It was Friday night, May 31st, and I was giving a presentation to the group of athletes assembled for the Draper Training & Nutrition Lake Placid Training camp.

Ironman Lake Placid
The crew for the training camp.

The next morning, we’d be doing two loops of the Ironman Lake Placid bike course. But that night, I didn’t realize how important my advice would be–for myself.

My plan for the two loops was to take the first loop easy and build into race effort for the second one. In my Training Peaks schedule for the day, Vince explained, “First loop: Warm into it and keep the power easy. We don’t give a sh!t about the first loop.”

That’s what I love about Vince. He knows how to explain things at my level. I’m Honey Badger. I don’t give a sh!t.

At first, I thought it would be challenging to keep my power in check for the climbing, but I was surprised at how low I was able to keep my watts and my HR while still making forward progress. I wasn’t going fast, but we didn’t give a sh!t about that for the first loop. So, I enjoyed the scenery, and every so often, I would think about my approach for the second loop.

It was a hot and sunny day, so I tried to stay on top of my hydration and nutrition – or so I thought I was. I could feel my sweat dripping from my armpits off the tips of my elbows as I sat in aero. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the heat of the day climbed with it. Given how chilly the spring has been, this was the first ride I wasn’t actually cold at some point.

Quite the opposite. I was hot.

Our group gearing up for a ride on the IMLP course. We took time for a quick shot in the Olympic Oval.
Our group gearing up for a ride on the IMLP bike course. We took time for a quick shot in the Olympic Oval. Naturally, I’m hamming it up in the front.

As I came in from the first loop, I noticed that I felt hungry. Hmmm. That’s odd. I had eaten my usual amount of calories, and I took it easy. I shouldn’t be hungry.

So, I ate a Hammer bar. It was delicious. Never had a gob of sports goo tasted so good. I chased the bar with some water and Nuun.

I grabbed a few “emergency” gels from my bag in case I continued to need additional fueling, and I was off on the second loop, gearing up mentally for a race-paced effort on the second loop.

The opening miles were good. I was hitting my targets, and chugging up the initial climb of the course.

But, I felt hot and fatigued. I had already been riding for 3 hours, so I shouldn’t feel fresh as a daisy. I can power through a second loop. I got this, I told myself.

Pep talk. Ignore the voices. Repeat as needed.

After the initial climb of the course, it was time for the 10k descent, which is a bit of a break since you don’t really need to pedal at all and you still go about 35-40 miles per hour.

It was a good time to steal up my energy and prepare for the rest of the loop. I got to the bottom and thought to myself, Okay – time to work hard. Let’s see what’s under the hood.

I was excited and curious to test my mettle, and the next section of the course was perfect for that, as it is relatively flat until around the 35 mile marker of the 56 mile loop. Then, it climbs again.

My plan was to hunker down in aero on the flats, get into a rhythm, and build into my watt target.

Funny thing about plans…

As soon as I started off into the flats, I felt off, drained, depleted. In that time it took me to descent, the bottom had fallen out from under me.

I tried to hit my power target. It felt hard, much harder than it should in terms of my rate of perceived exertion. But despite feeling hard, my heart rate was low. No matter what I did, my legs felt like they were burning harder, and getting increasingly more sluggish. But my heart rate barely blipped up into the top end of my easy, zone 1.

Uh-oh. This is not a good sign. I thought, becoming increasingly frustrated by what seemed to be a “wasted” ride.

I desperately tried to reverse the flow of how I was feeling. I ate calories. I drank fluids. I took electrolytes. I gave myself repeated pep talks. I told the voices to go to hell.

Nothing worked.

Slog. Slog. Slog. And so it went.

I finished the second loop feeling deflated, fatigued, disappointed. That was not the ride I was hoping for with 8 weeks to go until IMLP, and 1 week to go until Eagleman 70.3.

But, I reminded myself of what I told the group the night before. Training days are teachers. It was time for me to heed the lessons that the day provided.

So, in the post-ride analysis, there are a few key takeaways here.

Clearly, the increased heat is a factor in what happened to me. I was not prepared for the abrupt shift in temperature, from a spring filled with cooler 50-60 degree days, to the first 80-90 degree day of the season.

I know from previous experience, that I tend to need slightly more calories on hot or cold days than I do on temperate days. But, calories only one part of the picture.

Given the heat of the day, I needed more fluids. During the second loop, my water (with Nuun) was so warm. I refreshed it with cold water, but within 30 minutes it would be warm again. I thought I was drinking at the same rate, but my total bottle count tells me a different story. I was about 3 bottles short – over the course of the day – of what I should have consumed in fluids.

At first, I didn’t think that dehydration was the issue, because typically dehydration will lead to an elevated heart rate, which didn’t seem to be the case for me. But, then again, my watts were low – dismally so. Had I been less weak and able to push more power, I likely would have found my HR to be elevated beyond what it normally would be for the effort.

Other evidence in support of the dehydration thesis:

In the 2 hours following my ride, I drank 3 water bottles, but I didn’t pee until 5 hours after my ride ended. And, when I did urinate at that point, it was not exactly the color you’d like to see.

Before I went to bed, I drank 7 water bottles of water before my pee finally lightened up enough that I thought it was safe to go to bed.

The next morning, I woke up, drank more water and headed out for my long run with the group. It was the best training run of my season so far. My heart rate was normal, my pace exceeded my expectations, and my fears that I was in the beginning stages of overtraining syndrome were quelled.

Post-run stretch. All smiles after a good day :)
Post-run stretch. All smiles after a good day 🙂

While the ride was not an ideal training session in terms of work output, it was a valuable lesson about being mindful of my hydration and nutrition as the climate changes. So, while I feared that it was a “waste,” it isn’t. It’s only a waste if I ignore what I learned from my day in the saddle.

Training days are not race days. They don’t determine with absolute certainty how we will do when it’s time to race. However, training days are teachers, and with analysis, we can learn how to improve our performance on the final test: race day.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Do you do post-training and post-race analysis? What valuable lessons have you learned? 

 

 

Comments are closed.