Why is it hard to go easy?

It is good to train alone sometimes

This morning I decided to join Nicola’s cycling group on a short ride from Seapoint to Llundando and back. I was told this would be an easy ride but it turned out different.

I am in my base training so I need to do very slow rides. They are not even long but short and slow. Gradually within a month they will grow into 4 and 5 hour rides, and later on even 6 and 7 hour rides. Currently I am still between 1:30 and 3 hours. I ride at average of 140-160 watts or heart rate under 140 bpm. Keep in mind that Powertap does show lower watts than Ergomo and that this also includes downhills etc. My Ironman racing pace for last year was 170-190 watts and heart rate around 145 bpm. My goal is also to maintain a steady power output and heart rate. No oscillations, no rushing up hills, no racing. The purpose of this is to prepare muscules for Ironman racing, grow the capillary network, build mytochondrias in my muscle cells. I always feel I could go much stronger but I have to keep it slow and easy.

The ride this morning was completely opposite of what I should be training. The group did not warm up at all, there was a hill within first 5 mins of the ride and everybody attacked it so I stayed way behind and already was alone. My wattage was still around 160 watts while going up the hill while I am sure others went above 300. Going over 300 watts within first 5 mins of a cold ride at 6 am is a disaster. The whole point of warming up is to prepare your cardiovascular system, your lungs, your muscules for the stresses of training. By not allowing your body to warm up and prepare the risk of unnecessary damage or even worst - injury - increases dramatically. At least first 15 or more minutes of any activity should be easy.

The other problem was that this was supposed to be an easy ride for several other triathletes and these triathletes are slower than me in racing but I could not catch up with them in this ride. It is same as last year when I trained with Dejan Patrcevic, Croatian PRO who finished sixth at St. Croix this year, and Nicola who does Ironman in 13 hours, was passing him on hills. Pacing was totally off and the feeling of rhythm, so important for triathletes, was obstructed.

Not to mention that with immediate and constant hill attacks (typical of cycling training and a disaster for beginner and intermediate triathletes) just fil the legs with lactic acid and make the rest of the ride miserable.

By the end most of huffing and puffing and in pain. It is ok if your training plan included a time trial because time trials are sometimes good. Not often but sometimes. But I doubt that this was the point.

My advice is that if you go out for training you should know what the purpose of your training session is. Each session has a goal and if you miss it than you might as well just skip training all together.

Also training with cyclists was never a good idea, their racing and therefore training style is totally different. While triathletes, especially long distance ones, need to maintain a pace, cyclists are thought to fight for every inch of every hill. Think about why most of the top PROs enjoy to train alone.

Do not go hard unless you really know you have to. Go easy… Relax…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 9:13 am and is filed under Cape Town, Seapoint, cycling, power, training, triathlon, watts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.