i wrote earlier this month about training during the winter months, and the theme of the article was long, slow and easy.
you were nice enough to comment, but i don't know that your comment saw much light because it was placed at the end of the article, and not here on the forum. i thought it fair to engage you on this point, and to do so in front of slowtwitchers, so that they might benefit from whatever good comes from the discussion.
you said, in reply to the idea of slow early, fast late: "Get fast, then go long... because if you go long before you are fast then what speed are you going long at?" and... "go ahead... go long in slow in winter... then spend the rest of the season wondering why you haven't improved much from the prior season."
i replied to this, and to my reply that the athletes of yesteryear got very fast by going slow early and fast late, you wrote that the athletes in those days were: "far from clean." the athletes in the era to which i referred in the article are pauli kiuru, dave scott, wolfgang dittrich, greg welch, mark allen, thomas hellreigel, jurgen zack, paula newby fraser, erin baker, ray browning, scott tinley, rob barel, paul huddle, jeff devlin, kenny glah, cristian bustos, and a bunch of others i could name, but, you get the point. i suppose athletes of today can claim that the athletes back then were fast because many or most took drugs. i think it's just as fair for the athletes back then to claim that many or most of you are taking drugs. since neither their era nor yours has any evidence at which to point, why don't we call a truce, absent that hard evidence, and move on to the real issue -- which is, how do we best get fast and stay injury free?
you also point out, quite rightly, that it's better to look at 10th place rather than 1st place, because the sport's talent is deeper now than then. i think it's also fair to state that the sport is at least double or treble the size now than it was 15 and 20 years ago. nevertheless it's fair to consider your point, so, let's look at the 10th place finisher at kona during that span 15 to 20 ironmans ago:
1989 Wolfgang Dittrich: 8:39:56 Amy Aikman: 9:52:51
1990 Jeff Devlin: 8:57:29 Irma Zwarkruis: 10:17:21
1991 Stefan Kolm: 8:53:06 Wendy Ingraham: 9:54:35
1992 Ray Browning: 8:40:34 Juliana Nievergelt: 9:52:36
1993 Olaf Sabatschus: 8:34:08 Katinka Wiltenburg: 9:38:39
Average - Men: 8:45 Women: 9:55
the past 5 years
2004 Raynard Tissink: 9:04:51 Nicole Leder: 10:13:46
2005 Stephan Vuckovic: 8:29:35 Melissa Ashton: 9:32:20
2006 Patrick Vernay: 8:28:13 Natascha Badmann: 9:38:52
2007 Patrick Vernay: 8:35:10 Erika Csomor: 9:39:47
2008 Eduardo Sturla: 8:36:53 Dede Griesbauer: 9:39:53
Average - Men: 8:39 Women: 9:45
so, yes, you're right, at the bottom end, the 10th place man in kona was 6 minutes slower 15-20 years ago than he was over the past 5 years. and the 10th woman was, predictably, even faster (10 minutes faster) because the growth of the sport has been very much biased in favor of additional women (the sport has gone from 15% women to 35% or so women over the past generation) there are probably 5 times more female triathletes now than there were 15 years ago. probably that's understating it.
i think the difference in depth is not that great, and is more than explained by the much larger numbers of triathletes worldwide, and especially by the feeder program into ironman racing that is the olympic/itu circuit.
with that as the backdrop, here is why i think its far sounder to spend these early-season, pre-season days taking it slow and easy:
SOFT AND CONNECTIVE TISSUE
training gets progressively ballistic as you move from water to land, and from the bike to the run. maybe there's a successful running program out there that favors your approach of start out fast and hard, then add miles. i just don't know of one. likewise cycling programs. nobody i know who's successful starts with speed and intensity, because training is progressive, and one trains to be able to train at a greater intensity, with greater stress. somewhat on the bike and especially on the run, training at a high intensity without base miles, well, choose your injury: blown calves; blown plantar fascia; blown hip flexors, avulsion fracture of the hamstring; blown IT band; and that's the short list.
YOU'RE FAT
take everything above and multiply it, because many or most people enter the season weighing more than they do during the season. maybe 5lb. maybe 20lb. those injuries described above are that much more likely to happen if you've got the extra weight coming down on green, pre-season connective tissue.
FAT BURNING
starting slow doesn't mean when you add speed later that you decrease miles. it just means that you add speed. to the degree that fat metabolism is trainable, best pompt the body to learn efficient fuel use early and often. i might also add that mark allen claimed fuel uptake (intestinal tract => bloodstream) was trainable, and that he took himself from circa 300 cal/hr to upwards of double that over the course of his racing career. i don't know that academia has embraced this (but then what would the study look like that would demonstrate this to academia?).
CLEAR PATHWAY TO SPEED
there is no shortage of evidence that speed doesn't disappear if you pass through an early season period of low velocity and low intensity running and cycling. indeed, dave bedford, gerry lindgren and others demonstrated that very little speedwork was required to be a world class runner. most runners throttle back significantly for weeks or months at a time. likewise cyclists.
but i will concede you this: i think it might be different in swimming. this is the one activity where proper technique is not intuitive technique. minor muscles employed in obscure motions are necessary to achieve an optimal stroke. you come from a swim background, and you know far more about this than i do. but i can tell you from my own experience that i cannot start swimming long, slow yards in the early season, or after a layoff, because i don't have musculature allowing me to swim very far with proper technique. so i treat swimming differently than i treat running or cycling, because i consider it a premium to swim with proper technique at all times.
accordingly, i wonder whether you might be leveraging your swim experience over to activities that historically do not obey (or necessarily obey) the sorts of protocols you might be used to as a former national caliber swimmer. swimming, running and cycling have all grown up with their own cultures and the coaches that teach these disciplines approach each with various time-proven recipes for end-season success. are you honoring these cultures? or do you think you have nothing to learn from them?
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
you were nice enough to comment, but i don't know that your comment saw much light because it was placed at the end of the article, and not here on the forum. i thought it fair to engage you on this point, and to do so in front of slowtwitchers, so that they might benefit from whatever good comes from the discussion.
you said, in reply to the idea of slow early, fast late: "Get fast, then go long... because if you go long before you are fast then what speed are you going long at?" and... "go ahead... go long in slow in winter... then spend the rest of the season wondering why you haven't improved much from the prior season."
i replied to this, and to my reply that the athletes of yesteryear got very fast by going slow early and fast late, you wrote that the athletes in those days were: "far from clean." the athletes in the era to which i referred in the article are pauli kiuru, dave scott, wolfgang dittrich, greg welch, mark allen, thomas hellreigel, jurgen zack, paula newby fraser, erin baker, ray browning, scott tinley, rob barel, paul huddle, jeff devlin, kenny glah, cristian bustos, and a bunch of others i could name, but, you get the point. i suppose athletes of today can claim that the athletes back then were fast because many or most took drugs. i think it's just as fair for the athletes back then to claim that many or most of you are taking drugs. since neither their era nor yours has any evidence at which to point, why don't we call a truce, absent that hard evidence, and move on to the real issue -- which is, how do we best get fast and stay injury free?
you also point out, quite rightly, that it's better to look at 10th place rather than 1st place, because the sport's talent is deeper now than then. i think it's also fair to state that the sport is at least double or treble the size now than it was 15 and 20 years ago. nevertheless it's fair to consider your point, so, let's look at the 10th place finisher at kona during that span 15 to 20 ironmans ago:
1989 Wolfgang Dittrich: 8:39:56 Amy Aikman: 9:52:51
1990 Jeff Devlin: 8:57:29 Irma Zwarkruis: 10:17:21
1991 Stefan Kolm: 8:53:06 Wendy Ingraham: 9:54:35
1992 Ray Browning: 8:40:34 Juliana Nievergelt: 9:52:36
1993 Olaf Sabatschus: 8:34:08 Katinka Wiltenburg: 9:38:39
Average - Men: 8:45 Women: 9:55
the past 5 years
2004 Raynard Tissink: 9:04:51 Nicole Leder: 10:13:46
2005 Stephan Vuckovic: 8:29:35 Melissa Ashton: 9:32:20
2006 Patrick Vernay: 8:28:13 Natascha Badmann: 9:38:52
2007 Patrick Vernay: 8:35:10 Erika Csomor: 9:39:47
2008 Eduardo Sturla: 8:36:53 Dede Griesbauer: 9:39:53
Average - Men: 8:39 Women: 9:45
so, yes, you're right, at the bottom end, the 10th place man in kona was 6 minutes slower 15-20 years ago than he was over the past 5 years. and the 10th woman was, predictably, even faster (10 minutes faster) because the growth of the sport has been very much biased in favor of additional women (the sport has gone from 15% women to 35% or so women over the past generation) there are probably 5 times more female triathletes now than there were 15 years ago. probably that's understating it.
i think the difference in depth is not that great, and is more than explained by the much larger numbers of triathletes worldwide, and especially by the feeder program into ironman racing that is the olympic/itu circuit.
with that as the backdrop, here is why i think its far sounder to spend these early-season, pre-season days taking it slow and easy:
SOFT AND CONNECTIVE TISSUE
training gets progressively ballistic as you move from water to land, and from the bike to the run. maybe there's a successful running program out there that favors your approach of start out fast and hard, then add miles. i just don't know of one. likewise cycling programs. nobody i know who's successful starts with speed and intensity, because training is progressive, and one trains to be able to train at a greater intensity, with greater stress. somewhat on the bike and especially on the run, training at a high intensity without base miles, well, choose your injury: blown calves; blown plantar fascia; blown hip flexors, avulsion fracture of the hamstring; blown IT band; and that's the short list.
YOU'RE FAT
take everything above and multiply it, because many or most people enter the season weighing more than they do during the season. maybe 5lb. maybe 20lb. those injuries described above are that much more likely to happen if you've got the extra weight coming down on green, pre-season connective tissue.
FAT BURNING
starting slow doesn't mean when you add speed later that you decrease miles. it just means that you add speed. to the degree that fat metabolism is trainable, best pompt the body to learn efficient fuel use early and often. i might also add that mark allen claimed fuel uptake (intestinal tract => bloodstream) was trainable, and that he took himself from circa 300 cal/hr to upwards of double that over the course of his racing career. i don't know that academia has embraced this (but then what would the study look like that would demonstrate this to academia?).
CLEAR PATHWAY TO SPEED
there is no shortage of evidence that speed doesn't disappear if you pass through an early season period of low velocity and low intensity running and cycling. indeed, dave bedford, gerry lindgren and others demonstrated that very little speedwork was required to be a world class runner. most runners throttle back significantly for weeks or months at a time. likewise cyclists.
but i will concede you this: i think it might be different in swimming. this is the one activity where proper technique is not intuitive technique. minor muscles employed in obscure motions are necessary to achieve an optimal stroke. you come from a swim background, and you know far more about this than i do. but i can tell you from my own experience that i cannot start swimming long, slow yards in the early season, or after a layoff, because i don't have musculature allowing me to swim very far with proper technique. so i treat swimming differently than i treat running or cycling, because i consider it a premium to swim with proper technique at all times.
accordingly, i wonder whether you might be leveraging your swim experience over to activities that historically do not obey (or necessarily obey) the sorts of protocols you might be used to as a former national caliber swimmer. swimming, running and cycling have all grown up with their own cultures and the coaches that teach these disciplines approach each with various time-proven recipes for end-season success. are you honoring these cultures? or do you think you have nothing to learn from them?
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
