The idea that long distance running uses fast twitch muscles sort of bothers me. It makes the whole of his advice suspect.

After reading this I am surprised that this coach isn't also segregating men and woman, then banning sex.

When was this written April 1st 1910

:)

Grind it out? Like a coffee grinder maybe.

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Twitter @achtervolger

Not me: exercise long enough and hard enough, and eventually practically all motor units will be recruited.

Well since I never said you can only hit 300W at a certain cadence his example is useless anyways. I was talking trends.

As far as using samples of 1 or 2 - I know someone that won the lottery, does that mean I should invest all my money in the lottery because it worked for them?

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http://www.RideScoozy.com

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I disagree with that. Assuming the info here is correct: http://www.examiner.com/...-world-championships, Leito biked at a 95 cadence and Alexander was at 82. Leito blew up on the run and was walking about the time Alexander ran past him. There's no such thing as a good bike split without a good run to back it up.

I'm not saying Lieto blew up on the run because of his cadence, but the difference in Lieto and Alexander's cadence and run splits at Kona would support a slower cadence being beneficial for running off the bike.

Here's a link to a study that supports a low cadence helping the run: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15849289

I've experimented with cadence in my training and found that a slower cadence helps me run better (I train with power and this is assuming that the slower cadence is coupled with low pedal force so my power falls primarily into quadrant 3). That may not be the case for everyone, but it's worth testing out.

This is from 2008, but it looks like Alexander's cadence is at least 80 (there are a few 20-30 second clips around 2 minutes in). Granted this but a few moments in time, but that seems to be the methodology used in the above link.

http://www.youtube.com/...&feature=related

Also; I would consider "grinding it out" to mean that you increase pedal force at lower cadence to maintain power. I thought that was the point of debate; whether higher or lower cadence at a given wattage was more effective.

A couple of thoughts (specific to IM):

1. Imho, IM is unique when it comes to HR. Most people can't or shouldn't ignore it. I believe you can maintain a relatively high HR at HIM distance and get away with it. For example, there's not enough time at that distance for enough blood to be shunted away from intestines (applying the 80-20 rule). Again, just an example. I believe you can't maintain a relatively high HR and get away with it at IM distance though.

2. I've noticed that a lot of elite or top AGers have learned to perform well on the "edge of their HR." IOW, they know that limit, either intuitively or by watching it closely, where they get into trouble.

I believe HR can become the gating factor for at least some people if not a lot of people on the run. IOW, they have a better chance of running to their true potential if they can just get their HR down slightly. Of course, this all starts on the bike (actually it starts on the swim but you get my point). Your run HR typically rises relative to what you maintain on the bike. So, if there's anything you can do to lower HR on the bike yet not compromise overall performance then you should do it. Lowering your cadence can help achieve this goal but it's something you obviously have to adapt to.

Let me give you an example: If I maintain 154-155bpm on the bike my HR will rise about 8bpm on the run (assuming I'm running well). That's problematic for me because I get into trouble when my HR reaches close to mid 160s for an extended period of time 8+hrs into an event. However, lowering my cadence helps bring my HR down on the bike and it appears to have no impact on my run. Now when my HR rises on the run it's sitting at a level that allows me to run to my full potential.

Thanks, Chris

That's an interesting article, thanks for the link. In summary, they studied a 30 minute bike, the first 20 of which were at a self-selected cadence. It was only the last 10 minutes that were low, high, or self-selected cadence. It was followed by a time-to-exhaustion run at 85% of VO2 max pace. (generally 10ish minutes).

They found that cyclists who reduced cadence by 20% in the last 10 minutes ran longer (about 15 minutes) before exhaustion.

The authors also note that another researcher found that 3200 track times were improved with a cycling cadence of 109 rpm.

The take home message is that you can better ride a low cadence for IM, and I agree with that. It is not that this is different because it is triathlon. This is different because there are very few other competitive races where athletes ride at one more or less self selected pace at 75% effort for 5 hours until a state of exhaustion that still enables the athlete to switch to another sport for 3 hours (or 5 hours for some). Yes Fleck, that is different ;)