Most of my toys sit in the drawer. I still believe in fartlicks.

If someone who doesn't know about triathlon reads this...

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Marcel

"If someone who doesn't know about triathlon reads this..."Ha!! I know what you mean.I remember my first reaction when I first heard the word. We can thank the Swedish language for the term "fartlick".

You can do your fartlicks, I prefer fartleks.

Matt,

Great perspective. Sometime I am glad that I can't use my heartrate monitor to its full effect and quite frankly I really don't like the strap around my chest. I think that we all love the rawness of training and the thrill of feeling aero coming off a hill in a peak race. I really do believe that it's those sensations that draws us out of bed on an early, rainy, cold morning and unconsciously answers the question of,"What the hell am I doing up?" I mean who else finds themselves missing the burning sensation of lactic acid in your calves and quads after being sick for a few days and quickly returns to a little bit longer run than suggested as soon you can? So, I agree that the "bells & whistles" that have emerged since you last were involved in Tri have perhaps diluted our palates to the sweetness of finishing to finish and the salty savor of training. But as Dennis Miller says,"Hey, that's just me, I could be wrong!"

Daniel

"You can do your fartlicks, I prefer fartleks." Thanks for the spelling correction. I guess my Swedish language skills could use an improvement.

I was really hoping that this would generate more conversation. I had this exact same conversation with my coach this week. He uses a very straightforward philosophy in what he tells his athletes to do and he gets some very good results without injury, both for me and, to my knowledge, everyone else he coaches. A lot of times I read posts talking about the "modern" method of training and they read like stereo instructions. For me at least, I do this because it is fun, it seems that a lot of this is just making it into drudgery. At the end of the season I didn't want to take time off, not because I was afraid of losing fitness but because training hard is what I do for my entertainment.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

We do often loose sight of the fact that we just need to get out there and do the training. Which reminds me......

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I'm going to slightly play devils advocate here cause i dont think all the stuff and gadgets get in the way of things. How does wearing a HRM distract me from the birds singing, the sun setting, the brook babbling? It takes 1 sec to look at where my HR is and im back to enjoying the nature around me. If i have a real problem with sport, its that i cant understand the purists that think the first time something is ever played is the way that it should be played infinitum. Maybe we shouldnt have seatbelts in our cars, cause the Model T didnt have seatbelts and the seatbelts are distracting us from the pleasure of driving. Maybe we shouldnt have bathrooms in our homes cause in the first homes you had to go to the outhouse. You see where you can go with this line of arguing......?

Everything evolves. I can understand how the original poster might be surprised at the new technology out there and played the card, "back in my day....."

But i dont think that card is valid. HRM's prevent me from overtraining. Ofcourse i only use my HRM when my coach wants me to do a fartlek session and stay within a certain limit. Its by using the HRM, that i can know what 150bpm "feels" like so that come race day i can replicate that HR without a HRM.

We dont need all of this technology in training, but i think were better trained athletes because of it. Read Gordos article on gizmos and gadgets., its spot on. If theres something to complain about triathlon's evolution over the last 11 yrs its that if you want to race Alacatraz you gotta sign up within the first 2 hrs. or that costs have gone up considerably.

Lastly, I've gotten excited to train to try out my new toys. as in when i first got my timex sd monitor, my HRM etc. If its just what gets us out the door that matters, sometimes the gadgets get me out the door, and in that sense their value and place in my training regime is priceless.

Theres my dissenting opinion.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

amen to all those who suggest that listening to our bodies directly and unmediated by gizmos is both a fundamental skill for [tri]athletes as well as a life-long recipe for health and peace of mind.

on the other hand, there are certainly those amongst us [and i'm counting me] who could use a little help on our way to enlightenment -- kind of the technological equivalent to the zen master bonking you on the head when it seems the most appropriate route to wisdom.

i spent several years playing ultimate frisbee before coming to multisport, and for those who are unfamiliar, it's kind of the equivalent of running intervals in random directions for 2 days straight [punctuated by a night of partying in between]. it's been a long road for me to come to the awareness of what running or biking at the right pace for a sustained effort really means, and that little doohickey with the annoying beep and the stream of data to back it up have been a helpful part of the process.

that said, as soon as my self-awareness reaches a satisfactory level, i'll probably drop the thing like a dirty sock and never give it a word of thanks....

p.s. isn't fartlek finnish....?

I'm with jpo on this one, too. Training hard is what I do (or more appropriately "did"). I'm amazed at how technical people make their training. Maybe it's just the mindset of the people that the sport draws, I don't know. I remember using the first generation HRMs, and they did nothing more than read out your current HR. The thing was an annoyance. And I had to laugh when I saw one in a race -- what are you gonna do when it beeps, SLOW DOWN?

Of course, my background going into triathlon was running, and as such I was a bit of a purist there. A stopwatch (sometimes) and my shoes, and I was ready to roll. When I started riding, I got the Cateye Solar first, and found all the "stuff" it told me a bit of an annoyance. I then switched to the Avocet 20 -- speed, time, and distance, that's it.

But there are those that need a schedule to tell them what to do, how hard (and need something to tell them when they're really going that hard), how long, etc. Even when I get back into the sport, I'll do it the way I did it the first time around. And I won't suffer burn-out (never understood that one), won't need an "off-season," and will have a whole lotta fun in the process.

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

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"p.s. isn't fartlek finnish....? " I always thought it was Swedish. Any Finns or Swedes out there to set us strait about this? Guess it really doesn't matter since with my spelling gaffe the joke is on me.

Quote: "But there are those that need a schedule to tell them what to do, how hard (and need something to tell them when they're really going that hard), how long, etc

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I dont think anyone "needs" anything more than some form of a bike to do a triathlon, shoes are optional, wetsuits are optional, sunglasses etc. Who ever said that this was about "needing" cool expensive gadgets? Its about wanting them.

About schedules----i dont know how you train, maybe you just go out everyday having no idea what type of workout you have planned and throw in some hills here, some sprints there etc and do that on a 12/24/7 basis. But that sounds pretty haphazard to me, and if you get faster because of it, youre a lucky guy. How do you periodize training without a schedule of some sort. I'd recommend when you get back into triathlon, you look at either creating a schedule for yourself or requesting the help of a coach to help you out your times would go down. Injury and Burnout can occur from going too hard too much too often.

I'm not saying that tracking your HR on every workout is good, basing your session purely on HR is good, tracking your sleep HR is necessary etc. What im saying is that there's a balance between taking advantage of the useful technology available to us and ignoring it.

Mr. Armstrong is probably the most technologically savvy guy out there, getting into the tunnel yearly, weighing every piece of food he eats, skinsuits designed to trip boundary layers----would he win if he didnt do these things, yeah probably so. Is he faster cause he does these things? Yeah probably so.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

Call me old school or maybe middle school, IMO I think the best things HRM's do is teach one how one feels when they are running/riding at a certain pace be it easy, threshold, comfortably hard, or cookie tossing pace. I believe athletes should learn to feel how a certain pace feels. People who have been running or swimming or cycling or any combination for several yrs can probably tell when they are going aerobic or faster than aerobic, even with small increases in pace say +5 sec/mile. You might start a long run in your aerobic zone but after 2 hrs your HR is 12 beats higher. Do you slow down to keep it in that aerobic zone? I personally wouldn't b/c I know 90% of that increase is cardiac drift. If you slow you teach yourself to run slower as the distance goes up not maintain even pace or neg split, all b/c the numbers have to match. I like to use mine to establish my max every once in a while running or biking. I also like to use it during long threshold sessions to see how close I can come to that number and for how long. So all in all I probably use it 15 times a yr. As for periodization, I think it is a good idea and do do it, but the fastest way to run faster is go run fast every week. If I miss 3 weeks of track or tempo runs I'm slower. So I try to do some fast stuff every week even if it is a whole 5 minutes of it.

"Fartlek" is Swedish for speed play. But the Finns, Nurmi et al., had the first great success with it.

Rerarding: The swedish Fartlek. You americans can call it "scenic trailrunning" as long as you push hard on the climbs and enjoy the view from the top :-).

M

I know what you mean about gadgetry. I DO use my HR monitor when I train, most of the time. The reason is, I don't seem to be able to go easy enough without a reminder that I'm working harder than I should in order to last the very long workout I have planned, without getting to the point that it's just trash mileage (not staying in good form). I get out on the road (either biking or running), and after about 20-30 minutes I'm good and warmed up, and I start to feel froggy. I'll sprint up a small hill, just because I love the feel of it, drop down to the "Best aero" position I have and see what my top speed is for the day, etc.

I guess I just like to push myself. But, I'm no Superman, and I won't last the hour-and-a-half run, nor the 3-4 hour bikeride, if I do those things very much. So, I use the HR alarm to keep these tendencies from happening too much.

On the other hand, on the days that I am purposefully going to do a hard workout, I tend to either not wear the monitor, or to turn it off during the hard part of the workout. I seem to be able to go harder, and longer, when I don't consider what my heartrate is doing. When I just go by the way I feel, I'm not listening for the HR monitor excuse to ease up.

I HAVE used a HR monitor on longer races just to keep myself in check early in the race, because of my tendency to want to pass anyone I can see in front of me, and to keep everyone behind me...well, behind me. So, it has helped me to spread out my energy more effectively so that I don't just die on the run. But, on the run, I turn the thing off...it seems I'm always over limit by then, but, I can still motor along and bring it in for a decent finish after going at HR's supposedly 10-15 beats higher than my estimated aerobic rates.

I'm strapping it on for a wind-trainer-run-trainer-run-etc. brick I'm doing this am...or, I'd never make it the full two hours. I might not make it anyway, but, without the HR monitor...there's no way I'd make it.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

you don't know what to do with the data. Sometimes your HR doesn't do what you expect because of dehydration, overtraining, cardiac drift etc... If you don't know what to do with the data you are getting from your heart rate monitor, you could make some bad decisions. I find that my HR is higher in a race than in training. So....in a race I go more by feel than HR. If I relied on HR alone, I would go way too slow. If you can find a ballance between how you feel and your HR data and know what to do with the data, you will do fine. Otherwise, it just gets confusing for most people. A typical example is if I find that my HR is too high for my level of percieved exertion (and it's a hot day), I know that I am probably getting dehydrated. If you know what to do with the data it can be helpful.

Mike P.

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Simplify, Train, Live

[reply]p.s. isn't fartlek finnish....?[/reply]

I know they're the end of me...

(insert GROAN here)

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TonyG

What is Enoch Root?