“Correlations Between Annual Training Patterns and Race Performance in Male, Non-elite, Ironman-distance Triathletes”
Anything useful in here. Lots of big words and charts. To much for me to digest.
Thanks for the link, it is interesting.
My favorite part was this
http://trisurvey.net/Annual%20Training%20of%20Successful.htm
For all those proponents of volume first, intensity later, for IM training.
This came up before and my question went unanswered, so I’ll ask again.
Since there was a correlation between training distance and “success” but non between training time and “success”, doesn’t this merely show those who were faster in training were faster in the race?
i just glanced at the paper so this may not be the best possible answer.
I agree with you on some level. i.e., of course the guys who ride at a higher pace at LT are going to do better in a race than someone whose LT pace is lower. they could have possibly accounted for that in their analysis, i’d need to look at it more.
For all i know, however, it may also speak to ‘training quality’, i.e., what you do with your time on the bike. which is part of the reason why people use powermeters - as a reinforcement tool.
in generally, however, i’d be really reluctant to put too much stock into a paper that shows relatively low correlation values (which don’t establish cause and effect, anyways, just a relationship) - i glanced lots of values in the 0.4 range which doesn’t tell you all that much.
What is interesting, however, is the graph the SmAC already pointed out - check out how relatively long and hard those guys train so close to competition. They just keep ramping up the cycling distances and speed to an even greater degree (see figure 20). Also keep in mind that it’s a 12-month timeline when you look at it.
I was also quite surprised to see that their highly successful triathletes only swam b/w 15 and 23 km a MONTH. But there’s plenty of errors in those figures (you really have to look at the axes on the figures to figure out which is swim, bike, run), and that may just be another one. If it’s true, then maybe it means that highly successful IM triathletes (at least their group) are very proficient swimmers to begin with and just maintain rather than build. I dunno.
It’s impossible to tell a what the range of time and distance was from the figures the SmAC linked to b/c they don’t provide error bars. Bummer, but maybe it’s in the text.
Josef
As one of the study participants, I’d have to say this is interesting. Although I fit the general overall pattern, it was not closely. For example, minimal swimming got me a higher ranking than it should have. And, my fairly slow run time, although according to the chart was about where it “should have been” due to my low run distances…I ran the last 3 miles in 23 minutes, because I was fearful of hitting “the wall”, which never happened. Being my first marathon, I was being extra careful. Plus, I was much on the long side in both transitions due to medical tent care for a badly cut foot I got the first 10 yards into the swim. All that said, I probably left about 30-45 minutes out there on a very difficult course. Finally, if I had to do it all again, I’d choose to do much more high intensity work and less long, slow, distance work. maybe I’ll do the same race this fall with a summer of fast work and see what happens. Still, if I beat my time by only 30-45 minutes, I’d have to say the faster training would be giving me a similar result to the longer, slower training…because I should have gone faster by 30-45 minutes last year. I’d have to go faster by over an hour to be able to say a faster training schedule would be better. Of course, if I stayed the same or went Slower this year, I’d have to say the long, slow training was better for me.
Anyway, this is study that depends upon each subject’s accurate statements of their past year’s training habits, so it’s fraught with potential error, although the main flavor may be captured.