The Grip

Wow what a weekend!

Em and I just spent the weekend in the Nations Capital listening and learning from the "The Grip". To those who haven't followed Ironman triathlon the person I am referring to is Mark Allen. This guys race palmeres is unbelievable. In 10 starts at the Nice Triathlon he went 10 for 10. In six starts over seven years he was crowned World Champion in Hawaii. His record of 8:07:45 from 1993 still stands today, despite the advancement in training and bike technology. He also still holds the marathon record at Hawaii with a time of 2:40:04 set in 1989. He was asked about this at the camp and said that he thought it was most likely due to the fact that the guys these days all specialize in Ironman distance races and do not give shorter stuff a 100% effort. In the period of time when Allen was racing he said that they raced a variety of distances throughout the year with the intention of winning them. It will be interesting to see how long these records stand.
Camp summary. We missed the meet and greet on Friday night due to obligations at work so our weekend started on Saturday morning in the pool. Nothing new here but my key points to remember are:
-swim from the hips
-loose hands
-hand entry should be half way between head and outstretched arm
-no bubbles on hand
After the pool we grabbed a quick coffee and headed over to the Louis Riel Dome. This is an awesome facility and it once again made me realize how lacking we are here for any public facilities other than Hockey Rinks. Mark began his lecture talking a bit about himself and general training practices. He also brought up the idea that what is tested in the Lab does not alway equal what happens in "The Real World".
The next subject was titled "Training Beyond the Lab". The main element of this discussion was around stress and its impact on the body. Essentially there are two kinds of stress, manageable which is called The Training Effect adn Unmanageable which causes overtraining, reduced performance, injury and illness. Stress is not limited to what occurs in training but also to other factors in life suck as work and family. In a discussion about good vs bad stress Mark brought spoke about DHEA release and Cortisol release. This is something I haven't come across yet. I am going to do some more reading on this subject.
Invisible training barriers was the next subject. Mark over the years has identified several different time barriers over which there seems to be a greater training effect. 20min, 50min, 1hour20min, 3hours, 6hours and 9hours. In hind sight at IMLP I experinced and was aware of these barriers on the bike both times around the out and back on the bike.
Nutrition was up next. The focus here was on race day. In summary train as you plan to race. Glucose and maltodextrin in a drink are the best combination. During high stress activity enzymes are lacking in the stomach to break down complex carbs.
Setting up a training program seems so much less daunting after this weekend. Mark placed the emphasis on simplicity. Essentially you have two types of training, Base and Speed. These are controlled by whether you are above or below your aerobic max heart rate. Mark also explained the roll of weight training and how important it was especially as we age.
Day One also included some talk about setting up your year and the different training phases. This lead into a talk on nutrition.
Somewhere during the day we also did a run session on the 400m indoor track at the Dome. The main component here was mid foot strike. It was interesting to watch the other members of the group and see or more better put hear a difference in their stride with such a small time spent working on their stride. The run component ended with Mark going over some stretching.
Saturday ended with a talk by Mark that was open to the public, with the proceeds going to a local Ottawa charity. All I can say here is that if you get a chance to here him speak go for it.

I think I am going to stop here for now and finish this later tonight or tomorrow.