progress and philosophies...

The training has sort of come back on track in the last couple of weeks. Still a little behind where I would like to be, but it is progressing. I was a little stuffed after K2 and that did take the good part of a week to turn around from the tiredness and soreness. Also being sick a few weeks before that did affect me. I felt I had lost 30-40 watts of power off the top end (around threshold), being fairly subjective, but I had a bit of a play with the training data, and the interval data sort of showed that out too. The average power and peak power values ( shown are 10 and 30 minute) did drop off post sickness from what was being held before. As the sessions do differ, it is not a perfect comparison, but I think it does show a trend - and a sizable dip! It is starting to come back up now, but still well under what it was. This week, my threshold efforts were closer to where they were, perhaps 10-15watts down, rather than 20-30 previously.



These two graphs show the average power and peak power for my interval sessions (bike) over the last few months. As you can see - there is a nice dip after being sick!

Swimming has been similarly affected, but the endurance drop-off was more noticeable - rather than the speed (not that I am a fast swimmer). I have not been that consistent with the swimming, and when I look back, a week off, then a couple of weeks with 2 swims per week, and that is enough to drop the fitness noticeably. It does not help when all the others in your lane are also getting faster/fitter - as you feel like you have lost more than you have!
Running is still pitiful - for where I would like it to be. Just missing one or two easy runs each week is hurting, and I just need to get them done. I have moved the long runs up a little, and have had a couple of runs in the 1:40 to 1:50 range, which is far better than the 1hr to 1:30 range! I think this will start to show through in a few weeks. The harder run performance is a bit up and down, and I think that is just a function of lack of miles! Must do better! I have been meaning to do a little bit on training philosophy for a while (amongst other things!), so I will put a few thoughts down on that. I have coached off and on for over 15 years now, and did spend a fair amount of time while being a self coached athlete, investigating different coaching ideas and philosophies. I have had great opportunities to meet and talk with some great coaches and athletes. I would also say that some of the coaches that I do thing are great, have not necessarily coached great athletes, but do get good results out of those they do coach. It does amaze me how various coaching messages get interpreted so differently. Take Arthur Lydiard for example. Some people think he supported long slow distance, and others that the "steady running" was just under threshold. Having talked to him a few times, I think the main thing was that he supported a vast volume of aerobic training, and was very sparing on the anaerobic training. Probably his greatest strength was the ability to express to his athletes the pace/effort that they should train at. I am not sure he actually knew how good this skill was. He could also tell a great story - which is generally very inspiring! Duncan Laing is another coach that I was quite impressed with - in the fact he could very intuitively dial in what each athlete needed. For the number of athletes he coached, he had a very high percentage of great results. Yet many "top" coaches (which would be labeled as national coaches most of the time), get great athletes come to them, but these athletes do not get better. Is it that the athlete is at there potential when they arrive or that the coach does not get the best out of them?

Over the years there have been many "revolutionary" training regimes that have come, and in some cases gone. Over distance, interval, repetition, interval, fartlek, long slow distance training, to name a few. Then of course there are variations on themes. With many systems, the story is similar - with "follow our system and success is guaranteed". in many cases there are successes, but probably in about half those that start the "plan". For the rest there is probably a break-down, or no significant improvement (the former usually). My opinion is that programs can work for some, but they are programs, as opposed to coaching, which is far more interactive, adaptive to the individual, and part art, part science. The science side amuses me a lot of the time. There are some great things to come out of sports science, but there is at least as much that is just non-sense (being slightly PC). The problem with sports performance is that improvements at the top level can be very small, and can take a long time to show through. Not many studies involve top level athletes in a very structured environment over a long period of time. The other biggie is that you need quite large sample sizes to show significance when the differences are small, and getting a large number of reasonably highly trained athletes to commit to a study is the other difficulty. So the end result is that "such and such" is not significantly better than "this and that". The sports science community then says that weight training does not improve performance, or that running 100 miles per week is not significantly beneficial than running 50 miles per week. The problem is - there maybe a difference, but they cannot show it! But people read the report and believe that it is proof!

A defining moment for me - as an athlete and from a coach perspective was in 1996. I had a very good season in 1994, and then a pretty poor 1995. I spent around 3 months feverously researching training methods and coaching philosophies. I had a few good chats with a few coaches, including my swim coach who did make a significant impact on my attitude to training (Trevor Nichols). I went through training logs of some of the great athletes (ones that I could find - and there were quite a few out there). The thing that intrigued me the most was the "why" they were doing what they were. In most cases I could see what they were trying to do, and felt I got an understanding of the reasoning behind the training they did. One of the last books I went through brought it all together for me. It was not a magic formulae or master plan that I felt was perfect, but quite the opposite. There were bits and pieces from many other sources I had seen, but there was no underlying philosophy. I felt that this person just did not understand "coaching" or "high performance sport". He had just taking ideas and thrown them together, but with no master philosophy behind it. This person was a leading coach (in NZ) and has a strong sports science background, but I felt they just did not "get it". For me - it made me bring together all the information and ideas I had sloshing around in my head. It focused my mind on what I felt work for what I wanted to do, and helped me develop my own philosophy. I can back and had a great 1997 season after that too! I would say my basic philosophy is very similar to what it was 10 years ago, but I have still learnt a lot along the way - and adapted somewhat!

I don't think there are any "special" workouts, or magic training bullets. Spend some time putting a plan together that you think will work and then stick to it! Give it a chance to work. Coaching by committee and swapping between plans at a whim is the best way to limit progress!

Danyon Loader - A great champion who I have a great deal of respect for. A special person who could do very special things in the pool! He use to borrow my lane at Moana pool before I got in to train...