Two rounds down, the third round of the Winter Training Series begins next Monday February 27th running through March 15th. The swim, bike and run training series build upon their technique development and aerobic base from the earlier training blocks, and progress towards higher intensity training in round three.
Train at or near your lactate threshold in the third phase to continue your preparation for the coming race season!
- Schedule:
- Swimming = Tuesdays & Thursday mornings from 6:30-7:30 AM
- Cycling = Tuesdays & Thursdays evenings from 6:15-7:30 PM
- Running = Monday & Wednesday mornings from 6:15-7:15 AM
- Fees:
- General Registration = $48 for one sport, 3 weeks, 6 sessions (discounts available if you sign-up for more than one sport)
- Team Adrenalin Members = $42
- EPC Coached Athletes = $24
- Drop-Ins = $10
All training sessions are at Green Mountain Rec Center in Lakewood.
Call 303-987-7830 to sign-up OR you can register at the door. Hope to have you join us for round three!
Check out my BLOG for some peeks into my personal training log and downloads revealing some of the key workouts I’ve done in the last few weeks.
CW
DECEMBER MARKED THE SECOND HALF OF MY BASE PREP TRAINING PHASE.
While November was completely relaxed in terms of training, in December I began to tighten things up just a bit, but still kept things pretty low-key. The main shift in focus was in increasing the frequency of my workouts, both overall and individually by sport. The goal is to get back in to a more regular training regime while keeping the workouts short and sweet in duration. Goals for me were to get my swim up to 5-6 days per week, runs (including drill sessions) up to 5 days per week, and cycling up to 4 days per week (with little to no trainer sessions, to save the mental strength for those later in the Base Phase). In addition to the swim, bike, run, I kept the strength training in the gym up to 3 days a week and hit the stretch cords (pre-swimming) at least 3 days, tried for 4, per week.
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Best decision I’ve made in a long, long time!
I have been a contact and glasses wearer since 2003. In my early twenties I tried on a pair of a friends new eyeglasses and realized I could see far better than I had been. Sure enough, I got my eyes checked, and I needed glasses to see and read things clearly in the distance. While this new and improved vision was great, the wearing of glasses was unacceptable during training. I soon looked into contacts and thought my problems were solved. They were better, but far from solved. Contacts are a pain in the butt! Putting them in, taking them out, cleaning them, traveling with them, riding in foul weather, the list goes on and on. I’m sure any contact wearers out there can fully relate to the hassle. I just chalked it up to the way it had to be and soldiered on. Several years went by, and the frustration gradually increased. Then earlier this year, in a muddy mountain bike race it happened, I got mud in my eye like many times before. This time though, my contact worked it’s way out resulting in blurred vision and a horrible finish to the race. Again about a month later it happened again in a more important race, and I decided that I needed to fix this problem. A friend mentioned LASIK eye correction as a solution. I thought, sure why not, I’ll look into it.
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This is it boys and girls, your chance to get your winter training on track for 2012!!!
You may or may not already be aware of the annual EPC Stationary Trainer Workout Series I have held for the last 6 years at various locations around town? Well ready or not, here it is returning for the 7th year at the Green Mountain Rec Center in Lakewood, CO!!!
Not only is it back for it’s 7th rendition, it’s going to be better than ever. By teaming up with the city of Lakewood it is now more affordable and easier to sign-up for, it’s going to be bigger than ever. We have also developed separate swim training and running series’ running in conjunction with the cycling, following a similar format as the ever popular stationary trainer series.
The format of all three series’ will be three weeks of training, followed by one week of recovery, spread over four months! You can sign up for all of it, or just a little bit. But once you tri, you won’t want to stop (lame wording, sorry). Each segment builds upon the previous, so it is ideal to start at the beginning and build your fitness the right way. But if you join us later in the progression we can help you “catch up” to rest of the group and get your fitness on track! The swim, bike and run are designed to accommodate every ability from beginner to pro. In fact, there will be at least one of each at every session! You heard me right, you beginners can train WITH pros! And you pros, you get to train with beginners (let’s not get too full of yourselves). Don’t hesitate. No one gets too far ahead or left too far behind (because we aren’t really going anywhere anyways!).
Here are class times: READ MORE
We have some great NEW (or returning) services to offer our coached athletes, Team Adrenalin members, and anyone else looking for some training assistance in 2012. The fantastic EPC Training Lab is just about finished and ready for it’s grand opening in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more specific info and images of the LAB in a future post. Until then, here is what we have lined up for training service offerings…
- Lactate Threshold Testing
Being able to accurately identify your training zones is a necessity to effective endurance sport training. Estimating your zones can get you started, but defining them through laboratory testing will ensure you are not wasting any time or energy at the wrong effort level. Training just a few heartbeats, watts, or seconds per mile harder than necessary can compromise your ability to recover and ultimately lead to fatigue and overtraining. Through testing your blood lactate levels at increasingly higher work rates (either on a Computrainer® or treadmill) we can pin point exactly where your transition from aerobic training to anaerobic training occurs, and subsequently identify your training zones. By testing periodically throughout your training season you can also note your progress in the terms of more power on the bike and faster paces on the run for the same effort.
- Bike Testing = $100
- Run Testing = $100
Swimming is often the hardest thing to learn when taking on a triathlon. That’s because swimming is much more than simply building aerobic fitness, as is much the case for the cycling and run segments. Swimming is much more about technique and being able to reduce your drag in the water and create a strong and effective pull. The best way to accomplish this is through one-on-one coaching with video review so you can see where you need to focus your attention to make improvements. Swimming in an Endless Pool® with mirrors allowing you to see yourself swimming in real time, along with video analysis, and a coach to help you identify your trouble spots is invaluable! After the sessions you will be armed with a better understanding of what you need to do, and the drills you can practice on your own between sessions to make the progress you have always wanted in the water. Training sessions are 30 minutes long and will save your video files in an online library you can store and access them on your own at home. READ MORE
Your first priority with Base Training is build your aerobic endurance. Your goal is to be able to ride and run longer distances and at faster speeds while maintaining aerobic heart rates. Training at lower effort levels early on allows for adaptations and improvement in you body’s ability to use fat for fuel, spare glycogen (carbohydrate), and develop a more efficient cardiovascular system; all benefits of improved aerobic function. Once your aerobic base is established and you can easily cruise around over varied terrain while maintaining aerobic heart rates, you can then begin to cruise at faster speeds, through aerobic intervals, to really maximize your aerobic speed as the second component of Base Training. The final piece of Base puzzle is strength. Developing sport-specific strength will allow you to apply more force to the pedals and ground to get you even faster, especially when you’re faced with greater resistance from headwinds and gravity. Once your aerobic function has improved enough to allow you to climb hills while maintaining aerobic heart rates, you then can begin to add sport-specific strength workouts to your training schedule to improve your muscular strength that will in turn increase your power output.
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Once you have a solid aerobic base developing through consistent aerobic training for several weeks and/or months you may be ready to begin to add a higher workload or even some speed to the mix. How do you know if you are ready for more? Well, when you first got back to training from your end of season break, you probably found it quite easy to get your HR up to your aerobic threshold (the HR zone of maximum aerobic development). In fact you may have even had to slow things down a bit (and even walk at times) to keep your HR under control. After several weeks of consistent training now, you might be noticing that you can cruise along much more easily at your aerobic HR’s and your speed is improving too. This improvement is called Fitness. Yeah!
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