From Retirement to 10th at IMNZ by John Newsom

From Retirement to 10th at Ironman New Zealand in four months on part time training.

I’ve found out the hard way on many occasions that there is no easy way to reaching your optimum performance in triathlon. After a fairly successful career as a short course athlete representing New Zealand at Junior and development level I raced several years as a semi professional athlete in France and Asia. In late 2001 I more or less hung up my bike, shoes and wetsuit and tried my hand at a real job in the UK for two years. During this period I worked my butt off and my time allocated for any form of physical activity was limited. There were long periods where I would do no training what so ever and other periods where I would get out for the odd run. The demise of my fitness was evident when I entered a cross country race where my pace was limited to a steady effort and I was completely destroyed come the finish line. In April 2004 my partner and I moved to the Lake District for a pub job for six months just to see what is was like before we returned home. This is where my journey back to fitness began. I started light training (5-10 hrs per week) and continued this for four months I dabbled with a couple of half Ironmans with "relatively" poor results by my standards. This was followed by two months of travelling and more or less no training at all.

I returned to New Zealand in late October 2004 and below are a few pearls of wisdom on how I got myself in "good" shape in fours months whilst working a full time (flexible) job.

The Plan

  1. I had a simple goal. I wanted to break 9hrs. Setting time goals like this can be very dangerous but I did it none the less.
  2. I periodised my build up from day one.
    1. My first 3-4 weeks were an adaptation period, this block was all easy paced training just doing the distance (I picked up a slight Achilles injury at the start of this block so was just swimming and riding).
    2. I followed this with a general base period of 3-4 weeks, still the majority of this was very low intensity.
    3. Next followed Epic Camp in Australia. Around 80hrs training in 12 days, reports on www.epiccamp.com My goal here was to get through the camp injury free which was achieved.
    4. From here there was another 6 weeks. This contained a week recovery from Epic Camp then race specific work through to the race.

The Key Sessions

The Long Ride

My week was always completely focussed on one session; my Tuesday long ride. This was anywhere from 4 - 8hrs (including pit stops). I usually did this session with an athlete I coach; Bevan Eyles (who incidentally won the 20-24 AG in 9:19) and sometimes Gordo and a few others. For the initial part of my build I was just riding. Gordo & Bevan would drill me on this ride and I often just dropped off and did my own thing. Week by week I got stronger and stronger. In hindsight I probably needed another six weeks of base to keep up with the pack on race day.The most important aspect of the long ride was the inclusion of main sets. This was something I had not done often as a short course athlete. My favourite was 3x50mins with 10 mins easy between. Efforts would be 1 – just below IM pace, 2 – at IM pace and 3 – building to half IM pace. As we got closer to the race these reps got shorter. This was a fairly flat ride as this closely simulated the Taupo course. I would always do a transition run of 10 -20 minutes off the bike.

The majority of athletes I come across do their long rides in a pack and just do the mileage. This is fine for certain parts of the year but in the specific build up phase sessions need to be simulating race day with regularity. It’s naive to think that on race day you can crank it into the big ring and grind it out when this has not be practised in training

The Long Run

I am a big believer in not doing lots of really long runs. I prefer to go for frequency rather than duration. Typically my long run would be 1hr50 up to my longest run of 2hrs 45. The norm was to do 2hrs to 2hrs15. Many athletes I encounter repeatedly do 3hr+ runs. While there are definite benefits to doing this I think the risk of injury and the recovery time required from such runs make them counter productive. My runs would almost always be in the hills and like the long rides would include elements of pace work.The thing with Ironman is you really are not running fast at all; even at an elite level. It’s about pace control and if you run the whole way you are more than likely going to have a very respectable finish time.

Half Ironman Simulation

My racing pre Ironman was limited to a Half Ironman Simulation and an Aquathon. The Half was four weeks out and it was a complete race day practice: nutrition, pacing, breakfast, equipment….. Doing a simulation with a group gave me a lot of confidence and avoided all the pitfalls of doing a proper race.

 

Typical Week

I have my own business, a fiancée and numerous other personal commitments. So while I was racing Pro I was far from being a full time athlete.My training volume would be 15 – 22 hrs (usually just under 20). Relative to pro’s and hard core AG’s this is not huge. Also given my long lay off I was never going to get to the start line in optimal shape.Monday: AM: Swim 75 – 90mins. PM: Run coaching 90mins (probably got 45mins of work in for me)TuesdayAM: Swim 60mins followed by Bike: 4-6hrs followed by Run: 15minsWednesdayRun: 1.5 – 2.5hrs ThursdayAM Bike 1.5 – 2hrs hills strength workPM Swim 45mins techniqueFridayAM Swim 75 -90minsAM Run 60-70mins SteadySaturdayAM Bike 2-3hrs with intervals followed by Run 30-60minsSundayOFF

 

Nutrition

I’m a pretty small guy (1.74m & 68kg) but I find I need a constant steam of fuel to keep going. If anything went wrong on race day I didn’t want the excuse "I didn’t eat enough". This excuse really bugs me as it’s easy to avoid with proper planning and practice.

My goal was to get in 400-450 calories/hr on the bike and a gel each 5km on the run. I executed this pretty well but struggled with some solids due to the cold on the first half of the bike. In general I averaged 3 gels/hr something solid and fluids (Pro4 + coke from 100km). On the run I was getting in 2/3 gel every 2nd aid station for the first ½ of the run then I’m not suite sure after than. I was drinking a lot of coke. Overall nutrition played a HUGE part in my result but I know I could have been a little better. If you ever stand and watch an Ironman is pretty evident that a very large part of the field do not get their nutrition right.

Pacing

Come race day I pretty much did my own thing. I stayed with a pack for about 80kms of the bike but made a conscious effort to drop off the back when I felt the pace was too much. As Cameron Brown says Ironman is all about the run – "20 miles of hope and 6 miles of reality". Even though I stuck to my guns and held back all day I was still in major difficulty in the last 15km of the run. Again, if you ever watch an Ironman live you will see that as long as you can run the whole marathon, chances are you will have a good day. To do this it is vital that you pace correctly through the swim and bike. So there you go. That’s a brief overview of my build up and the aspects that I viewed as most important for a successful race.

Happy training

John Newsom

 

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