Racing in Adverse Conditions

This past weekend, the Soma Triathlon hit the streets of Tempe, Arizona. This race has been popular in the ever-growing triathlon community in Arizona for many years and this year it included the half-Iron distance, and an Olympic-esque distance called the Quarterman. The biggest challenge of the day was the Arizona heat, blazing down on the athletes during the final stage of the race: the run. Year after year, people have a hard time getting through the run, despite it being an easy, flat course. People cramp, hit the wall, feel sluggish, and generally finish saying, “the bike felt good, but that run was hard.” Of course, when the conditions change so drastically from the beginning of the race to the end, it is hard to gauge effort effectively and pace yourself in a way that allows you to feel good, despite a harsh environment. Or is it?

The sport of triathlon is a phenomenon because it has take non-professional, everyday athletes and turned them into the superheroes of endurance sports. It is a sport where someone who may have never been very competitive at anything can find success. Endurance sports, in general, are the only sports where people can remain competitive into their later years, with triathletes putting up some scary fast times all the way into their 50s and 60s. These high-level age-groupers may never go professional, but they are always on the hunt for that age group podium win, the Ironman World Championship qualification, or the USAT Age Group Championship qualification. They may not be collecting sponsorship endorsements, but they invest a lot of money and time into improving their performance. There is a constant drive to find the best training methods and tools and this has brought about some very effective technologies, as well as some things that can best be described as exercise science “quackery” (an actual term used in the medical field meaning “the methods and treatments used by unskillful doctors or by people who pretend to be doctors”). The debates on whether a particular technology or training method is actually effective can get very heated and can be commanded by very experienced, respected experts arguing for both sides. This makes it very difficult to figure out which side is right. Often times, the person that people follow or believe is not always correct, but is just better at selling or presenting their point of view. A charismatic coach could sell himself as the best, when there are others that are much better but not as good at selling themselves.

Like I said, triathletes are all about the latest and greatest technology. Typically, the more expensive it is, the more seriously they take it. Why buy a $200 GPS watch, when you can get a $450 GPS watch? Why buy a $2500 bike, when you can get an $8000 bike? The helmets, the wheels, the shifters, etc., all contribute to each triathlete’s obsession with cutting those extra seconds off their time. The latest craze to hit the triathlon (and cycling) world is the power meter. This contraption measures the amount of watts generated by the pedal stroke of a cyclist and is promoted as being the best way to measure effort while on the bike. It is becoming wildly popular, and it, of course, comes with a high price tag of around $1500. As a cyclist, having a power meter on your bike makes you look serious and elite. It is the mark of someone who doesn’t mess around.

So back to Soma and the hard time people had during the run. Even some of the best triathletes in the city had a hard day and it got me thinking: Why is it that, despite having the latest technologies, the best equipment, and access to the best coaches in the area (supposedly), these athletes are struggling with such an easy course? Why is it that I’ve never had a problem in the heat? Why is it that many of the athletes that I coach didn’t have a problem with the heat? Here is the answer:

When racing in conditions that are not ideal (heat, elevation, cold weather, humidity, hills, etc.), the most important thing to consider is the effort level you are operating at. If you go too hard, you’ll hit the wall, feel sluggish or have to walk during the run, and/or cramp. It is unbelievably common for triathletes to feel so good on the bike, push the pace, and then blow up during the run. The simplest explanation is that they were not able to gauge their effort correctly and ran out of fuel and energy. This mistake is made so often by both amateurs and professionals that it has become an accepted reality of triathlon racing. The truth, however, is that it is completely possible to never, ever bonk or hit the wall during an endurance race.

“The truth, however, is that it is completely possible to never, ever bonk or hit the wall during an endurance race.”

So how does one do this? It is simple: find the most effective method to gauge your effort that takes into consideration adverse conditions and allows you to have the best race possible on that day, in those conditions.

The most important part of that statement is the last part: “allows you to have the best race possible on that day, in those conditions.” This requires a mental shift that many triathletes are not willing to make. It is a subconscious truth, whether triathletes like/know it or not, that we crave that PR (personal record) every single time we toe the start line of any race. And why shouldn’t we? Our biggest competitors are ourselves and we are constantly working and training to be able to improve from the last time. But the problem we run into with obsessing about the PR, is that we don’t allow our mentality to adjust when the race conditions change. A personal example of this is when I ran the Old Pueblo 50 Miler for the second time this year. The first time I ran it, the weather was perfect and the conditions were great. This year, it was a cold, torrential downpour from mile 19 to the finish line. The conditions were much more difficult and the challenges were different so my mentality had to change to “I’m going to do the best I can do TODAY”. So as endurance athletes, we need to be able to switch our PR-driven mentality off and say, “it’s hot/cold/rainy today” or “this course is hillier and harder than the last” and work intelligently to have the best day possible.

This brings us back to the first part of the statement: “find the most effective method to gauge your effort that takes into consideration adverse conditions.” Adverse conditions are external conditions. Heat, humidity, cold, wind, a hilly course, etc. are all conditions that are outside our bodies, but that can affect our bodies. Heat and humidity makes our bodies work harder to stay cool. Cold makes our bodies work harder to stay warm. Wind and a hilly course can make our bodies work harder to maintain the pace we want to have. These external conditions change how much effort we are putting forth and, for the most part, they increase the effort we are putting forth. So the best gauge for measuring effort has to be one that considers every single one of these conditions.

Just as importantly, this effort gauge needs to also consider internal conditions such as fatigue, dehydration, impending illness, etc. If we ignore these, during both training and a race, we can put our bodies into a defensive mode that no longer allows us to perform at a high level and can also cause injury, illness, and overtraining, which can all set an athlete back by weeks or months.

So our perfect effort gauge is one that considers external conditions and their effect on our bodies, and one that considers our internal conditions to avoid injury and overtraining. So let’s examine the three most common effort gauges that are used by triathletes:

Perceived Effort/Exertion

This is the easiest and most common way to gauge effort during training and racing. It is typically measured on a scale of either 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 and it is based completely on how the athlete feels at any given moment. Perceived Effort is painfully inaccurate because it does not actually take any conditions, internal or external, into consideration. Instead it relies on the mentality of the athlete. So if I was to come out of the swim of a triathlon and I felt good, I could decide to push it hard on the bike (like most do), but if I have to run 6 or 13 or 26.2 miles after I get off the bike, I will most likely be too burned out to be able to feel good on the run and I will suffer.

If you do need to train or race using Perceived Effort, the most important thing is to keep yourself from pushing too hard, too early. You also need to mentally take all those external conditions into consideration by not pushing up the hills, and slowing down a little if it’s hot or humid. You need to look at the race as a big picture and you need to be able to find the Perceived Effort that allows you to get off the bike and run just as hard, if not harder. This, of course, takes years and years of experience and trial and error. Most of us don’t want to wait that long to perform at our best level.

Power

This gauge effort is limited to the bike but it is still completely relevant since that is usually where we spend most of our time training and racing. Power has taken the triathlon and cycling community by storm as the “best way to train.” The curious thing about Power is that its biggest advocates actually say it’s the best because it DOESN’T take into consideration internal factors such as fatigue or dehydration. They argue that these things can keep you from operating at a consistent power level and that this doesn’t allow your body to train properly.

The biggest problem with this argument is the perception that an athlete’s power output is a measure of their effort and that if that output drops, their effort is dropping. This is simply not true. The effort an athlete is putting out is based strictly on the amount of work that their body is doing. Anyone who has ever worked out knows that you might perform better during the first half of a workout, but that doesn’t mean your effort is less at the end. Fatigue doesn’t allow you work at a high rate throughout any workout and so it must be taken into consideration, or else you’ll push too hard and risk injury. The human body is not just a machine that you can set at a certain level and expect it to consistently perform at that level. Power meter training is exactly trying to make it that way.

Before I lose all of you, I need to say this: This is not to say that power meter training does not have its uses and merits. Just like track/speed workouts are useful to endurance running, some power meter workouts are useful for endurance cycling, but this makes power a complimentary or supplementary tool to training, not the primary tool. (It’s hard to justify a $1500 price tag for a supplementary training tool. This is probably why it hasn’t been marketed as such.)

Heart Rate

For a while, Heart Rate was becoming the golden standard of measuring effort. That was until Power Meters came around. However, let’s examine Heart Rate and see exactly what it considers. Your heart rate is a direct indication of how hard your heart and your body is working to produce an effort.

When you are riding your bike or running and you start going up a hill, your heart rate and your effort increase. When it’s hot, your body works harder to keep you cool, and your heart rate increases. When you are biking or running into a headwind, your body works harder and your heart rate increases. All these external conditions translate directly to an increase in heart rate. Therefore, the only way to maintain the appropriate effort during a training session or race with these types of external conditions is to slow down and maintain the correct heart rate.

When you are getting fatigued, your heart rate increases. When you are dehydrated, your heart rate increases. When your body is fighting off a cold, your heart rate increases. These are all examples of internal factors that affect your heart rate, and therefore affect the effort your body is putting out in order to perform. If these conditions are ignored, your body has to work extra-hard in order to perform and this can cause injury, overtraining, and exasperate any illness the body is fighting off. Going out and doing a hard workout despite these internal factors can put your body on the defensive and set your training back drastically.

It’s simple: your body is doing multiple things at once. While you are riding your bike, your body is digesting food, processing hormones, firing neurons, fighting off infections, building neuromuscular pathways, and doing countless other tasks that keep you alive and kicking. Your heart is not only pumping blood to your muscles, but to your organs and brain. Your heart rate is the only all-encompassing gauge for the effort that your body is putting out during any activity.

Now let’s apply this to the race: Yesterday it was hot and people were working harder than they were used to. If they felt good on the bike, they might have pushed it and then felt bad on the run, but if they had been racing using a good heart rate strategy, they would have ridden their bike at exactly the right intensity to then get off the bike and run hard and feel good. It may or may not have been a PR, but they would have performed better than they did and felt better than they did. It’s that simple. Heart Rate is the only effort gauge that considers all the factors in a race and allows you to perform the best you can on that specific day.

Cardiac Drift and other arguments against Heart Rate

Many people argue against using Heart Rate by talking about Cardiac Drift, and the time it takes your body to get into the target heart rate for a particular workout so I wanted to address these.

Cardiac drift is the natural increase in heart rate as a workout progresses, even if the pace itself does not change. This is definitely something that happens and there is almost nothing you can do about it. However, you can easily account for this during any workout or race without letting your heart rate get out of your target zone and without having to decrease your pace. A properly calculated heart rate training plan does not give you specific heart rates to aim for, but rather it gives you a zone to stay in. This is probably something you already know but the mistake a lot of people make is that when their Long zone (or Zone 2) is 130 to 145 BPM, they immediately start their workout at 145 BPM. This doesn’t allow for any drift, and if they were to stay in their zone, they would have to progressively slow down throughout their workout. If they were to warm up properly and start at 130 BPM and allow the heart rate to slowly rise to 145 BPM by the end of the workout, they would not see a decrease in pace and would never go over their heart rate zone. It. Is. That. Simple.

This same principle of starting at the low end of your zone and finishing at the high end is applied to a race strategy. You may start the bike off at a heart rate that feels too easy, but if you do it all correctly, you’ll be flying on the run and passing everyone who hasn’t figured it out yet. This exact strategy is what allowed me, an average athlete doing his first Ironman, to run a 4:03 marathon after cycling 112 miles. It is exactly what allowed me to run sub-9 minute miles during the last 3 miles of that marathon. It works for everyone… everyone that is willing to try it.

Now, in referring to the time it takes your heart rate to respond and rise to the appropriate zone, this is also a simple answer. A proper warm up is required at the beginning of any workout. This gets your body ready to exercise and allows your heart rate to increase from resting to an exercise-appropriate level. Once a warm up is done, increases in heart rate are almost immediate. If the workout consists of high-intensity intervals, figuring out the approximate pace that corresponds to a particular heart rate zone only requires observation and some experience. This should be easy to do for any athlete.

So what?

I am, in no way, trying to tell anyone how to train. I am only presenting the evidence and my interpretation of it. There are high-level coaches and athletes that may disagree with me, but there are also high-level coaches and athletes that agree with me, so it’s really up to you, as the reader, to decide whether my arguments make more sense than the other side’s arguments. I will, however, continue to advocate for using the most effective training methods based on my experience as a coach and as an athlete. One thing I can say is that through numerous triathlons, half-Ironman, Ironman, marathons, and ultra-marathons, I have yet to ever “hit the wall” or bonk and I have always finished feeling good and happy. This is entirely because I was able to measure my effort correctly and pace myself.

There are so many athletes that could perform much better than they consistently do and unfortunately, it is because they don’t train or race correctly that they fail to do so. Even athletes that are able to compete at a professional level can have some serious misconceptions about what it is to race right. The best I can do is to continue promoting the science, continue to present the evidence and help those that are willing to be helped. Either way, I hope you all keep training hard, keep training smart, and continue enjoying our beautiful sport of triathlon. 

by Johann Warnholtz

Running and Triathlon Coach for racelab