Sunday, November 16, 2014

Cardiac Drift

I've been re-reading Joe Friel's legendary triathlon training book The Triathlete's Training Bible in order to answer the question "What should the purpose of my workouts be?" While trying to answer that question, I happened across a section on determining race readiness. The protocol calls for doing an “aerobic threshold” workout for a given amount of time, depending on desired race distance and then looking for “decoupling”. For a half-iron race an athlete should be able to run for 90 minutes in low zone 2 without heart rate decoupling between the two halves of the run.

Decoupling refers to the phenomenon of heart rate tracking unpredictably with exertion. For example, it might seem reasonable that if you maintain your power level for a certain amount of time…your heart rate should also stay the same. In practice, as you fatigue, your heart rate will start to inch higher even if your pace remains exactly the same and the terrain is flat.

In order to test race readiness, then, you can keep your power output level and see if your heart rate stays even (See chapter four, table 4.6). I did exactly such a test this afternoon. In the interest of brevity, I only ran for 1.5 hours. First, I warmed up for a few minutes, then set my treadmill to a 10 minute pace and started my watch. 

For 90 minutes, I ran the 10 minute pace. This put me squarely in zone 2 (average was 2.5). At this intensity I was burning a 50/50 blend of fat and carbohydrate (80% of HRmax roughly equals 65% of VO2max, which is about a 50/50 burn). Although my heart rate moved around a bit, the overall averages between the two halves of the workout were well within the 5% drift indicating poor event fitness. For the first half of the run, my average heart rate was 154.2 BPM. For the second half, it was 155.7 BPM, a difference of only 1.5 beats per minute.

Data: Cardiac drift test

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

In good time

I'm reading a book called Flow that discusses (amongst other things) the difference between pleasure and enjoyment.

Pleasure is pretty easy. It comes from watching TV, doing drugs, having sex, etc. The key is that pleasure does not necessarily require skill, and the pleasure will eventually wear off. The book describes enjoyment as similar to pleasure, except that it does not wear off. Enjoyment requires a challenge that can be surmounted, the skill (preferably well-developed) to conquer the challenge, and rules that describe how the challenge must be met, and how we know when we have emerged victorious.

Now, consider behavioral economics for a moment. In order for a behavior to exist, a reward must exist. For most of us, rewards need to be quickly associated with activities. If our actions are not rewarded in the timeframe we expect, there is a strong chance that we will discontinue the action (just ask Pavlov!).

Recently I've found myself questioning the timeframe that I use for myself, and I've found that it might be a bit short for the job that I'm in. My timeframe is generally weeks and months. The other people on my team generally think in days or weeks. Other members of the executive team might tend towards thinking in terms of several months (IE quarters). In order to make the best long term decisions, and undertake the activities that best support our long term goals, I need to get out of the habit of being quickly rewarded for the activities I undertake. Enjoyment might easily take months or years.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Overwhelming Force

For as long as I can remember, I've had the same approach to playing games. In middle school I played competitive chess (poorly). As a young adult I spent countless hours playing video games, using much the same overall approach that I used with chess. As an older athlete, I find myself using the same approach to my racing as well.

The general strategy is simple: amass resources, wait out the opponent, and then bring overwhelming force to bear on any weakness that appears. As a kid, my endgame was terrible. If I got that far, my preferred strategy had already failed and I was likely to lose. As an adult racer, I find that I always have enough gas in the tank for one final all-out sprint. This means that I've under-applied myself to the entire race up to that point.

While this strategy works for relatively simple situations, it does not work for complex situations. Complex situations require surgical precision and the ability to address multiple fronts simultaneously. Any multi-dimensional problem creates multiple fronts that dilute the overwhelming force strategy. Additionally, an opponent that employs the same approach can cause the loss of most of both of our resources, then win with only a modicum of finesse.

Finesse is the key, as it augments strength and applies it most judiciously. As I consider my personal development goals over the next year, moving beyond the use of brute force will be at the top of my list.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Book Review: Racing Weight




Shortly after the opening, the author of Racing Weight begins backpedaling on the the term "racing weight" and replaces it with "optimal body composition". Obviously these two terms have radically different connotations, however only one of them is likely to garner reads for a book.

Optimal body composition, Mr. Fitzgerald asserts, comes about as an adaptation to training in almost any sport. This is somewhat at odds with my own perception on the topic. I had assumed (probably incorrectly) that athletes focused on body composition for their sport; not that training for a sport caused a particular body composition. If you take a moment to consider athletes from a range of sports, you'll begin to notice that elite athletes in a particular sport do indeed share certain composition characteristics. For example, elite triathletes are also accomplished marathoners...but their body composition is much more muscular than their running-focused counterparts. The reason is that for 2/3 of a triathlon, weight has little bearing on performance, but muscle mass is very important. For running, weight trumps upper body musculature as a runner must "press" their own body weight with each stride.

So how does an athlete achieve optimal body composition? The author suggests a six step approach: Improve diet quality, manage appetite, balancing energy sources, self-monitoring, timing nutrients properly, and training in a way which is conducive to optimal body composition.

Diet quality is the most difficult step for most of us, although it need not be. Several years ago I was trying to put on muscle weight when I observed that it is challenging to gain weight while eating a very healthy diet. Body builders frequently lament "feeling bloated" for this reason. A healthy diet is high in fiber and low in caloric density; overeating on a healthy diet is a really uncomfortable endeavor.

In order to provide guidelines for healthy eating, the author devised a scoring system that encourages healthy eating. The system considers only food quality and serving size, rather than calories. For those of us who gravitate towards rich foods, simply asking ourselves where our next handful of peanut butter M&Ms will land in the scoring system may guide us away from poor eating decisions.

Overall the book is well-written, well-cited, and easy to digest. The food quality scoring system is a bit cumbersome, but not terribly more difficult than counting calories. Whether the advice in the book really works remains to be seen, however I intend to put it to the test. Right after I finish this bowl of ice cream.

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