As the global sporting spotlight will fall on Bahrain again later this year, GulfWeekly has teamed up with one of the world’s top trainers to coach the island’s sports-lovers to prepare to take part. If you have ever fancied trying a triathlon there will never be a better opportunity. Your community newspaper hopes to inspire you to put your best foot forward and have a go.
Don’t be scared … Andy Price will help you every step of the way!
Here’s your WEEK 5 – 120 Days until Bahrain Challenge.
* Training programme for the week starting Sunday to August 15
This is week three of Block One. The block continues to focus on building up strength and endurance and will provide a basis to move into more speed endurance workouts later on. This week’s aim is to continue on your endurance by going slightly further, but at the same pace as last week.
For ease I will include a key to explain abbreviations each week:
• F/S – Freestyle or front crawl
• Alt – Alternative stroke. For most this should be backstroke, but for some breastroke
• PULL – F/S with a pull float between your legs
• KICK – F/S kick using a kick board
• R – Rest (normally in seconds)
• Z – Zones (1 – 4)
• RPM – Revs per Minute
• HRM – Heart Rate Monitor
GENERAL – The humidity is now starting to rise and the heat continues. If you can’t go out early in the morning or late at night consider doing some of the sessions indoors on an exercise machine. Take care when swimming outdoors as you will be sweating (although you won’t notice it) so make sure you hydrate properly (ok, slightly harder to do in the sea). Drink more water than you want to by sipping small and often which will avoid a stitch. Take two bottles of water minimum with you on your bike rides and don’t, as my daughter did last weekend, go with only one bottle and get de-hydrated at the furthest point from the car!
This week we will look at how local competitions will help towards race preparations.
There are a number of organisations that run regular events throughout the year and they will be featured in this column. The most regular are the Bahrain Road Runners (See www.bahrainroadrunners.com/) which take place on Friday mornings. Don’t train specifically for any of the local events instead train through them. That’s to say we will not rest up specifically before any of these events but use them as part of our race preparations and training schedule. The Bahrain Road Runners will be running the following events which will all be used to support our training programme:
• September 18 – Water Run at location TBC
• October 2 – Aquathon (Swim followed by a run) at Hamala Beach Resort. You can enter either as an individual or as a team so one does the swim, one the run.
-Children swim 300m and run 2,000m
-Adults swim 600m and run 6,000m
• October 16 – Olympic Triathlon (Sofitel). This will be a critical indicator of our training
Distances – 1500m swim / 40km bike / 10km run
• October 30 – 5km Grand Prix at Muharraq between the two bridges
• November 6 – 10km Grand Prix at Muharraq between the two bridges
• November 13 – 15km Grand Prix at Muharraq between the two bridges
• November 20 – Bahrain Challenge
• November 27 – Bahrain Marathon Relay at the BIC
• December 5 (Saturday) – Ironman Bahrain
In due course the Ministry of Interior will announce a couple of events, the Ritz Carlton hold regular Auqathons and I am hearing that there may be a series of three Aquathons starting in October.
Competitions are an excellent way of judging your improvement and getting you to exercise at race (or above) pace. They can also be fun.
So far we have looked at bilateral breathing and length of stroke (counting strokes on some lengths and maintaining a low number). This week it’s all about your body position. If you are like me who was a runner who learnt to swim and has heavy (and lazy) legs in the water the chances are that your legs are too low and causing drag. The illustration below shows the correct and incorrect body positioning:
Low legs causes additional drag and resistance and will slow you down. Wearing a wet suit helps by adding boyancy but focus on getting your hips higher in the water and maintaining a slow and even leg kick to keep those legs streamlined. In the pool you can use a pull float to keep those legs in the right position.
Keeping you head low also helps keep your legs high:
* SESSION 1 – Pool
• Warm up
400m F/S followed by 200m kick followed by 200m pull (no rest in between swim / kick / pull. R60 • Main set
6 x 100m R30. Each 100m to get progressively faster. All Zone 3. R120 at end.
6 x 75m R30. As above getting progressively faster at Zone 3. R120
6 x 50m R30 As above.
• Warm Down
200m F/S steady Zone 2 R30
100m Alt Stroke steady Zone 2 R30
100M F/S steady Zone 2 R30
* Session 2 - Pool
• Warm up
6 x 100 F/S all steady Zone 2
• Main set
400m F/S R30
200m Kick R30
400m F/S Pull R30
400m F/S R30
Rest 120
6 x 100m Hard / Zone 4 R30
• Warm Down
200m F/S Steady R30
100m Alt Stroke R30
100m F/S
Total - 3,000m
* Session 3 – Open Water
4 x 500m R60 between each 500m
Total - 2,000m
Last week I looked at cadence or rhythm (try to average about 90 RPM) and this week it’s all about even power. Most of us will have a favoured leg which provide more power, however, uneven cycling can lead to early leg fatigue as the workload is not spread evenly and this in turn will lead to going slower or worse overuse injury.
Try to focus this week on maintaining an even cadence and similar power on each leg. During the turbo session we will try a spin out (peddling faster against low resistance. Cycling weekly describes it as ‘a great way to ensure you are keeping the pressure on continuously throughout each revolution. As you have little resistance, you can push down excessively during the downstroke, but have to think about all parts of each stroke to prevent the pedals from running away from you’.
* SESSION 1 – INDOORS / Turbo Trainer – Power Hour
• Warm up – 15 minutes easy gear
• Main set
3 x 2 minutes HARD (Zone 4) in high gear (lots of resistance) R90 Spinning in lowest gear
4 minutes easy spinning
3 x 1 minute HARD (Zone 4 / 5) in high gear. R60
4 minutes easy spinning
3 x 30 seconds HARD / Max effort in highest gear R 30
• Warm down - 15 minutes in Zone 1 / Easy bring heart rate down.
* SESSION 2 – OUTDOORS (remember this is a bike to run)
• 90 minutes ride in Zone 2 / Steady but ensure you go further than last week followed by a 5km or 25 minutes steady run (Zone 2)
* SESSION 3 – OUTDOORS (You will need a Hill. Try the one from Al Areen up past the Lost Paradise of Dilmun Water Park to the Al Areen Palace Hotel & Spa)
• Warm up – 20 minutes easy spinning in a low gear at steady pace / Zone 2
• Main set – Start at the bottom of the hill. Start in a middle gear that you can accelerate in and keep shifting up until you reach the highest gear / output you can for the hill. Keep going until you reach the roundabout just past the entrance.
Use the return down the hill as rest and recovery
Repeat five times or for 30 minutes.
• Warm down – 20 minutes easy spinning in a low gear at steady pace / Zone 2
Each week aim for three runs. They will be broken down into:
• A steady run at gradually longer distances.
• Some form of interval training be it on a track or known distance (400 or 800m).
• A bike to run.
* Session 1 – Steady Run.
• Warm up (before you start the run. Try to avoid going straight off. Always do some form of warm up)
Mobility stretches
200m Jogs
• Main – 50 minutes at Zone 2 / 3 (just below race pace)
• Warm down
4 x 200m strides (just above race pace)
Dynamic stretches. Don’t push the stretches just hold for 20 seconds each. Work from your feet up stretching each major running group muscle.
* Session 2 – Intervals on a track if possible
• Warm up (get into a routine of doing the same warm up before each training session or race)
Mobility stretches
400m easy
Mobility stretches
400m easy
• Main set (all at Zone 3 / Race pace)
8 x 400m all at Hard / Zone 4. R60. Ensure they are all even paced so take the first few steady and maintain the pace.
3 x 300m as above R45.
• Warm down
Dynamic stretches. Don’t push the stretches just hold for 20 seconds each. Work from your feet up stretching each major running group muscle.
Total distance – 4,900m
Session 3 – Bike to run
• Following your weekend bike give yourself three to five minutes rest as you stow away the bike then go for a 5km or max 25-minute run at a steady pace (Zone 2) whichever is the shortest.
