Gearing up for the competition

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 20 – 16 Days until IRONMAN 70.3 Middle East Championship Bahrain

* Training programme for the week starting Sunday to Saturday, November 28 So the hard work is behind you? Wrong. The last 19 weeks of training might be behind you but you now face two weeks of tapering (NOT rest) as we start to prepare for the competition.

A lot of people think they will just rest up a few days out or indeed continue training up to the event and they will be OK. Far too many athletes start an event ill-prepared, tired or carrying an injury. Be smart and prepare properly for the race. If you taper correctly you will race faster and be far less likely to pick up an injury.

When you train in simple terms you damage your muscles and they then repair stronger during rest or inactive periods.

When training hard the ability of your body to benefit from the ‘repair’ phase is much reduced. During tapering we will increase the rest, reduce the workload and focus more on speed and less on distance. Think of it as a repair phase.

Tapering can’t be done in a matter of days, you need a couple of weeks to get your body right.

It’s also not just about the physical training. You need to adjust your lifestyle, get much more rest, eat sensibly and cut down, or better still, abstain from alcohol, fizzy drinks and if you smoke, cigarettes.

So don’t get frustrated over the next two weeks or panic that you are not doing enough. By race day your body should be craving to go faster and longer.

Lastly, if you are cycling at Ironman consider doing the race rehearsal this Friday, details to be published on the Bahrain Triathlon website, bahraintri.com

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

* SESSION 1 – Pool
• Warm up
5 x 100m (All easy) with 60 seconds rest
F/S
Kick
F/S
Pull
F/S
• Main set (all at Z3/ race pace)
4 x 200m F/S race pace R90
5 x 100m F/S as above R60
10 x 50 F/S as above R30
• Warm down
o 300m F/S / second stroke
Total - 2600m

* Session 2 – Pool
• Warm up
100m / 150m / 200m / 150m / 100m all steady R45
• Main set
10 x 100m race pace R60
10 x 50m race pace R60
• Warm down
200m easy
Total – 2400m

* Session 3 – Open water
• 4 x 500m steady R90 after each

* SESSION 1 – Indoors / Turbo Trainer
• Warm up – 15 minutes steady.
• Main set
10 x 2 minutes at close to race pace, rest 2 minutes in between
10 x 1 minute, rest 2 minutes
• Warm down – 10 minutes in an easy gear, bringing your heart rate down

* SESSION 2 – Outdoors (remember this is a Bike to Run)
• 90km steady bordering on easy. Take your time and be fresh (or as close as possible) at the end. 5km or 30 minutes steady run (Zone 2)

* SESSION 3 – Outdoors
• 120 minutes steady ride.

* Session 1 – Steady run
• Warm up – Normal warm up drills / strides.
• Main – 15km steady / well 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 – 60 minutes Fartlec session
• 10 minutes steady
• 40 minutes at run 3 minutes, hard for 2 minutes, jog for 1, repeat.
• 10 minutes steady warm down followed by stretching.

Session 3 – Bike to run
• Following your weekend bike give yourself 3-5 minutes rest as you stow away the bike then go for a 5km or max 30 minutes run at a steady pace (Zone 2) whichever is the shortest.

***

It was a return to form for Luke Bell as he claimed the Challenge Shepparton title on Sunday. The Australian, who was forced to withdraw from two races this year including Kona, was definitely in his element in the cool and windy conditions in Victoria.

“I was quite happy when I woke up this morning and saw the winds,” he said. “Training has gone exceptionally well, I just haven’t been able to deliver on race day which has been frustrating for the past six months. ”

Fredrik Croneborg repeated his second-place finish at Ironman Malaysia but logged faster times across the swim, bike, and run before finding himself in a sprint dash versus the eventual winner.

“I really wanted the win and dug really deep, but after a hard battle with Mike Aigroz and Harry Wiltshire running side by side for the entire marathon, it was down to the last 200 metres when Mike could outsprint me,” the Swede said.

Brent McMahon salvaged a second-place finish at Ironman Arizona with the fastest marathon of the day. The Canadian exited the swim in second place with a two-minute buffer from the chase pack, but suffered a flat tyre on the second loop of the three-loop bike course that cost him precious minutes to repair.