Written by: Matt Fitzgerald

Click here to learn more about the book.

Based on these standards, anyone would have considered what Dave Scott and Mark Allen achieved in the 1989 Ironman World Championship, forever remembered as Iron War, to be impossible. Allen won the race in 8:09:15, demolishing Scott’s record by nearly 20 minutes. Scott finished second, just 58 seconds back, after having raced at his rival’s side for the first 138.9 miles of the 140.6-mile contest. Allen’s and Scott’s marathon splits were 2:40:04 and 2:41:02, respectively. Third-place finisher Greg Welch did not cross the line until 23 minutes after Allen had.

Impossible is impossible. When athletes do the seemingly impossible, they are actually redefining the possible. Put another way, they are exposing existing limits as illusions. But the question remains: How were Dave Scott and Mark Allen able to push so far beyond the illusory limit of Dave Scott’s 8:28:37 event record in their unforgettable Iron War?

RELATED – Iron War: Uncut Interview With Dave Scott And Mark Allen

I spent a year trying to answer this question in writing my newly published book, Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run. Part of the answer I arrived at is that fatigue—the ultimate performance limiter in endurance sports—is voluntary. Fatigue is not itself an illusion, but it is essentially a choice. Every athlete must make the choice to submit to fatigue at some point, but the most motivated and mentally strong athletes are sometimes able to resist making that choice better than they ever have before, and that’s when records are broken.

Fatigue in an event such as Ironman never feels like a choice, but scientists have proven it is. Among the more powerful proofs is a study conducted by an exercise physiologist named Samuele Marcora. In this study, Marcora asked athletes to hop on stationary bikes and perform a pair of all-out five-second sprints. The first sprint was performed in a fresh and rested state. But the second sprint was performed immediately after the athletes had ridden to complete exhaustion at a high but sub-maximal intensity. Basically, these athletes were required to pedal at a high, fixed wattage until they were totally wrecked and could not sustain the required output a second longer. They were then immediately required—without forewarning—to perform the second all-out sprint.

Written by: Matt Fitzgerald

Trust me, I’ve tried it. Several years ago I raced the Los Angeles Triathlon. The night before the competition I stayed with a friend who happened to live within walking distance of the start line in Santa Monica. Somehow I managed to sleep through two alarms. When my host came into my room to rouse me, it was 10 minutes before my wave start time. I threw myself together, dashed out the door and sprinted to the beach. Having missed my wave, I joined the next, the only blue swim cap-wearing fool in a sea of green swim caps.

I did not have a good race. The main problem was not that I had missed my usual warm-up or that I simply hadn’t been awake long enough to function well; it was that I had been forced to skip breakfast.

The pre-triathlon meal is important. It has a couple of important jobs to do. The first job is bringing your liver glycogen stores and blood glucose concentration up to top levels. During the night your body’s precious carbohydrate fuel stores are reduced by your nervous system, which runs on glucose. Therefore when you wake up after the overnight fast your liver glycogen stores and blood glucose concentration have been brought down to levels that are less than optimal for finishing a triathlon. But a high-carbohydrate meal can restore those fuel reserves in a jiffy.

When you wake up in the morning your body is also not in the ideal hormonal state for racing. In Hardwired for Fitness, authors Robert Portman and John Ivy point out that, first thing in the morning, before breakfast, large amounts of the stress hormone cortisol are flowing through the body. A high-carbohydrate meal brings cortisol levels down and releases insulin, the fuel-injection hormone that delivers carbs to working muscles during a triathlon.

It takes a fairly large amount of carbohydrate to do these jobs optimally. Research supports 150 grams, or 600 calories, of carbohydrate intake in the pre-triathlon meal. The problem is that it takes a little time to digest and absorb that much food, and it is important that the pre-race meal be cleared from the stomach before the race starts, or you’re likely to experience GI distress during the race. Most experts recommend consuming a pre-triathlon meal of that size three hours before the race start. That means 4:00 am, if your wave starts at 7:00. Ouch!

But what about sleep? Isn’t that important too? There’s the rub. It’s next to impossible to maximize both pre-race fueling and rest before an early-morning triathlon. Some triathletes creatively work through this conundrum by setting two alarms for different times. They set one for, say, 3:00 am. Upon hearing it they sit up in bed and eat a banana or drink a high-carb meal replacement drink. Then they go back to sleep and wake up again, for good, when the second alarm sounds at, say, 5:00 am. At that time they consume a second dose of carbohydrate. This way they get something close to the maximum amount of carbohydrate and the maximum amount of sleep.

The only problem with this strategy is that pre-race nerves prevent some athletes from falling asleep again after that first alarm goes off. But if nerves are not a huge issue for you, this approach may be worth a try.

The only other alternatives are sacrificing sleep and sacrificing carbs. That is, you either “sleep in” and necessarily consume a smaller pre-race meal (say, 75 grams of carbs two hours before your waves start) or wake up an hour earlier to eat a larger meal. You must make this choice based on your individual needs. Let’s look at a historical example of what I mean.

The past year of my life was spent learning everything I could about the legendary triathletes Dave Scott and Mark Allen for my newly published book, Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run. Now, Dave Scott was known for his huge appetite—his hollow leg was a major theme in many of the profiles written about him in the 1980s. Mark Allen, on the other hand, was a huge sleeper—his 10-hours-a-day habit was the theme for one Sports Illustrated article about him. On the morning of their epic showdown at the 1989 Ironman, Dave Scott woke up at four o’clock and ate three slices of dry toast and three bananas. Mark Allen woke up an hour later and ate a much smaller breakfast. Both men broke the Ironman course record by more than 18 minutes that day, in part because each had done what was best for him.

So, the question to ask yourself in planning your pre-triathlon meal strategy is, essentially: “Am I like Dave Scott or am I like Mark Allen?”

*

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress, 2011). He is also a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfitzgerald.org.

Written by: Mark Allen

Most courses you encounter in racing are going to have specific profile characteristics that define their uniqueness. Some will have hills, others can be totally flat and there is certainly going to be a variety of undulations. Let’s look specifically at how you can develop your weekly training routes for the run segment so that you are ready for the course you will be targeting in a big triathlon.

First, it is important to choose your run terrain profile based on the time of season you are in. During the early part of your year when you are laying your base fitness, try to pick runs that include all three types of profiles: flat, rolling and hilly. It is best to choose a specific profile for a specific workout rather than trying to target all three in every run. So one day you can run a flat loop, the next day one that has some rolling undulations and a third day one that has some fairly rigorous hills. Even if your races will be mostly one specific terrain, such as flat, variety early in the season helps to strengthen overall base fitness and give you strength that running just one terrain would miss.

As you get closer to your key race or races, start to shift your days so that you have about 50 percent of your workouts on the terrain type of your competition and then split the other days up 25 percent each on the other two terrains. So for example, if you know you have a fairly flat run course, try to do half your runs on flats and only about 25 percent of your runs in hills and 25 percent on rolling terrain. If the bulk of your runs are hilly, this can really beat up your legs and require more recovery time.

In the later part of your training when you have added in speed work, include weeks during which you do fast running on the specific terrain of your race. When you do this, try to overemphasize the key aspect of the terrain. For example, if the triathlon you are targeting has a lot of hills, do speed work on terrain that is either steeper and/or longer than what you will encounter in your race. The steeper part is usually easy to do for running. The longer part may be impossible, depending on the course profile. But overemphasizing the key feature of the course will make the actual race seem relatively easy if you have done fast running on something more challenging than you will encounter at the event.

Finally, consider the running surface you train on. Many try to find trails to do most of their runs on, which is great for saving your legs and joints, but not good for getting you ready for the muscle breakdown that you will encounter if your race is on pavement. If you do a lot of off-road running, it will be important to shift more of your running back onto roads as you approach your race, say within the final four to eight weeks, so that your legs strengthen up for the impact and breakdown that occurs on harder surfaces. This is especially important for long races such as an iron-distance triathlon, during which you will be running a full marathon. If every long run you did in preparation was on dirt trails, your quads would feel like hamburger meat before you got halfway through the marathon. So prepare early, but make that shift to harder surfaces gradually so that you adapt rather than just break down.

Whenever you put the word “greatest” in front of an athlete’s name, people start to bristle. And while it’s hard to pick the greatest male iron-distance triathlete of all time, Inside Triathlon magazine’s staff got to talking about our picks for the athletes to consider. In fairness, we’ve listed them in alphabetical order. Let us know who you think by contacting us on Twitter and Facebook. To subscribe, click here.

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Whenever you put the word “greatest” in front of an athlete’s name, people start to bristle. And while it’s hard to pick the greatest male triathlete of all time, Inside Triathlon magazine’s staff got to talking about our picks for the athletes to consider. In fairness, we’ve listed them in alphabetical order. Let us know who you think by contacting us on Twitter and Facebook. To subscribe, click here.

See also - Inside Triathlon: The 10 Greatest Female Triathletes Of All Time
[sig:CourtneyBaird]

Working on planning your schedule for the 2011 triathlon racing season? In this article, Ironman world champ Mark Allen provides advice on getting the training process started, as well as planning races for the season.

To get through the year and race well when it counts will take some planning. I like to start with my mid-season important race and plan backward from there to where I am at right now.

This is how it works. Find the date of your most important race that will be coming up sometime in the next 12-20 weeks. Anything closer than that and you will not be able to take full advantage of a good buildup/speed/taper program. On the flip-side of that scenario, if you are focusing your training on a race that will take place farther than 20 weeks from now, you risk getting totally burned out before that date. This is the classic “I was in great shape two weeks ago” example of peaking too early.

Do you have the date of your first key race?

To plan your schedule so that you will arrive at the start line ready to race at full-force, now do the following. Start counting back from that date and use the notes on the next page to break your preparations into three vital phases.

To read the complete article click here.

Written by: T.J. Murphy

Spurred on by advice coming from the likes of Peter Reid and Mark Allen, some triathletes, like Montana’s Linsey Corbin, break a one-month fast from coffee just hours before the Hawaii Ironman cannon goes off.

Three-time Hawaii Ironman champion was known for his massive capacity for discipline. His hunger for winning routinely beat out his hunger for any vice or habit that might interfere in the slightest with his year-in-year-out quest for the championship.

Reid, in fact, reported that in the buildup to the Hawaii Ironman he would keep his cupboards empty—no food in the house except for the minimal amount he required so that he could sustain a fierce training level but would also burn his body down to the bare essentials. “I would go to bed so hungry,” he told Inside Triathlon, “I would have a headache.”

Despite this audacious level of discipline, it was coffee that Reid missed the most. In his blog leading up to race day Reid’s excitement for the competition seemed equal to his excitement to enjoy a cup of his beloved joe. Following advice by Mark Allen Reid went off coffee during his buildup weeks to sharpen his mind and body for the level of racing that consistently landed him in contention for the win.

Consider these thoughts from Reid’s blog in the days before the 2004 Hawaii Ironman:

October 11, 2004: Some of you might know that I am a HUGE coffee guy.  I love a good cup of coffee first thing in the morning.  Other than my new 42 inch plasma TV my favorite thing in my little home is my kick ass Saeco coffee machine.  It is one of those fully automated suckers.  You hit a button and it makes the most amazing Americano coffee.  In the past I would go off coffee on travel day to Kona which was yesterday.  Even then I would cheat a bit by drinking the odd cup of decaf coffee.   One of the biggest thing Mark [Allen] felt that I needed to do this year was cut coffee out three weeks from race day.  THREE WEEKS!  I haven’t been off coffee for more than five days since I started drinking coffee 14 years ago to make it to early swim practice.  I managed to find this pretty good tasting tea that I have substituted for my coffee.  Anyway, I can’t wait until race day morning for a good cup!

October 16, 2004 (day before race): This morning I woke up early answered some e-mails then crashed again.  It was important that I got out of bed early so that tomorrow’s early wake up call won’t be such a shock to the system.  Although, I am going to be pretty excited to get out of bed tomorrow – COFFEE!!!

As it is with these things what works for one champion often gets passed down to the new generation also pursuing ultimate performance. Reid gets much of the credit for the fact that almost all the top pros, and plenty of age-groupers, come to train in Kona in the weeks leading up to the race thanks to his fabled “Kona Camp.” Likewise, the Coffee Fast has also begun to catch on. Witness a recent blog post by Ironman Coeur d’Alene champion Linsey Corbin from her site linseycorbin.com, where she goes into the specifics of why:

Wanting to make the most of the above situation on race day, I eliminate caffeine typically 4-6 weeks before the main event. My reasons for cutting out caffeine:

1. There is no need to mask being tired. A month out from my goal race is all about getting proper rest & recovery to make the most of my sessions.

2. Caffeine is a diuretic. This can lead to dehydration and gastric distress. Neither of which set you up for a great Ironman race. It’s hot in Kona and the last thing you need is to be dehydrated race-week.

3. Cutting out caffeine a month out allows my tolerance to caffeine to decrease, so on race day I get a maximum caffeine effect. Perfect!

4. A gift to the Hawaiian Gods. Before each big event I write down a list of things I have sacrificed and given in the name of Ironman. While there are physical benefits to giving up the caffeine, I think it just as hard socially. Its something I have given and on race day I don’t forget that.

5. My Lava Java bill will be cut in half.

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Photo by: Kurt Hoy

Mark Allen is known as The Grip and in 1997 he proved why when he came from way off the pace to catch and pass Thomas Hellriegel of Germany in the last few miles of the marathon to win his sixth and last Ironman title. This interview is from September 2008 when Huddle and I chatted with The Grip.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

The first race I ever did was in San Diego in 1982. That seems like a lifetime and a world of experience ago. There was nothing familiar in that initial triathlon race experience. I had not put together a fast swim, bike and run—ever. I was not a stranger to competition growing up as a swimmer, but this was different. There were no moms cheering from the pool deck, giving reassuring smiles to calm my nerves. I certainly wouldn’t find a nice roped-off lane line to follow, just a furious, cold ocean for the swim. Beyond that, the second two thirds of the race were such an unknown to me. I really had no clue about pacing. How would I know if I was going too easy, too fast or pegging it just right? But I made it through and learned a few things that might help you in your journey as a triathlete.

Be Comfortable with the Unknown

The first thing every beginner needs to accept is that you are indeed a beginner; the mechanics of racing might feel awkward. This is OK! It can take years to learn to temper your nerves and find your approach to racing. But what follows here will help you jump ahead of the learning curve and race well your first time out.

Cover Your Basics

From day one in the sport all good things start with training. Before the exotic (and expensive) bikes can work their magic, you have to swim, bike and run over and over again. This preparation starts in the weeks and months leading up to your competition. Draw strength from your workouts. You will forever be learning how to perfect this three-part sport. No one has it all buttoned up.

Plan the Details

Some details to consider include planning what you will wear in each segment of a race, creating a strategy for taking in calories and fluids during the day and practicing your actual transitions. Don’t save these decisions until race week. Figure out beforehand if you will need a full wetsuit or none at all, if you will take bars, gels or just sports drinks on the bike and whether to do the entire race in the same outfit or change partway through. Over time the details become second nature and will be a strength that helps you perform better.

Locate Your Stuff

Try to find a way to make your bike stand out so you don't lose it in the sea of bikes on race day.

This may seem like a rudimentary idea, but it’s not. I guarantee you that how your gear looks in a transition area in the wee hours of the morning will be very different than it does when you come out of the water and your eyes and brain are waterlogged. A bike rack full of equipment can look totally different if half the crowd is gone by the time you try to find yours. Have a plan. Pick a stationary landmark in the area that will help you find your bike, your running shoes or anything else. It might mean placing a colorful towel near your gear or finding a unique object near your spot that will tell you you’re in the correct row.

Build, Build, Build

The No. 1 rookie mistake is to go too hard too early. There are many reasons why beginners make this mistake. The first is that by race day you are usually the most rested you have been for a while, and when that surge of extra energy is coupled with race day nerves, you can swim like a hydroplane for the first 500 meters in the water. But guess what? There is a lot of racing to do after those initial opening minutes.

You can avoid this mistake by thinking conservatively. Hold back about 5 percent to 10 percent from the pace you feel you can sustain during the first third of the swim. Continue to hold back about 10 to 15 seconds slower per hundred meters than you can typically swim during the second third. Then, just maintain your pace for the final third.

Once on the bike, give yourself a few miles to get the blood out of your upper body and into your legs before really pushing the pace. But again, pick a speed and effort level that you feel you can build on throughout the entire bike ride. Don’t try to peg it and then hold it. That strategy leads to a lot of tough moments later in the race.

One of the top mistakes beginners make is pushing too hard too early in the race. Photo: Larry Rosa

One trick to help you pace your energy output is called “soft pedaling,” where you push on the pedals with the sensation that you are letting up on that pressure at the same time. Try to get the feel of this in training. It is easiest to get the hang of when you maintain a modestly high cadence rate (around 90 to 95 rpms). Riding with a strong tailwind is another good way to practice soft-pedaling. If you find yourself turning big gears with a low cadence and really pushing hard on the pedals in the opening miles of the bike, well, good luck to you!

For the run, the same rule holds, which means you should feel like you are floating rather than racing during the opening miles. Keep a small amount of energy and speed in reserve so that you can gradually increase your pace until you find that perfect rhythm that is both competitive and sustainable. It is much easier to back off 1 percent to 2 percent from a pace that was gradually built into than it is to come back from pushing way too hard in the opening miles of the run.

The Perfect Race

I tell people all the time that there is no such thing as a perfect race, but you can run a race perfectly. What this means is that things happen in racing that are, at the very least, unwelcome and, at worst, unexpected. It’s how you handle each of them that can make every race “perfect.” You always try to visualize what your perfect race will look like and how you will deal with situations that are challenging. But the reality of racing is that usually you will encounter situations that you hoped you would not have to deal with and situations that can seem off-the-charts tough.

Racing perfectly means that you deal with difficult situations calmly. If you get a flat, don’t freak out, just change the tire. If you get kicked during the swim, just keep swimming. If you miss a water stop on the run, pick up some extra at the next one. Whatever it is, just deal with it calmly and move on. That is what having the perfect race is all about.

No Bad Races

There is really no such thing as a bad race. Certainly there are expectations that far exceed reality, and there are days where absolutely everything imaginable goes wrong. But there is really never a bad race—with one exception. That is the race where nothing is learned that will help you out in the future. Each moment in your race day is a chance to note something that will help you in the future. It might be a stark reality that tells you how to train better for the next race. It could be personal insight into a weakness that you become inspired to transform into a strength. The toughest races are often the ones that give you the pot of gold for the future. But this only happens if you reflect on them and learn something that betters you as a person and gives you insight that helps you race better the next time.

As for the ultimate race of your life? Well, it is only after the finish line has been crossed and enough time has passed to reflect back on the day that you will really be able to see how great of a race you just had. In the moment of having the race of your life, it will hurt, you might doubt your preparation and you could ask yourself a thousand times why you are even there. But between those moments of questioning and doubt, there can be magical miles where your mind is quiet and your body is working at its top efficiency, where you ignore the moment before that was tough or the next instant that is unknown. The best race of your life exists in the quiet beating of your feet on the pavement and the breath of air that is sustaining your efforts. That is the mindset that will take you from being a novice in the sport to having the best experiences you can.

Mark Allen is the six-time winner of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. Based in Santa Cruz, Calif., Mark has a state of the art online triathlon training program at Markallenonline.com.

See also – 15 Must-Haves: Essential Beginner Tri Gear

In the May/June issue of Inside Triathlon, Senior Editor Matt Fitzgerald asked a few of triathlon’s greats how they would train Lance Armstrong for the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Here’s Chris Carmichael’s take on the cyclist’s return to multisport.

Lance Armstrong will compete in the 2011 Hawaii Ironman. We know this because, when asked about the plan, Armstrong’s longtime personal cycling coach, Chris Carmichael, says, “There’s really nothing that’s going on with the Ironman in Kona at this stage. He’s just so focused on the Tour. He’s talked about doing it, although he’s really not made a full commitment to it yet. I know he’s intrigued by it, but he hasn’t said that he’s definitely doing it. We have spent a lot of time in Hawaii, riding parts of the course and stuff like that, but he’s not doing any running, he’s not doing any swimming, he’s not doing anything besides getting ready for the Tour. He’s never said, ‘I’m definitely going to do Kona.’ He’s said, ‘I’m interested in it.’”

Here is a classic case of what Shakespeare called protesting too much. If Armstrong was not definitely planning to race the Hawaii Ironman, it would not have taken his coach 175 words to say as much.

This would not be Armstrong's first go at the sport.

Since Carmichael himself first suggested that Armstrong would compete in Kona next year, speculating on how well he will do there—and how he ought to prepare for the event—has become a favorite parlor game among endurance athletes. We thought it would be fun to have individuals in the best positions to speculate play this game formally, beginning with the man who will have the primary responsibility of preparing Armstrong for Kona: an obliging Chris Carmichael.

IT: What is the general strategy you will employ to prepare Lance for Kona?

CC: Obviously, the bike is not an issue. It’s really focused on the other two sports—being able to do everything in unison and hit certain numbers that I think would be important to meet along the way. You have to make sure you’re tying everything together. Lance is a good swimmer, he’s a good runner, but he’s got to be able to do all of that along with [riding] 112 miles, all when it’s extremely hot in Kona.

It’s easy to just look at one sport and go, “Well, Lance can run a sub-2:45 marathon.” Well, yeah, but can he do it after the swim and bike in Kona? That’s a big question mark. He needs to bring together his swim so he’s economical and not going through a lot of energy just to stay close. The same goes for getting off the bike and being able to run. That’s very different from just being able to ride 112 miles.

And along the way there are nutritional requirements that are different than they are for pro cyclists. You don’t have a team car that can come up and bring refreshments to you. So, those would be the challenges, and they’ll be difficult to overcome. People who think that he’s going to go out there and win are underestimating the athletes that are in the race and underestimating the event itself.

Every triathlete faces the challenge of trying to balance his training to maximize his strengths while shoring up his weaknesses. Do you have a sense of how much Lance needs to be willing to give up on the bike for the sake of the swim and the run?

You’re right. Every triathlete has that. They’re not great in every sport. Usually a triathlete comes from a background in one particular sport, and that’s usually the strength. It’s a balance.

So you give up a little on the bike to be able to get off and still run well. Historically, the event has been won on the run. Not all the time, but more often than not, so that’s an important element.

But if he makes the commitment to do that event, you don’t want him to do his first Ironman in Kona. That’s sort of a no-brainer, but it’s something people need to understand. You want him to know the sensations of that type of competition—the stress and the intensity of competition of an Ironman competition—before he does Kona.

One thing we’ve always admired about Lance is that he’s not afraid to fail. As much as he hates to lose, he is willing to put himself in situations where the odds are against him. How does that element of his mental makeup play into his best approach to preparing for the Hawaii Ironman?

That really is his strength. When you’re not afraid to fail, you’re willing to go for it. But look: Lance is a professional bike racer. He is not a professional triathlete. When he trained for his marathons, he was intense about it, and I think the same intensity would apply to an Ironman event. But he’s never said to me, “I’m going to go out and win this thing.” He’s just said, “This would be a cool thing to do at some point.” That’s his background; it’s his roots. I think it’s important to him.

But you’re not going to see him just do it on a lark. You’re going to see him prepared and ready to put on a good, solid performance that he feels good about. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s vying for the win. If he feels that he raced against the best athletes in the world and he was up there, I think he’ll be satisfied with that.

Another part of Lance’s M.O. is building the best team possible around him. What sort of team do you see him pulling together for an assault on Kona?

He has a long-standing relationship with [retired professional triathlete] Jimmy Riccitello—they’re good friends. I think he’ll look to Jimmy from an experiential standpoint. We haven’t talked about anything specific, but that’s very much the approach—to make sure he’s got the best and brightest around him in all areas. That’s been the approach we’ve taken in cycling. So I wouldn’t be surprised if, once he makes a commitment to [Ironman], we start looking around and saying, “OK, who do we need to get onto this team to help out?”

Is there a possibility of consulting, however informally, with the likes of Mark Allen, Dave Scott—people who have had a lot of success in Kona?

Sure. Why not? Those guys are great. I know Lance has a lot of respect for both of those guys. I would see no reason not to talk to two legends of the sport that know it well and know the event better than anybody—any male at least—and are experienced coaches as well. If it gets to that point where Lance has made a commitment and wants to put together a team around him, I’m sure he’ll be wanting us to reach out and get guys like Mark and Dave involved.

Of course, Dave Scott was 40 years old when he finished second in Kona in 1994. Lance will be 40 if he competes in 2011. Is there anything that you would do differently in preparing Lance for Kona at age 40 than you might have done with him five, six or seven years ago?

I get this question a lot. The way I looked at last year was that, if he plateaued and he wasn’t continuing to adapt to a training load that was comparable to the training loads from his heyday from 1999 to 2005—if I didn’t see continuing physiological adaptations—then I would start to ask, “Is this related to being out of elite competition for four years or the fact that he’s five or six years older than before?” That is the perspective I’ve taken.

But that hasn’t happened—he has continued to adapt. When we’ve put him under a training load he’s come out of that stronger. We’ve seen physiological adaptations occurring.

If you took a 22 year old, and he went from racing in elite competitions to just being an active person for four years, and put him under a training load, how quickly would you see him adapt? It gets hard to define what is age-related and what is the result of being removed from elite competition.

Luckily, [he hasn’t plateaued]. He keeps getting stronger as he gets deeper into training. But there are things that are different about him. He’s had to work a lot harder on his flexibility. We’re taking more recovery days. I don’t know if some of it is tied into psychologically being more fresh for activities. When you’re younger, you kind of want everything all at once, and now he’s more mature. It’s hard to know if that is age-related or experience-related.

So, to answer your question, there’s nothing that would make me say definitely, “Because he’s 40, we’re going to make these changes.”

Click here to read the complete article, which includes the opinions of Paul Huddle, Lance Watson, Mark Allen and Gordo Byrn.

To subscribe to Inside Triathlon click here.

Lance Armstrong will compete in the 2011 Hawaii Ironman. We know this because, when asked about the plan, Armstrong’s longtime personal cycling coach, Chris Carmichael, says, “There’s really nothing that’s going on with the Ironman in Kona at this stage. He’s just so focused on the Tour. He’s talked about doing it, although he’s really not made a full commitment to it yet. I know he’s intrigued by it, but he hasn’t said that he’s definitely doing it. We have spent a lot of time in Hawaii, riding parts of the course and stuff like that, but he’s not doing any running, he’s not doing any swimming, he’s not doing anything besides getting ready for the Tour. He’s never said, ‘I’m definitely going to do Kona.’ He’s said, ‘I’m interested in it.’”

Here is a classic case of what Shakespeare called protesting too much. If Armstrong was not definitely planning to race the Hawaii Ironman, it would not have taken his coach 175 words to say as much.

This would not be Armstrong's first go at the sport.

Since Carmichael himself first suggested that Armstrong would compete in Kona next year, speculating on how well he will do there—and how he ought to prepare for the event—has become a favorite parlor game among endurance athletes. We thought it would be fun to have individuals in the best positions to speculate play this game formally, beginning with the man who will have the primary responsibility of preparing Armstrong for Kona: an obliging Chris Carmichael.

Chris Carmichael
President, Carmichael Training Systems

IT: What is the general strategy you will employ to prepare Lance for Kona?

CC: Obviously, the bike is not an issue. It’s really focused on the other two sports—being able to do everything in unison and hit certain numbers that I think would be important to meet along the way. You have to make sure you’re tying everything together. Lance is a good swimmer, he’s a good runner, but he’s got to be able to do all of that along with [riding] 112 miles, all when it’s extremely hot in Kona.

It’s easy to just look at one sport and go, “Well, Lance can run a sub-2:45 marathon.” Well, yeah, but can he do it after the swim and bike in Kona? That’s a big question mark. He needs to bring together his swim so he’s economical and not going through a lot of energy just to stay close. The same goes for getting off the bike and being able to run. That’s very different from just being able to ride 112 miles.

And along the way there are nutritional requirements that are different than they are for pro cyclists. You don’t have a team car that can come up and bring refreshments to you. So, those would be the challenges, and they’ll be difficult to overcome. People who think that he’s going to go out there and win are underestimating the athletes that are in the race and underestimating the event itself.

Every triathlete faces the challenge of trying to balance his training to maximize his strengths while shoring up his weaknesses. Do you have a sense of how much Lance needs to be willing to give up on the bike for the sake of the swim and the run?

You’re right. Every triathlete has that. They’re not great in every sport. Usually a triathlete comes from a background in one particular sport, and that’s usually the strength. It’s a balance.

So you give up a little on the bike to be able to get off and still run well. Historically, the event has been won on the run. Not all the time, but more often than not, so that’s an important element.

But if he makes the commitment to do that event, you don’t want him to do his first Ironman in Kona. That’s sort of a no-brainer, but it’s something people need to understand. You want him to know the sensations of that type of competition—the stress and the intensity of competition of an Ironman competition—before he does Kona.

One thing we’ve always admired about Lance is that he’s not afraid to fail. As much as he hates to lose, he is willing to put himself in situations where the odds are against him. How does that element of his mental makeup play into his best approach to preparing for the Hawaii Ironman?

That really is his strength. When you’re not afraid to fail, you’re willing to go for it. But look: Lance is a professional bike racer. He is not a professional triathlete. When he trained for his marathons, he was intense about it, and I think the same intensity would apply to an Ironman event. But he’s never said to me, “I’m going to go out and win this thing.” He’s just said, “This would be a cool thing to do at some point.” That’s his background; it’s his roots. I think it’s important to him.

But you’re not going to see him just do it on a lark. You’re going to see him prepared and ready to put on a good, solid performance that he feels good about. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s vying for the win. If he feels that he raced against the best athletes in the world and he was up there, I think he’ll be satisfied with that.

Another part of Lance’s M.O. is building the best team possible around him. What sort of team do you see him pulling together for an assault on Kona?

He has a long-standing relationship with [retired professional triathlete] Jimmy Riccitello—they’re good friends. I think he’ll look to Jimmy from an experiential standpoint. We haven’t talked about anything specific, but that’s very much the approach—to make sure he’s got the best and brightest around him in all areas. That’s been the approach we’ve taken in cycling. So I wouldn’t be surprised if, once he makes a commitment to [Ironman], we start looking around and saying, “OK, who do we need to get onto this team to help out?”

Is there a possibility of consulting, however informally, with the likes of Mark Allen, Dave Scott—people who have had a lot of success in Kona?

Sure. Why not? Those guys are great. I know Lance has a lot of respect for both of those guys. I would see no reason not to talk to two legends of the sport that know it well and know the event better than anybody—any male at least—and are experienced coaches as well. If it gets to that point where Lance has made a commitment and wants to put together a team around him, I’m sure he’ll be wanting us to reach out and get guys like Mark and Dave involved.

Of course, Dave Scott was 40 years old when he finished second in Kona in 1994. Lance will be 40 if he competes in 2011. Is there anything that you would do differently in preparing Lance for Kona at age 40 than you might have done with him five, six or seven years ago?

I get this question a lot. The way I looked at last year was that, if he plateaued and he wasn’t continuing to adapt to a training load that was comparable to the training loads from his heyday from 1999 to 2005—if I didn’t see continuing physiological adaptations—then I would start to ask, “Is this related to being out of elite competition for four years or the fact that he’s five or six years older than before?” That is the perspective I’ve taken.

But that hasn’t happened—he has continued to adapt. When we’ve put him under a training load he’s come out of that stronger. We’ve seen physiological adaptations occurring.

If you took a 22 year old, and he went from racing in elite competitions to just being an active person for four years, and put him under a training load, how quickly would you see him adapt? It gets hard to define what is age-related and what is the result of being removed from elite competition.

Luckily, [he hasn’t plateaued]. He keeps getting stronger as he gets deeper into training. But there are things that are different about him. He’s had to work a lot harder on his flexibility. We’re taking more recovery days. I don’t know if some of it is tied into psychologically being more fresh for activities. When you’re younger, you kind of want everything all at once, and now he’s more mature. It’s hard to know if that is age-related or experience-related.

So, to answer your question, there’s nothing that would make me say definitely, “Because he’s 40, we’re going to make these changes.”

Paul Huddle
Multisports.com coach
Ironman North American Course Director

I’m going to advise Lance Armstrong on how he should prepare for Kona? That’s on a par with me advising Manny Pacquiao on how he should prepare for his next fight.

All right, I’ll pretend that he’s like the rest of the professional cyclists who have come over to the dark side and tried the Hawaii Ironman. Even though he’s not.

Remember, Lance was all of 9 years old when he thumped Mark Allen. Lance won the professional cycling world road championship when he was 12. His first Tour de France victory came when he was 15, and now he’s, what, 25 and you want me to give him advice on an endurance sport-related topic? Please. Dude’s going to be the president of the U.S. one day and, frankly, I don’t need the “company” knocking on my door at 2 a.m. because of some errant training suggestion I made back in 2010.

Here’s the deal: Lance isn’t coming into this thing cold. I know what you’re thinking: Lance has been on a bike for the past 45 years, so how will he be able to swim and run? Did you forget that he ran the New York City Marathon a couple of times during his “retirement?” He was under three hours, as I recall—and that’s with that ugly swimmer’s running gait, too.

Advice … sorry, but I’m still trying to figure out why Lance Freaking Armstrong needs advice for an Ironman. He’s going to swim 53 minutes and ride 3:30, so if he can put together a sub-4-hour marathon, he’s still going 8:23 and will be in the hunt for the win, right? OK, I’ll get serious.

Keep it simple: 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run. Endurance isn’t an issue, but sport-specific background is. So, Lance should swim a lot and run a lot, right? No. He could take a page out of Steve Larsen’s book. He doesn’t have the next five years to refine his strategy and work on weaknesses as Chris Lieto did. Eventually, age starts to affect performance regardless of training, so time is of the essence.

In short, he’ll have to get in the water and put in some run volume, but not at the risk of injury. A single-sport athlete with his background gets a lot of crossover fitness from his specialty, and Lance should take advantage of that.

And while I’m still being serious, I’ll also suggest he avoid getting caught up in intensity. This is a long aerobic day that requires the ability to assimilate calories. Train accordingly.

Many assume Lance will hammer the bike and croak on the run. It sure would be fun to see him ride sub-4:15, but I think it would be more entertaining to see him run sub-3:30 and have a great overall finish. He needs to determine how much time to give away on the bike for the sake of gaining more on the run. Just because you’ve got cycling legs doesn’t mean you have to use them. Just because running isn’t your strength doesn’t mean you can’t maximize what you’ve got.

The place I believe an athlete of Lance’s level of experience will stand to gain the most is in the details. Anyone can train for an Ironman. In Kona, it’s the small things that can kill you. The fact that Lance has spent considerable time in Kona over the past two years should tell everyone that he doesn’t need our advice. Lance isn’t Lance because he’s ever gone into an event unprepared. As great a cyclist and spokesperson for the fight against cancer as he is, he might even be better in preparation. Too bad there’s not an award for it. Oh wait, there is. It’s called success. It’s going to be fun to watch.

Lance Watson
Head Coach, LifeSport Coaching

Training Lance Armstrong for Ironman. That would be a really interesting project.

Given the fact he has a competitive swim background, and past elite triathlon experience, his technique would be fundamentally sound. It would be a matter of initially adding volume and intensity. I would then invite him to Victoria for regular, high-level group swimming in the open water with the elite athletes in this community. I would assume he would be rusty with group open-water swimming dynamics, decision making, finding the right feet and swimming with (and learning from) a group of athletes that are at the level you need to be at to be competitive in Kona.

I don’t see why he couldn’t swim sub-51 minutes with proper preparation. If Lance could swim well, he would be in an interesting position to be able to take the lead early in the bike portion of the race, much like [Normann] Stadler did the last time he won there.

Obviously the first conversation [about the bike] would begin with me asking him, “What do you think works for you?” The early season would be typical for him on the bike, but likely reduced to 80 to 85 percent of his regular volume, to allow for running. Elite performers in a single discipline tend to recover well from training in that discipline because of their efficiency. Longtime competitors tend to get in shape quickly if they stay healthy.

The primary adaptation from his normal training would be to hold flat-line sub-threshold watts for four hours in the aero position at a heart rate of 162 to 166 beats per minute (Lance’s lactate threshold is listed at 178 bpm).

Summertime would be dedicated to longer time-trial efforts interspersed into his base rides. If he could maintain 350 to 375 watts at 160 pounds, he would be scary! Obviously, time spent time trialing on the Queen K Highway would be greatly beneficial as well. From what I understand, this is familiar turf for him.

Lance has run a couple of decent marathons recently. What I would like to know is how much mileage he ran and how durable his body was in his training for those events. My guess would be that his run training volume would need to be more conservative than it is for the typical seasoned Ironman athlete.

I would focus on developing mechanical efficiency and gaining a high level of run threshold fitness. I would make him the best 10K runner possible in the time allotted. If you can run 5:15 per mile for 10K, 7:00 pace feels like a jog. I would also be relying on the big engine, years of endurance training, and mental toughness to muscle him to the finish line. Steve Larsen was a great example of this ability. He did a ridiculously small amount of run volume prior to winning Lake Placid, and he ran well there. The training runs he did do, he made count.

Mark Allen
six-time Hawaii Ironman World Champion

Hey Lance, welcome back to the sport. You’ve been gone forever, but certainly done pretty well in your time away. Seven turned out to be a pretty good number for you. It was a good number for me but in a different way: I won the Ironman for the first time on my seventh try. Which brings me to your landing at Ironman in two years’ time. Let me give you an insider’s view.

There is no other race to compare it to, and no challenge that can take you beyond your limits like it can. On paper, well, who better to complete the race than a seven-time Tour de France champion? I can only imagine the gruel factor of a three-week race where more than 100 guys are all doing everything in their power to keep your royal Texan-ness off the podium on the most famous street in the world. Ironman is only one day. The Tour takes more than 85 hours to complete. Ironman gets done in 17 or less. One second over that and you don’t get to call yourself an Ironman.

But be ready, my friend. You know how to swim; that you did as a kid and you never lose that (it’s like riding a bike). I won’t even try to find the words to describe what you can do on a bike. No problem there. But wait—it is a bit different. There is no one to shield you from the winds that go in every direction at the same time, and your domestique isn’t going to follow you. Support comes in the form of an aid station every five miles or so on the bike. It’s grab and go. But you know all of that. And my spies have seen you training on the Big Island, so you are no stranger to its quirky, unpredictable blast-furnace winds.

But wait—it’s still a bit different. See, you have trained your body over the past 20 years to expect a massage and a cold one after a ride. Not here, amigo. You still have that running distance to cover that killed a Greek messenger in ancient times: a marathon.

I know you’ve done that as well. Good job, by the way. You came back after that first one and put in a fine performance. But that was New York, and this is the Big Island and the Ironman. What makes it tough is that the Ironman is a closed energy equation. There’s only so much candy to go around, and if you eat it all up too early, well, the marathon turns into the true Ironman experience. Take it from the late Steve Larsen, who came in trying to blow the field away on the bike. The result: Walking was his best effort in the later stages of the run.

What’s my advice? Do what you know you have to do to get ready for the swim. Not a big deal, and an extra 10,000 per week in the pool will only get you a few more minutes. Not worth it (unless you have a secret goal to be the champ, in which case, get back in the water). Train for a 112-mile time trial? Do some long stuff on your own, in the oh-so-comfortable aero position, in heat, in wind, without someone giving you bottles. And when you are done with that workout, skip the meal, the massage, the phone calls and the remote. Put on the running shoes, in the heat in the middle of the day, and go run. Reprogram your body so that it knows that there is something else on the docket once you unclip.

Then, in the race, exercise restraint. We all know you could do something spectacular on the bike, but the run would then be the real spectacle. You deserve more than that. The Ironman doesn’t really start until about 70 miles into the bike, and the real racing can’t begin until about 10 miles to go in the marathon. The rest is just a long warm-up.

But most of all, know that you have all our respect as an athlete. Just enjoy the day for you!
Gordo Byrn
Professional Triathlete
Endurance Corner Coach

Lance, a quick bit of background on me. I’m a little over six feet tall, work with 5L of VO2, and race at a lean 163 pounds. I’ve run a 2:46 marathon after averaging 275w on the bike.

Ironman removes (some of) the advantages enjoyed by big-engine athletes. You have a very big engine. The only time I managed to beat guys like you was when they made mistakes. You make very few mistakes.

I sat down with Alan Couzens, our exercise physiologist, and we looked at a few different pacing strategies for you. I can send you the data if you want, but the exact energy split (swim/bike/run) isn’t critical at this stage. What caught our attention was an overall energy requirement of about 9,500 kilojoules.

I checked with Dirk Friel (Joe’s son), and he told me that you probably burned about 5,000 kj winning alpine stages at the Tour. He also said that you probably averaged 3,500 kj per day across the Tour, including your easy days.

The message here: Cycling is fitness constrained; Ironman is fuel constrained.

Four areas that I recommend you investigate:

Bike/run economy: I’d love to host you in our lab to review your sub-maximal fuel economy (bike and run). Our protocol is Ironman-specific. The key benchmark would be maximal cycling watts and running pace at baseline lactate values. In Tour shape, we estimated 295 w and 4:15 per kilometer, respectively.

When I ran my 2:46, I was running at 3:55 per kilometer at baseline—your run economy is a critical area for improvement.

Swim economy: To speed improvement in your swim economy, use a three-stroke breathing pattern, swim in a long-course pool and train at altitude.

The economy benchmarks represent a best-case scenario for the intensity of effort you will be able to fuel. The other side of the fueling equation contains the following two factors:

Maximal rate of carbohydrate uptake: See if you can tolerate 150 grams of carbohydrate per hour on the bike—it makes everything easier if you can. Train with protein but race without it. Optimize the osmolality of your beverage for the conditions in Kona. On the run, you’re going to be on survival calories and fluids. Personally, I drink as much cola as I can tolerate.

Optimizing fat oxidation: Shift your training diet toward good fats and unprocessed foods. We’ve found that the carbohydrate requirements of high-intensity training screw up our metabolic efficiency.

Here’s one fitness point: Many of your Tour victories were won by dusting your rivals in the final hour of the race. For Ironman, the third 10K of the marathon is decisive. Train to be fast after seven hours of exercise.

And finally, I [heard that] you bumped into Chris Lieto in Kona. He will have more insight on the above. By the way, I suggest 240K as the distance for the Twitter TT rematch. Better yet, get Lieto to pace you to an 8:45 test Ironman in May 2011.

I recommend that you chat with Torbjorn Sindballe as well as review the analysis that 2peak.com has done on Kona pacing. What strikes me when I look at Sindballe’s best race (2007) was how comfortably he rode. His average heart rate was under 140 bpm while he was crushing the competition (309 w average power).

Sindballe can give you some long workout benchmarks—his training is legendary. You’ll need to go beyond seven hours of training and 7,000 kj to experience your fuel limiters.

I am based out of Boulder, Colo. If you want to talk further, then tweet me (@EnduranceCorner) and I’ll come to you.

This article appeared in the May/June issue of Inside Triathlon. To subscribe to Inside Triathlon click here.

Coming this fall, MarkAllenOnline will be posting 12 videos on YouTube with practical tips to help you gain your personal 58-second victories on your races. One 58-second video will be posted each day for twelve days starting on Monday September 27, with the final one going up the day before the 2010 Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.

See a preview of the series below…

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With the black nothingness of the Big Island’s lava fields as a backdrop and an entourage of spectators on mopeds and bicycles hovering behind, Mark Allen and Dave Scott moved swiftly through the third act of the three-part Ironman play. Their swim times for 2.4 miles were 51:17 and 51:16 respectively. Bike splits? 4:37:52 and 4:37:53.

They began the 26.2-mile marathon in tandem, under a muggy haze – ideal conditions when compared to the usual blast-furnace-from-hell marathon heat the Hawaiian Triathlon Gods are famous for. The two made their bike-to-run transition at the Kona Surf Hotel, headed up the “what-joker-decided-to-put-this-sucker-here?” hill and settled into a little more one-on-one as they strung together sub-six-minute miles down Alii Drive.

“Dave set a really good pace through town,” recalls Mark Allen. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know, 26 miles at this pace is going to be pretty tough.”

Throughout the bike ride, Allen’s focus was totally on Scott. He ignored Wolfgang Dittrich of West Germany, who put two minutes between himself and the chase pack during the swim. Dittrich then rode off the front for 112 miles, his lead hovering around three minutes early, but dwindling down to less than two by the time he reached the Kona Surf and the bike-to-run transition. Behind him was a pack of riders that included Kenny Glah, Mike Pigg, Rob Mackle, Scott and Allen. Allen was in a zone of his own, lurking in the shadows, monitoring every move Scott would make.

“I never saw his face during the bike,” says Scott. There was no need for Allen to show his face. Scott KNEW he was there. After blowing up every time he’d tried to pull away from Scott in previous years, Allen was taking absolutely no chances.

“It was really difficult for me at first reconciling to the fact that I was going to have to run with him for 18-26 miles,” says Allen. But he knew there was no other way.

The two ran wordlessly along, the mobile spectators sensing the enormity of the performances they were witnessing. The best marathon ever at the Ironman was Scott’s 2:49. Allen had a best of 2:55. Both were running well under that pace as they reached the 17-mile turnaround at the inflatable Bud Light beer can. Nine miles to go, both athletes still in synch, only the sound of their breathing and of their shoes skidding every faster across the pavement breaking the silence.

The fans that followed the leaders did so like they were watching a horror file or awaiting a storm. Something was going to happen, but what would it be, and when?
Who would make the first move?

As Allen and Scott moved closer and closer to downtown Kona, the thought of a sprint to the tape must have must have been going through their heads, too. Their gap over the fast-closing Aussie Greg Welch was an insurmountable 20 minutes.  The only game in town was the one they were playing. But who would make the first move? And when?

“Mark had the inside track at the aid stations,” remembers Scott. “Mark would get aid and I’d have to slow down to get it. At mile 23 it happened again and Mark picked up the pace and opened up 20 feet on me. He looked over his should and could see he had a gap. I told myself that I had to come back. But it hurt to come back. Once I got up to him again I thought, ‘Okay, I’m back in the race.’ Psychologically, I did that to say, ‘Okay Mark, It’s not yours yet, you’ve got to earn it.”

Just at the base of the long hill into town, 24 miles into the run, Allen decided to earn it. Allen had decided beforehand that if the race was tight, if he was still with Scott at mile 24, the last grade would be his spot to make a move.

“He’d always be a little behind me on the uphills, so I thought, ‘All right, where’s the best uphill?’ I thought the best one was the last one into town. I started to push a little bit before the hill so see how he was feeling,” says Allen. “Right at the mile 99 highway marker I thought, ‘Okay this is it, man!’ I felt good. I felt that I could go hard for two miles.”

Hard enough to put 58 seconds between himself and the Lord of the Lava in the last two miles. And fast enough to erase a lot of past Ironman disappointment. He hammered down Pay and Save Hill, turned left and headed for home.

Allen needed an incredible 2:40:04 marathon  to hold off Dave “Never-Say-Die” Scott, who turned in a 2:41:03 – 18 minutes off his own course record – and, somehow, someway came up short.

To see the complete Countdown To Kona series click here.

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Written by: Mike Plant

It was hot. Somewhere along Hawaii’s Kona Coast a cool breeze was blowing, but there wasn’t a hint of it in the parking lot of the Kona Surf Hotel. Overhead, a clear, cloudless sky. The bright mid-day sun blazed, beating down on the head and necks and backs of the large crowd of volunteers and photographers. Video cameraman and reporters who had gathered to watch over 1,000 athletes trade the ridiculous for the simply impossible; trade a pair of soon-to-be damp and sweaty running shoes. For most onlookers, damp themselves in the steamy humidity, the emerge thought of walking to a nearby Pepsi Cola vendor was torture. The idea of running a mid-afternoon marathon was insane.

There were those who were willing, however. Paid for the privilege even. This was, after all, the Ironman Triathlon World Championship. Eight thousand fools from 31 countries had applied for entrance into the event and only 1,300 had received letters of acceptance. One thousand athletes started the race. Since the heat destroyed so may, some who go in would live to regret their “good fortune.” Some who had done the race before were stunned at how tough the event had come in just one year. Other first-timers were shocked to find that the Ironman was not only as nasty as everyone had said; it was much, much worse.

By quarter after one in the afternoon, the lead men had already arrived and departed. Mark Allen had been first, rolling in at approximately 10 minutes before the hour, wearing a face of almost dreamlike concentration. Dave Scott, in second place, was still several miles down the road. He wouldn’t arrive for nearly 12 minutes. In the smug words of one knowledgeable but grossly mistaken reporter, “Allen looked as if he could fall down and crawl half the marathon and still win.”

Allen was lean and very fit, well rested and very confident after his win over Dave Scott in Nice, France just four weeks earlier. Allen pedaled in the lead quickly, then proceeded to put minutes and miles between himself and second place. Lost in concentration as he spun his way through the bleak, lonely black lava desert, Allen had only the ABC camera van and a bike marshal or two on motor scooters for occasional company. Behind him, Scott seemed to be struggling. Almost everyone conceded the race to the skinny guy from Southern California. “The run is my strength,” says Allen. “In my mind, with the lead I had off the bike, there was absolutely no way Dave Scott was going to beat me.”

Allen started celebrating early in the marathon. “During the first 10K through town I was high giving my friends in the crowd,” he continues. “I was going to be the Ironman champion. At the bottom of Pay and Save hill I was still the Ironman champion. When I reached the top and started into the lava fields, I was completely out of gas. It’s hard to win the Ironman when you’re walking the marathon.”

In just minutes, he went from a sure winner of the most prestigious triathlon in the world to just another endurance freak trying to finish.

Scott insists that he though the race was over as well. That assertion is hard to believe considering the way Scott flew into and out of the Kona Surf parking lot with his singlet on backwards.
“This is my island,” Scott seemed to be saying. “This is my race.”

When the lead finally did change hands, a couple of miles before the turnaround at the 17-mile point, it happened very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that the ABC camera crew following the leaders got caught setting up for a static shot on the road, tearing things down and hopping in their van.

“We have a new leader in Dave Scott,” came the message crackling over the walkie talkie.

“Ahhh, we’ll check on that,” replies and embarrassed voice from the camera van.

What happened was very simple. Scott was running a sub-seven minute pace on his way to an Ironman marathon record. Allen was walking, jogging, talking himself into merely staying in the race.

To see the complete Countdown To Kona series click here.

Click here for more information.

Over the next few days Mark Allen will explain the best way to balance the task of maintaining a high level at your strongest sport, while also improving in your weaker sports. In this edition, Allen explains why not going all out in your strongest sport can benefit your weaker sports.

There is one strategy that tends to get the lion’s share of attention from those who are quite strong in one sport but weak in another. They tend to really push their strength, feeling they have to make up as much time as possible in their key discipline to compensate for a weakness that might cost them the place or time they are hoping to achieve. One classic example is strong cyclists who are weak runners. They tend to push the bike leg way beyond what would be considered smart pacing in order to have a head start on the run. But they do this simply because they don’t believe that conserving some energy on the bike will afford them a better run.

Instead, try this strategy: Hold back just a little bit of your effort in your strongest discipline so that you can maximize a weaker sport that may follow. Holding back 1 to 3 percent on the bike may result in your running 10 to 15 percent better. Use your strength to conserve energy rather than use all the energy that you have and then hang on with only hope in the tank. When you do hold back just a bit, you may find that the weakness wasn’t really so much a weakness but rather a poor choice in pacing the earlier legs.
There you have it: seven keys to bringing all three sports up to the same level. Want them again? Here they are:

1.    Mechanics
2.    Range of Motion
3.    Overcompensate
4.    Get Stronger
5.    Core Movement
6.    Positive Attitude
7.    Pace Your Race
See you at the races!

Mark Allen is the six-time winner of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and is available for speaking engagements worldwide. For further information about Mark’s speaking availability, please call 1-800-994-5306. Based in Santa Cruz, Calif., Mark has a state-of-the-art online triathlon-training program at www.markallenonline.com. In addition, Mark co-teaches a workshop titled Fit Soul, Fit Body with Brant Secunda, a shaman, healer and ceremonial leader in the Huichol Indian tradition. They have recently released a book by this same name that you can find at bookstores near you or on Amazon.com (Fit Soul, Fit Body-9 Keys to a Healthier, Happier You).

Over the next few days Mark Allen will explain the best way to balance the task of maintaining a high level at your strongest sport, while also improving in your weaker sports. In this edition, Allen explains the benefits of simply replacing negative statements with positive ones.

Just because you may not have been proficient in a specific sport in the past doesn’t mean that you can never become good at it.  Make a shift in self-image. Replace negative statements with positive ones. Replace “I can’t run like a runner” with “I can run like a runner.” Also tell yourself, “I can swim in even the roughest water. I can cut through the wind and still be strong on the bike.” Whatever you may have believed that you were not, it’s time to put that in the Dumpster and become comfortable with a new and more positive experience of your abilities. Take the time to reinforce your belief in your abilities over and over again. Old habits die hard, so it will most likely take more than one day of telling yourself that you can run strong through the entire race for it to become who you are on a consistent basis. Thought precedes form. Right now is the moment to begin making that shift and start the transformation from weakness to proficiency.

The second part of having a positive self-image is having an idea in your mind of what someone looks like who is extremely proficient at the sport that you are trying to improve in the most. The easiest way to do this is to watch footage of events where the world’s best are competing. It could be a world championship or the Olympics. It might be a marathon or the Tour de France. Look at how the best in the world move through space. Imagine how it feels to do what they are doing. Look at it with that part of you that is aware of your body’s orientation in space. Imprint it in your brain. Then, when you are out there training in that sport, replicate their movements with your body. See them, but feel your body doing what they do in the way they do it. It doesn’t matter if you are going as fast, but you should begin to feel their motion inside you.

Next up, Allen explains why not going all out in your strongest sport can benefit your weaker sports.

Mark Allen is the six-time winner of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and is available for speaking engagements worldwide. For further information about Mark’s speaking availability, please call 1-800-994-5306. Based in Santa Cruz, Calif., Mark has a state-of-the-art online triathlon-training program at www.markallenonline.com. In addition, Mark co-teaches a workshop titled Fit Soul, Fit Body with Brant Secunda, a shaman, healer and ceremonial leader in the Huichol Indian tradition. They have recently released a book by this same name that you can find at bookstores near you or on Amazon.com (Fit Soul, Fit Body-9 Keys to a Healthier, Happier You).