Beating the Heating

How to prepare your body for training and racing in hotter weather

by Chris Bagg and Molly Balfe, Campfire Co-founders

Prepping for heat early can make your race day all smiles (handups from your daughter help, too)

Who hasn’t struggled through a surprisingly hot race, one that was supposed to be mild but then flared into the 90s Fahrenheit on race day? Or maybe you know you’re traveling to a hot race (Kona, any race in Mexico, or maybe even Coeur d’Alene in the usually cool and wet Northwest) but you aren’t sure how much heat acclimation you should do, or how to do it? Managing your core temperature can be the most important piece of non-training preparation after practicing race-day nutrition, and dealing with heat will only continue to become more important as races and athletes struggle to deal with the realities of climate change. Today we’ll give you a sense of how to acclimate and acclimatize (those are different?) and what you can do on race day to give yourself the best chance of keeping your literal cool. As one of our co-founders likes to say: “You can’t uncook a turkey.” Don’t be an overcooked turkey, okay?

Understanding Plasma Volume, Sweat Rate, and Cooling

Before we get into our tips for preparing, we have to take a brief detour through some physiology. First of all, how does the body cool itself in the first place? Without these processes, your body would heat up by about 2° C every minute of exercise, which would make any kind of effort beyond a few minutes lethal to humans. Happily, we seemed to have evolved to avoid that quick and ugly fate. One of the main mechanisms for cooling is sweating. A warming body sends more blood to the capillaries under the skin, where heat can radiate into the air around you. In addition, you begin to sweat; the body’s goal in this case is to cool the body by evaporation: the sweat carries energy out of your body and into the atmosphere around you. So sweating a lot is good. Sweating, however, dehydrates your body, which eventually will contribute to temperature rise. Why is this? Well, your body has a kind of internal lake, and if you remember specific heat from 7th grade science, you remember that the bigger a body of water, the longer it takes to warm that body of water up. Our internal lake is everywhere, part of that “the human body is 70% water” cliché that floats around, but one of the parts we can manage is our Plasma Volume, or the watery component of our blood. The other part of our blood are the red blood cells, those inner-tube-shaped discs that keep us alive by transporting everything we need around the circulatory system. Plasma is a yellowish but clear liquid that the red blood cells are suspended within—without plasma your blood would instantly coagulate in your veins, which would be…suboptimal for continued living. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Well, you can increase your plasma volume ahead of your event through several different ways which we’ll cover below, but if you’re paying attention you’ll remember that a big body of water warms up more slowly, and your plasma volume is a big part of your internal lake. Therefore, if you have more plasma volume you’ll heat up slower, and cooking your turkey takes longer. So our big three goals in preparation for hot events are:

• Increase capillary density so more heat can radiate away

• Increase plasma volume to slow heating and to stave off dehydration

• Increase sweat rate to improve cooling through evaporation

Ready? OK, let’s begin.

Acclimation vs. Acclimatization

First of all, let’s get some terminology out of the way. Acclimation is the process of preparing your body through different techniques to better handle the heat. You might sit in a sauna, pedal your bike in a hot room, hit the hot tub after a hard swim (gross), or wear too much clothing on a warm day, all of which will raise your core temperature and incur the changes we’re after. Acclimation is something you do in the weeks and months before the race, and it doesn’t look much like the actual race. Acclimatization, on the other hand, is a much more specific process that entails training in the exact conditions of the race. For most athletes, this is difficult or impossible, since it’s unlikely you’ll be at the race site for weeks and months before your event. We call out this difference because we believe that, in general, workouts should not be race day rehearsals, except in tiny doses. Acclimatization takes a while, too, and if you don’t acclimate first, you’ll simply deplete your body by trying to acclimatize race week. Don’t be like those athletes who think they can adapt to altitude by going the race a week ahead of time: true acclimatization takes weeks if not months, and to be successful you need to acclimate first and acclimatize later. OK, vocab lesson over.

Start Early and Periodize/Dose

Continuing in our theme of saving endurance athletes from themselves, we encourage you to start your heat training early. In a meta-analysis of athletic preparation ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the study authors found that most athletes began their heat acclimation 16 to 20 weeks before the games, suggesting that this is something you should include long before you head into your race-specific period. But we all know that endurance athletes LOVE to overdo things, and we don’t want someone to read this and then resolve to hit the sauna every day, twice a day, for hundreds of days before racing. Your body is wildly complex and adaptable, and if you convince it that it now lives in a hot environment, your plasma volume will expand at first but then eventually return to homeostasis (baseline), rendering your efforts moot! Don’t overdo it, endurance athletes! Heat preparation appears to work in a similar way to altitude training, where athletes perform doses of heat exposure coupled with weeks of heat maintenance. We suggest a pattern of two weeks of heat exposure, where athletes do some kind of heat work four-to-five times a week, followed by a week of maintenance where you do heat work only once. Hear that, everyone? Only once! More is not more in this context! Here is a sample protocol, below, with explanation:

Proposed 16-wk chronic heat preparation approach which includes MTHA (medium term heat acclimation) of ten 1/day heat acclimation (HA) sessions commencing 16 wk prior to competition start, followed by short term heat acclimation (STHA) in the form of five 1/day HA (12 wk prior to competition start) and then twice-daily heat acclimation (TDHA) 8 and 5 weeks prior to competition start). Weekly adaptation retention sessions using established exercise heat acclimation approaches e.g. isothermic method (HA) or alternative approaches (HA-ALT) e.g. over-dressing or post-exercise hot water immersion (HWI)/Sauna, punctuate these interventions. Days with no notation are regular training/recovery days. Athletes may consider implementing double sessions e.g. strength and conditioning or similar activity on acclimation days.

Raising Core Temperature is King

The big goal with heat training is to raise your core temperature, which will raise your skin temperature. Once you’ve inflicted that stress on your body, it will try to find ways to adapt, shifting blood to the skin, sweating more, and boosting plasma volume. How much should you raise your core temperature? Well, unless you have access to a swallowable thermometer OR a very good friend who is willing to take, um, internal readings, you probably won’t be able to track this exactly. BUT it doesn’t really matter. Any of the following mechanisms will raise your core temperature, so if you stick to these you’ll achieve your goal:

• Training in a hot and relatively dry room: examples include riding a bike at 50% of threshold power in a 100° F room for 90 minutes; rowing for 40’ in a room at 40 C and 60% relative humidity

• Passive heating: sitting in a 180° F sauna for 20’ after a workout of at least 30 minutes; sitting in a hot water (100-110° F) bath up to your neck for 15-20’ after a workout of at least 30 minutes

• Overdressing during training: wearing long sleeves, tights, etc…while doing your training in a normal or warm environment

What does all of this accomplish? Well, we’ve pointed this out above, but endurance athletes love lists, so…here you go. The adaptations from raising your core temperature are:

• Hypervolaemia (higher water content of blood, basically)

• Lower perception of discomfort/effort/fatigue

• Lower core temperatures during prolonged exercise

• Decreased glycolysis/increased fat oxidation (this is huge for endurance athletes, as it means you have more fuel for longer)

• Higher plasma volume, which leads to…

• ...higher stroke volume, which can lead to higher VO2max (but not necessarily) and…

• …slower dehydration, which is what we’re really after

• Lower resting heart rate

• Lower exercise heart rate

• Increased blood skin flow, which leads to…

• ...higher sweat rate = more cooling

Enjoy the sweat!

Sweat is Your Friend

So, sweat. It can seem that sweat is the enemy, since it carries fluid and electrolytes out of your body during exercise, and it would seem that retaining as much of those as possible would be important. But as we’ve pointed out above, more sweat equals more cooling, so we really want to encourage sweating. But now we need to account for how much fluid you lose during sweat. If you’ve been with us a while, you’ve seen us talk about the sodium content in your sweat, a crucial number to know for endurance athletes. If you know how much sodium you lose per liter of sweat, and then you know how much sweat you lose in a given time period, you can make a plan to replace as much of that fluid and electrolytes as possible! So take the time and get a sodium content test done, and then test your sweat rate on your own time. How do you do that? Simple:

1. Before a workout, weigh yourself naked and dry (weight A)

2. Keep track of how much fluid you drink during a workout 

3. Weigh yourself naked and dry after the workout (weight B)

4. Subtract weight B from Weight A to find the difference and convert to fluid ounces or milliliters (1 pound = 16 fluid ounces, 1 kg = 1,000 ml)

5. Add the volume of the fluid drunk during the workout

6. Divide that total volume by the number of hours in the session to get your sweat rate per hour

Ideally, you perform this test several times in the run up to your event, seeing your sweat rate rise as you get closer. If your sweat rate is going up, you are successfully acclimating.

Fitness Helps

Remember reading above that more capillaries improve your body’s ability to get rid of heat? You know what generates more capillaries throughout your body? Effective aerobic conditioning, otherwise known as easy-to-moderate training. Don’t skip this work, as it is the golden goose of endurance sport—it is truly the gift that keeps on giving. The fitter you are, the better your radiator is at getting rid of heat, so…do those long easy rides, runs, and swims!

Campeche, Mexico, where not only is it usually hot but the race often starts at noon!

For the Ladies

As always, ladies, the men have it slightly easier in this context. That sucks, but it doesn’t mean you should throw up your hands. The takeaway is essentially the same as everything we’ve said thus far, but knowing the why is always powerful. Racing during the luteal phase (high hormone phase, right before menstruation) of your cycle can be more difficult, as core temperature rises faster during that phase (although how much this affects performance is still unknown). It seems like this can be mitigated by heat acclimation and adequate fluid intake. Hormonal contraception can also raise core temperatures AND lower sweat response, both negatives in this particular scenario. What’s the big takeaway for women? You should perform acclimation work during all phases of your cycle, and women may benefit from a longer term (more than ten days) acclimation program than men will.

Conclusion

Just this week warm weather returned to the Pacific Northwest, where Campfire makes its home, and we have a summer of warm racing ahead of us. Don’t worry if you haven’t started acclimating yet—there is still time! Begin adding some heat sessions to your training, and some of that will happen naturally as you perform your workouts outside in the glorious temperatures. If you start acclimating, you’ll be better prepared for warm days when they coincide with race day. This doesn’t mean that if you are heat acclimated you won’t have to modulate your pace at all, but you’ll certainly have to modulate it less than you would if you hadn’t prepared. As with most things in endurance sports, proper preparation prevents poor performance. With that monument to alliteration out of the way, we’ll leave you to it!

Sources

Gibson, Oliver R et al. “Heat alleviation strategies for athletic performance: A review and practitioner guidelines.” Temperature (Austin, Tex.) vol. 7,1 3-36. 12 Oct. 2019, doi:10.1080/23328940.2019.1666624

Golich, Lindsay, MSc. “Heat and Humidity Preparation for Extreme Training and Racing Conditions.” Endurance Exchange, January 2022.

Garrett AT, Creasy R, Rehrer NJ, Patterson MJ, Cotter JD. Effectiveness of short-term heat acclimation for highly trained athletes. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 May;112(5):1827-37. doi: 10.1007/s00421-011-2153-3. Epub 2011 Sep 14. PMID: 21915701.

Garrett AT, Goosens NG, Rehrer NJ, Patterson MJ, Cotter JD. Induction and decay of short-term heat acclimation. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009 Dec;107(6):659-70. doi: 10.1007/s00421-009-1182-7. Epub 2009 Sep 1. Erratum in: Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009 Dec;107(6):671. Rehrer, Nancy G [corrected to Rehrer, Nancy J]. PMID: 19727796.

Sick Happens

by Campfire Head Coaches Molly Balfe and Chris Bagg

First, it's totally understandable that you're worried. You've been training hard throughout the spring, building your threshold power on the bike, improving your run endurance, and working on technique in the pool. Your first big race is coming right up, and you feel like you're on track for a strong performance. And then you get sick. You can't work out; you can't really get out of bed. You're out for at least a week. What do you do?

If you have been dealing with a cold or flu, the return to training is typically straightforward. There is a general guideline to follow with sickness, which we’ll lead with here: If you're sick, wait until you feel COMPLETELY NORMAL (100% back to normal), and then...WAIT ONE MORE DAY. Yes, you read that correctly. Wait until you feel perfect, and then wait another day. I can't tell you how many times I've told this to athletes, and then heard something like "Well, I think I'm OK. I've still got a bit of a sore throat and a runny nose, but I could probably train." A week later, the athlete still feels rotten, and the intervening week of training is pretty much wasted.

If you are coming back from from covid, it is wise to be a bit more cautious. So much is still unknown and there seem to be real risks of cardiac damage, especially in severe infections. The American College of Sport Medicine has some guidelines for returning to training, which include:

• Athletes under age 50 who were asymptomatic or had mild respiratory symptoms that resolved within 7 days can follow a gradual return to exercise after resting for 10 days

• Asymptomatic athletes should rest for 7 days

• Athletes over age 50, or with symptoms (including shortness of breath or chest pain) or fatigue that lasted more than 7 days should be evaluated by a physician before returning to training.

• All athletes should engage in 2 weeks of minimal exertion before increasing volume and intensity, and those increases should be gradual.

We get it. Not training feels calamitous. It feels as if you're sliding back into your pre-season lack of fitness. You've spent money on travel, on a race, on a coach. The thought of doing nothing is terrifying. And here's where we hope you'll learn something from this blog. The basic guidelines are simple, but the execution can be excruciating. Here's a chance to do some mental training, while you're sick.

1. Why is it excruciating? What about losing a week or so of training threatens your sense of identity as an athlete? Or, to put it more bluntly, what are you afraid of losing?

2. Now that you've admitted what you're afraid of losing, keep following that thread. If you lose that thing, what's next? What else will you lose? What's at risk if you take time off of training?

3. Keep heading on down the ladder, until you get to the very bottom. It'll probably be something you didn't expect, something like "people will know that I'm a fraud," or "everyone will be proved right about me."

4. Now take a step back and see how far apart Point A (taking a week off from training) and Point B (everyone knows I'm a fraud) are, in fact. This greater sense of perspective might expose to you that the only person making this training interruption calamitous is, in fact, you.

5. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to make you feel worse. It's important, though, that you recognize this is coming from your own personal demons.

Now it's time to start the journey back up. I hope that by forcing yourself through that exercise you may see that your reaction outstrips reality (is taking a time off of training really going to change how anyone thinks about you? Very likely not; in fact, those people you're worried about really aren't thinking about you that much, anyway; probably something like 30-60 seconds per week, max). With a little perspective you can start seeing the fact that your season is quite long, and a week's interruption won't change much. And if you rush back and get sick again, you've just created a much bigger and longer interruption.

We can say this to you until we're blue in the face, but what we really want is to get there alongside you. There's a great saying in coaching and teaching: "tell me and I forget; teach me and I may remember; involve me and I'll learn." What we're after, here, is mastery of your particular sport. As coaches (and, in particular, endurance coaches) there is nothing we can do for you while you're in competition. You are largely alone. What we want for you is the ability to make decisions on your own, respond to new information, and thrive no matter the environment. Learning how to deal with sickness can become a microcosm for being a better athlete. The first few times you get sick you'll want to rush back. Your coach will remind you, gently, to wait. The first few times you won't listen, and you'll be sick again in a week. Then you have a chance to take control of it yourself, owning it and taking the break you need to take. You go on to have an excellent sharpening period before that big race. You do better than you anticipated, probably due to the rest you put in while convalescing (the sporting world is full of stories like this). So that's nice, but the real benefit is that you've taken a step towards mastery of the sport.

Our author, on the verge of getting sick, feeling sick during the Chili Pie race in New Mexico

10th at the Age Group World Championships in St. George—Result Spotlight

John B. en route to a 9:38 on the very difficult StG World Championships course

Ed. Note—today we hand the keys over to John B., a Campfire Endurance Coaching athlete who nabbed 10th in his AG at the Ironman World Championships this past weekend in St. George. Following you’ll find his notes about the day, and the coaches will drop comments in about John’s preparation.

• 9:38:34, 3rd fastest IM on the hardest course I’ve completed to date

• 10th in AG, 65th male OA

Swim

57:05, 10th in AG, 67th male

Two days leading in, the water was 60 degrees. Cold for a general swim but with race day adrenaline I figured it would be fine for race day. I still put gloves in my T1 bag just in case. Race morning they announced it was 64 degrees and that eased the nerves and also helped me decide that no gloves would be needed for the start of the bike. I poured ice water on my face and down my kit prior to jumping starting the race to get that initial fight or flight reaction over with. Coach’s note: many athletes forget to do this, and it’s a mistake! Your mammalian diving reflex happens when water hits your face, prompting a big inhale and a rise in heart rate and ventilation, two things you don’t want when you’re already nervous. Splash cold water on your face and in your wetsuit before the start to mitigate this reaction.

Pretty basic swim, I was the 5th wave to start and just swam through the earlier waves the entire time. After about 200m I backed off the effort slightly knowing I wanted to build by the end. Found some good feet about 1k into the swim and followed those for the next ~1.5k before not liking the line he was taking and did the rest solo. Pressed a little towards the end but still held it in the 5/6 out of 10 effort all the way to the end. Coach’s note: this is a perfect report. The swim in the Ironman should be exactly like this: quick-ish start but only for 2-300 meters, and then a settling into 5-6 out of 10 effort or “moderate to moderately-hard.”

The swim venue in StG, where water temps hovered in the low 60s

Bike

• 5:12:37, 3rd fastest IM bike on a much tougher course

• 16th in AG and 101st in males

• NP by hr: 197, 190, 192, 195, 189.

• Nutrition: no issues here and everything went down well

  • 5.5 24oz bottles with 75g cabs and 1300mg of sodium in each

  • First two hours was 25g carbs of gummy worms

  • Final 3 hours was 1 gel an hour with 25g carbs

  • Water from every age station

As everyone has already said, St. George was an absolutely crushing course and absolutely worth being a World Championship.

My only goal starting the bike was to start easy and not push over 220w. The first tiny climb out of T1, 220w did not feel very good and my HR was shooting up above 150! This was basically how the rest of the bike went. Power was not coming, and my HR was super high at my recovery power. I hoped that after a little bit the legs would turn around and I would be able to ride the way I knew I could. But that was not the case, I tried my best to hold 180-200w the rest of the ride while holding my HR in control as much as possible in the high 140’s. Then it became a problem-solving day, just do what I can to get to the finish of the ride. I always have faith in my run and just knew I needed to get there as I just wanted off that bike by mile 70…I did have a little concern during that ride as I felt like my quads were cramping slightly on the ride after the first major climb up Gunlock. I pushed that negativity aside as best as possible as I didn’t need to make any decisions about the run before getting it started. Coach’s note: I believe that I got John’s taper wrong for the bike. John has an anaerobic background as a pole vaulter (yup), and could probably have benefited from more bike work late. We really only did one threshold session in the final ten days before the race, and everything else was very light or short. We will play around with a different taper for John’s next 70.3 to make sure we have a solid plan for John’s next Ironman, in Kona.

Closing in on the finish line

Run

• 3:21:30

• 11th in AG and 67th in males

• Nutrition:

  • One Clif Blok every two miles

  • Started with 200 calorie bottle and finished most of that in the first 1.5hr

  • Coke starting at mile 8

  • Two gels

Same as the bike, just start easy! Straight out of T2 an uphill is not a great way to start a marathon. I looked down at the watch and saw my power at 340 and immediately slowed down significantly to drop down to 310. It was hot and I knew some lower power was going to be needed to get me through to the end in the best way possible. Mentally this marathon went by quickly as I just focused on one mile at a time and doing my best in that specific moment without thinking about what is to come. Every aid station was the same thing, slow down and grab water and as much ice as possible to pour down the kit. Between aid stations I would hold ice in my hands to help keep myself as cool as possible. I turned to coke by mile eight as gels just didn’t sound great and I was only putting down the Clif Bloks every two miles. I must have been a bit low on sodium during that run as I had to pee so much during that marathon! It was like the water was running through me. Half way through, I had to take a bathroom pit stop as a bit of gas had showed up and I knew I didn’t need to risk holding that off very long. That second lap of the run was an interesting one, passing so many people was exciting and even running with a couple guys for a while kept me engaged on the process at hand, but I dropped them all eventually.

The final 10k was a rough one, I started to feel my hip flexors and hamstrings tightening up when I tried to press a little harder, rather that pushing harder I focused on a quicker cadence which seemed to help me move a little faster without completely seizing up. The last uphill was absolutely crushing, but I was the only one running up that hill at the moment which made me feel strong. I finally crested the top with only 2.5 miles to go. This was also the first time I saw my girlfriend Alex that day as she started her first loop and that gave me a little reprieve going into the final miles. I wish I could have ran faster at that moment, but the cramps were on the verge of sending me into a walk so just tried to keep the cadence up and get down that final hill. What a relief it was to hit that finish line after getting through some low moment during that bike.

Finisher medal in hand, 10th in the world in the 30-34 AG

Summary/Resolutions for Next Time

• Swim

  • Did what I expected to do. Could I have swam harder and a little faster, probably. I have swam between 56-58 in every IM I have ever done so this was where I expected this one to be too.

• Bike:

  • Keep the bike legs working through the taper. I may have just gone into this one too rested and resulted in being flat on the day.

  • Nutrition worked great, don’t change it.

  • Good job not getting too down on yourself not being able to push the power you wanted. Great job and using all the information I had to pace the ride (HR, power, PE). Coach’s note: this is my absolutely favorite thing that John wrote in his reflection. Staying positive when things aren’t going to plan is so important in long-distance racing, and at at LEAST two to three things will not go according to plan. Instead of wasting energy on worrying and self-recrimination, John managed what he could control and got a great result anyway. This is the big takeaway lesson for him and for anyone reading.

  • Good job staying focused on the process to get to the run in the best shape possible.

• Run:

  • Pacing was pretty damn even all day long, 308w for the fist half and 305w for the second. Great job at adjusting for the heat and holding steady all day long. Cadence increase just slightly for the second half.

  • Get more salt in on the run, I was peeing so much!

  • Would have liked to get one more long hill workout in prior to this race. The hip flexors were gone for the last 10k and I think that had to do with all the climbing.

How Two Days of Time Trialing Will Make you a Better Cyclist

by Campfire Head Coaches Molly Balfe and Chris Bagg

Putting in the work at the Deschutes River Valley Time Trial Festival

Campfire athlete Jenny G. sets off on stage 3 of the Deschutes River Valley Time Trial Festival

Every April, in a small town in central Oregon, a strange event called the Deschutes River Time Trial Festival takes place, put on by Race Across Oregon. Over the penultimate weekend of the month, athletes participate in three different time trials, those with the lowest aggregate times taking home victory, but this event isn’t about results—it’s about challenge, assessment, and fun. The awards ceremony, MC’d by the race director George Thomas, is a madcap affair with fake rubber checks, mallets, and dollar store prizes curated for each racer. DRVTT is a mixture of mundane suffering on the bike and sublime oddness, all surrounded by the austere beauty of central Oregon. Today we’ll tell you a little bit about George, the race director, check in with head coach Molly Balfe about her return to DRVTT, and then assess the benefits of this kind of event for all athletes: triathletes and cyclists alike.

George Thomas, RAAM-finisher, former RAAM race director, DRVTT and RAO director, podcast host…so many things!

A history of overcoming

George Thomas is a unique individual among unique individuals. In the late 1980s he was hit by a vehicle and tossed a few hundred feet through the air. Told he’d never walk again he said “hold my beer” and not only returned to walking but also to riding his bike. No stranger to setback, he developed another complication from the crash that forced him to stop riding for a few years. Depressed and trying to figure out what would come next, the cycling and downhill skiing great volunteered for an experimental treatment that worked, allowing him to return to riding. George doesn’t do things in halves, so he took his return to riding like a matador, signing up for a four-person Race Across America team. “That felt like cheating,” he says, “so the next two years I did it solo.” Still looking to increase his personal adversity, George spent the next two years doing RAAM on a tandem. Yup, you read that right. 13-15 days of staring at someone else’s butt while you hallucinate the weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit chasing you through the Nebraska cornfields, pointing at you and laughing (true story—ask George).

After his 5th RAAM, George directed the race for several editions before becoming the finish line announcer and race director emeritus. He began his own race series in Oregon, Race Across Oregon (RAO), which included quirky relay time-trials across the state, often in the Maupin area. DRVTT remains one of his more popular and visible events, due to the large number of triathletes and cyclists who view it as a great training weekend, but RAO also puts on 12- and 24-hour time trial races (The Ring of Fire), double centuries, and several other excellent cycling events. A true renaissance man, in the winter George pursues “his first love,” which is coaching and teaching alpine skiing in the mountains of Colorado and Oregon.

“I don’t want my events to get too big,” George says, “because I want to be able to remember everyone’s name at the award ceremony.” No slouch on the bike himself, George has logged hundreds of thousands of miles on the roads around Maupin, Oregon, and Nederland, Colorado, and is planning to return to RAAM as an athlete next year. His only caveat? He has to get ahead of the solo riders so he can be on time to announce the finish line in Annapolis, Maryland.

Our narrator, unhappy about number placement

The Athlete’s Perspective

This weekend I returned to Maupin for my second Deschutes River Valley Time Trial Festival. DRVTT holds a special place in my race season because of the beautiful scenery, the strong community, and the heaping dose of early season humility that it piles on my plate. I have a lot of gratitude for the work that George Thomas puts in to ensure that athletes have the chance to race three challenging stages in his RAAM training grounds. It is a perfect chance to test your early season legs on beautiful road and seemingly endless climbs.

Some things come naturally to me. I’m pretty good at math, I’m a decent swimmer, and I will challenge you to a karaoke battle any day. Cycling is not one of those things. The gains that I’ve made over the past few decades in the sport have come from lots of work, and all that work has put me squarely in the middle of the field at most triathlons. This year, in an attempt to change that, I’ve been doubling down on bike volume to hopefully make some gains in speed and strength. The progress is slower than I’d like (right?), but it is happening. Races like DRVTT are a perfect way to gauge improvement and see what those hours on the trainer have wrought. This year I’m a little faster! No one is going to mistake me for Marianne Vos anytime soon, but improvement is definitely there.

There is a real beauty in inviting yourself to places where you feel like you don’t belong. Last year I had no idea what to expect and I barely knew anyone who would be racing. I worried about doing the wrong thing and looking like a dork in an environment that holds both my business and much of my social circle. I also worried I’d get my ass kicked by all the fast ladies. It turned out I didn’t need to worry about any of that; I absolutely did things wrong, looked like a dork, and got my ass kicked by the fast ladies. I also walked away with new friendships and a whole lot more confidence. Racing like this isn’t about what you look like or where you land, it is about how willing you are to test yourself. There is a place for everyone who is brave enough to show up.

Doing something you’re bad at is awesome. So many athletes sign up for races that will feature their strengths or showcase their talents, but there is so much freedom in taking on big challenges that are outside your comfort zone (I’m looking at you, gravel bike). The events that stand out most in my mind aren’t necessarily my fastest races, they’re the ones that tested me and showed me how capable I am. They gave me the stories I tell and many of the people I tell them to. Take some pressure off your performance and sign up for that thing you’ve been wanting to do! Make mistakes. Look like a dork. Get your ass kicked.

Maupin’s surroundings can make a bigger-picture view easier

A Coach’s Perspective

DRVTT’s format seems built for a coach. Athletes take part in three different time trials, each hitting a different energy system and making different demands upon an athlete. The accumulated stress from the weekend (3-6 hours of near maximal riding) makes for a huge dose of effective training, and Saturday in particular is difficult, with two near-threshold efforts coming only a few hours apart. Here’s a quick breakdown, and why this race is such a great stimulus for triathletes and cyclists alike.

Stage One—26 miles, rolling

Stage One (as every stage at DRVTT does) starts with a three mile climb. That’s just what you get in Maupin as you climb out of the Deschutes Canyon. After summiting that initial climb, stage one deals with flat but windy terrain, technical and steep descending, and then a long false-flat drag through the canyon, very often into a headwind. Stage One takes most participants 60-90 minutes to complete, and provides coaches with a sense of what an athlete’s just-slightly-sub-threshold capacity is. Due to the rolling nature, averaging near threshold power or HR is difficult on this course, but you will get a real sense of your 60-90’ mean maximal power, which is a nice warmup for…

Stage two—8 miles, all uphill

…Stage Two, which is this coach’s least favorite stage. Stage two takes most athletes between 30 and 60 minutes, and gives that athlete’s coach a sense of an athlete’s true threshold power. The climb doesn’t relent on its eight mile journey, peaking on the eastern plateau of the Central Oregon landscape. Coming on the heels of stage one, your athlete will get a real sense of how they manage fatigue, and how their habits around fueling, hydration, and recovery serve them (or don’t serve them!).

Stage Three—46 miles, out-and-back

Stage Three is the nail in the coffin for your energy. Tired from the repeated efforts of day two, you put your fatigue resistance to the test in a 46-mile out-and-back that includes several long climbs, and then (typically) a head wind on the way back to town (so cruel). Newer athletes thinking that the course gets easier after the turnaround will be disappointed, as the return trip somehow can feel harder than the outbound leg (if that’s the case, perhaps your pacing needs work…). Stage Three tests an athlete’s speed, durability, climbing strength, endurance, and their self-care. If you haven’t been eating steadily all weekend, you’re going to suffer today.

Recovering from Stage Two in the “Refreshing” Deschutes

A Community Event

But the real gold of DRVTT is the community. From George’s antics to the hospitality of Rob and Suzie Miles, owners of the host hotel Imperial River Company, this race offers friendship and fun and camaraderie hard to find anywhere else. You live and suffer together for two straight days, finally gathering on the IRC’s outdoor patio for George’s amazing award ceremony. Here are some images of Campfire athletes from the 2022 edition, and we’re already making plans for a return in 2023. Thank you, George!

George et al mugging for the camera

Campfire athlete Mo C., stoked to be here

Local food carts supply meals

Campfire athlete Kirby A., reconnoitering the course for 2023

Head Coach Molly enjoying some well-deserved sun in Central Oregon

The pizza (and the race) really is this good

Every athlete gets a TT-hold to start (and jokes abound)

We’ll see you in 2023! Start making plans now for the end of April, 2023!

Hey, Campfire Coaches, What's With the Pancakes?

by Amy VanTassel

You should really bring your own maple syrup.

Ed. Note—race season is upon us! Locally, Campfire athlete John Brenteson took the win at the OSU Beaver Freezer triathlon in truly freezer conditions, and this weekend sees the opening of the North American Ironman circuit with Texas on the calendar. Campfire athletes will be in action near and far, and probably tucking into large plates of…pancakes tomorrow morning? What’s up with that?

“The Grand Slam breakfast already comes with pancakes and toast, sir.”

“I know, I’d like an extra side of pancakes and additional serving of toast. Oh, and do you have real Maple Syrup?

It was Denny’s so they didn’t have real maple syrup (we now travel with our own), but our server was clearly more confounded by our breakfast order, in general, than the syrup request. If you’re a Campfire athlete, then you’ve been prescribed the standard colossal pancake breakfast the day before your race. It’s not necessarily a widespread practice throughout the long-distance triathlon community, though, so what gives?  We’re committed to this pre-race nutrition plan, and if you wonder if there’s any proof in the pancake batter, then note these success stories who’ve followed the same ritual: Justin Metzler, Heather Jackson, and Linsey Corbin, among many others. 

Why breakfast for the carb load?

Someone got the memo in the end of the 20th Century that you should have a huge pasta dinner the night before, and eat oatmeal the morning of your race. Coach Chris Bagg has studied endurance nutrition for years, and has, with the influence of experts such as Jesse Kropelnicki of QT2 Systems, determined that the latter is problematic because oatmeal can be fibrous and high(er)-glycemic. He’s confident debunking the former, too, because it’s not necessarily the best idea to load up your furnace before bed the night before a race. 

“You need to load up on carbohydrates the day before a race to bolster your glycogen stores. It doesn’t matter, however, when the carbs go in during those prior 36 hours, so breakfast makes the most sense for your biggest intake. That way, you get it done before your busy pre-race day, and conquering the feat as early as possible ensures you can process it all (and expunge it all) before the start line the next day.”  

Campfire athletes pre-Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene 2018

Why Denny’s?

We’ve done the math: roughly 75% of major half- and full-iron-distance events take place in a city with at least one Denny’s. It’s reliable, convenient, fast, and easy. Moreover, it boasts a kitschy novelty that makes for awesome memories and photo ops. The first time my coach proposed it I was appalled by the joint: it seemed emblematic of American nutrition follies that can lead to health issues. The last time I went there, however, I was giddy and skipping before we opened the front door. 

It obviously doesn’t have to be Denny’s, though. My fave memory of a non-Denny’s pancake breakfast was in Kona when Wattie of PLUSH Global fame flipped a gajillion chocolate chip pancakes over the griddle while we were swimming. Can you imagine how stoked we were to come home to that smell and taste?  I’m drooling just thinking about them. My fave story of an athlete adapting to a non-Denny’s environment was when CBCG athlete Greg Dufour was in Paris for the marathon and found a crêperie and ordered eight crêpes, to the amazement of his Parisian crêpeier.

Camping? Not a problem at the Wildflower Triathlon Festival 2018

What if I’m gluten free?

You can do it!  You might not be able to revel in the glory of Denny’s, but most North American locations should have some local breaky joint with GF options. Better yet, if you’re staying somewhere with a kitchen, then just pack some ridiculously affordable Trader Joe’s® GF pancake mix. They even make pumpkin flavor in the fall.  If you don’t have a kitchen, then pack or buy some GF frozen waffles and toast them in your hotel lobby. 

How do I fit it into my busy pre-race day?

Great question. I always say if I’m in my room watching the Bourne Trilogy by 4pm, I’ve done it  right. It’s so hard, though!  Having to “shake-out” all three sports and check in your bike and bags and everything can be involved. Once, at Kona, I left for bike check-in at 10am and got back at 3pm!  

But we can’t skip breakfast, so the biggest trick I’ve learned is to either do my run or swim (depending on logistics) as soon as I wake up (even before coffee!), and then report to breakfast by 8am. If you get one quick workout in before breaky, you should only have one or two little shake outs, bike check-in, and bag drop off for the rest of your day. Prepping everything the day before is clutch: your bags, nutrition on your bike, and mixing and filling ALL the bottles you’ll need the next morning. You’ll be maxin’ and watching a movie marathon before you know it. 

Matt Evans with an absolutely amazing pancake breakfast

Send us your pics!

Campfire athletes and coaches thrive on community, and the mandatory pre-race gorge sesh is one of our fave ways to get together. In fact, it makes for some forced moments of relaxation before things start goin’ down for reals. By the end of 2022, we hope to amass an individual pic of every single Campfire athlete in front of a plate, er, plates of pancakes. If you’re a current athlete, alumnus, friend, or family member, send us your pics on Instagram over at @campfire_endurance, and happy travels to #CarbTown.  

Former Campfire athletes Doris Steere & Marc Nester courted over pancakes, and married in 2019. Mazel tov!

5 Techniques to Improve your Run Technique

Bottom line up front: we’re putting on another one of our Run Video Analysis Clinics in a few weeks (April 16th, to be exact), and if you want to learn everything below and get your run form analyzed, you can just pull a TL;DR and sign up for our clinic right now.

Most triathletes will pursue a swim analysis to improve their stroke, and few athletes (cyclist-only or multi-sport) skip a bike fit at the beginning of their seasons, so why do so few runners take the time to evaluate their run technique? We’ve heard all of the excuses, starting with “I’ve heard that you should just run and you’ll find your most efficient form.” While there is some truth to that chestnut, the truth is more nuanced and—as with much in this world—more information won’t hurt. The truth is that evaluating your own run form is easy and can be accomplished with a phone and a friend. If you don’t have a friend, well, this can be accomplished with a phone and a tripod, but where’s the alliteration in that?

So you may have heard a statement we’ve alluded to already, that “athletes will find their own most efficient running form as long as they keep accruing run miles.” While that is mostly true, what the statement leaves out is that you’ll achieve the most efficient run form that your body can presently accomplish. If you have some very common physical limitations, then “your most efficient running form” may actually be quite inefficient. Today we’ll point you in the direction of identifying those limitations and give you some suggestions for addressing them. 

So what was that bit about “a phone and a friend?” Right. You’ll need to capture some run footage. Head to an athletic field and set up an equilateral triangle (you don’t remember what that is? C’mon, yes you do), with your friend situated at one of the points, facing to the inside of the triangle. You start on the opposite leg (that geometry class from sophomore year is, like, taxed to the max right now, isn’t it?), facing your friend. Run towards them, departing perpendicularly from the leg you started on. They capture you running towards them. Having joined your friend at the triangle’s point, jog away from them along one of the two legs. When you reach the next point, turn and run across the next leg, passing your starting point along the way. Your friend will film you from the side while you do this. When you reach the last point, jog along the only leg you haven’t touched yet back to your friend. Arriving at them, turn and jog through the center of the triangle again, retracing the first path you took—your friend films you from the rear, this time. Boom—you now have the angles you need to evaluate your run form:

1. Hands Crossing Centerline

When you run, you probably don’t give your arms enough credit. After all, who runs around on their arms? But your upper body carriage is crucial to proper running. Don’t believe us? Next time you run, keep your arms at your side and see how it goes. Not good right? OK, now we can continue. Your legs will do what your arms do, so keeping your arms light, springy, and controlled is important. One sure sign of improper run form is arms that come across the runner’s centerline of their body—your hands should come just up to that centerline but not cross it. If you are crossing the centerline, it’s a clue that your body is searching for rotation and finding it in your arms (rather than your thoracic spine or your hips). There are two fixes for this issue, the first one you can practice while running and the second something you’ll have to do at home or the gym. During running, think about driving your elbow straight back with some real zip, and then relax and allow the arm to swing forward. At home, you’ll do something called “John Travolta Peanuts,” which we learned from the great run coach Jay Dicharry. You can tape two lacrosse balls together, or pick up one of these. Regardless, add this movement to your daily routine in order to start getting your thoracic spine a little more mobile.

2. Insufficient Hip Extension

John S. displaying PROPER hip extension

You’ve probably heard someone say “run with your butt,” but what in the world does that mean? Well, the gluteal muscles (the big ones that make up your rear end) are the primary extenders of the hip, which means they work to drive the foot back behind you. The more hip extension you can get, the better (generally—as with all of this stuff, there can be too much of a good thing). Generally we’re aiming for between 15 and 30° of hip extension, measured when you reach toe-off (your toe is flexed, touching the ground, the moment before it lifts off), drawing a line from the big bone on the side of your hip to the knee. In the picture above, our runner displays excellent hip extension (31° is within measurement error). If yours is lower than 15°, you very likely have tight hip flexors and weak glutes. Correct those with hip flexor stretches and glute exercises such as clamshells and glute bridges.

3. Leaning from hips, not ankles

John S. displaying proper lean, although, if we’re gonna critique, John IS collapsing a bit through his hips—when you see a runner with a few too many “bends” in his/her frame, that runner is losing power somewhere

You may have heard coaches shouting “lean from the ankles, not hips!” and thought What the hell does that mean? When you run you actually fall through the air, catching yourself from tumbling on your face with each footstep. Want to know what it feels like? Stand up straight and start leaning forward from the ankles, rather than bending from the hips. If you lean from the ankles, soon you’ll be falling, and you’ll have to catch yourself with one of your feet. Oh, you didn’t read that far ahead? Your nose is bleeding? Sorry. Comes with the territory. When you run properly, you should feel as if you’re going to fall and bang your nose on the ground, but you save yourself at the last moment by swinging a foot under yourself. Now let’s look at your video. When you are at “mid-stance,” which is the moment your swinging leg’s knee lines up with your standing leg’s knee, you should be able to draw a straight line from ankle to hip to shoulder. Most people lean forward from the hips, rather than the ankles, robbing themselves of the momentum that comes from gravity. Free speed! To fix this, try this drill, where a partner stands behind you with an old inner tube or band looped around your hips. Start running while leaning forward. The band should keep you from falling down while illustrating the feeling of leaning.  Your partner gradually allows you to start running, finally letting go of the band altogether. Maintain that sense of leaning, even though you no longer have the band around your hips.

The runner in the band could literally lean into this a little more and push his hips forward, so his body is a bit more of a plank

4. Foot in front of knee/overstriding

Cam displaying a slight overstride

Many of us, taught to run by misinformed but well-meaning P.E. teachers, have heard that we should “lengthen” our strides to cover more ground. This mistake is understandable, but it is still a mistake. Longer strides are less efficient, as you basically bound through the air. Great for gazelles, or ibexes (ibices?), who have evolved to do that, but we are not made to bound—doing so requires huge amounts of explosive force, and that will make us tired really soon. Basically our foot should load (the moment our foot supports our mass above) when the foot is under our knee, slightly in front of our center of mass. In your video, look for the moment when your calf muscles flex, as that’s when the lower leg is experiencing load. At that point, is the heel under the knee, or in front of it? If it is in front, you are an overstrider, and may experience issues and injuries. How to fix this fault? We suggest counting the number of strides you take in a minute (counting either one foot or both feet), and then trying to raise that number slightly. So if you take 80 strides per minute (counting one foot) try to raise it to 83 over the next few months. Doing so will require a slightly shorter stride, bringing your foot under the knee. A tool such as a Finis Tempo Trainer can be great for this, and you’ll get to use it outside of the pool!

5. Overpronation/Ankle Collapse

You’ve probably heard of pronation, which is a natural reaction to your foot experiencing the force of your body as you load the feet. Every footfall while running is in the ballpark of four times your body weight, in terms of the force your foot experiences, which is why good mechanics are important. Pronation is simply our body’s suspension system, and it works like a leaf spring in a vehicle. Your foot rolls to the inside when it lands, spreading that force over a greater surface area and saving you from injury. If you have weak or poor form, your foot may simply collapse to the inside as your body searches for better suspension. You probably need to make sure your feet aren’t crossing the centerline of your body (see point #1, above) and that you have good, strong feet. We suggest at least one minute of toe yoga every day. 

So that’s it! This is definitely something you can do yourself, but if you want to get your run form analyzed at our upcoming Run Video Analysis Clinic, you should come and join us. Don’t live in Portland? This is something we can do remotely and would be happy to help make happen, so reach out to us to learn more.

FTP is Good—Fatigue Resistance is Better

Start measuring a more pertinent metric in search of performance

Ed. Note—Coach Chris (looking rather grim, above) raced the Shasta Gravel Hugger this past weekend and…didn’t have the best day. That got us thinking about fatigue resistance. Don’t be like Chris in your races—respect the distance, do the proper preparation, and then don’t ride like a Broheim. Scroll down for a much happier Coach Molly, who did a much better job sticking to her abilities and her race plan.

Functional Threshold Power (FTP) has long been the god statistic when talking about cycling performance. Strike up any casual conversation about training with cyclists, and soon enough the subject meanders around to comparing FTP size. Mine’s 370 right now, says Broheim, confidently, as he’s tossing a leg over his Pinarello and quaffing the dregs of his pour-over. Unfortunately for Broheim, those three digits don’t mean as much as he’d like them to mean. As the old saying goes, it’s not the size that matters—it’s how you use it. Most cyclists, we opine, arrive at their FTP incorrectly, and then don’t know how to utilize their power threshold effectively. Today we aim to fix that by introducing (re-introducing, really) a more useful concept: fatigue resistance.

Fatigue resistance has been making the rounds recently, as a new generation of coaches try to discern what the best in the world do during races. What those coaches have found is that once you standardize a population of athletes in terms of FTP, the trait that matters most is how long they can maintain certain percentages of that FTP, or how many times they are able to repeat a certain number of hard efforts. The cycling world has been the quickest to adopt fatigue resistance as the metric of choice, with coaches tracking riders’ capacities to perform as close to their fresh numbers as possible when fatigued. When you consider that many cyclists race dozens of times each year (as opposed to triathletes, who often race only a handful of times), and that cycling races are sometimes multi-day affairs, you can see why durability rises to the top of a list of desirable traits. 

The fatigue resistance of professional versus U-23 cyclists

Here you can see the fatigue resistance of two populations, as measured in a study by Leo and Spragg in the Journal of Physiology and Performance. The top graph represents full-time professionals, while the bottom graph shows under-23 athletes (typically younger than full-time pros). Each of the lines on the graph represents a certain amount of work done, measured in Kilojoules (KJ). Those lines were 1000 KJ, 1500 KJ, 2000 KJ, 2500 KJ, and 3000 KJ. You may not know this, but your power meter does a great job of recording the work you’ve done, also measured in KJs. What you see in the top (full-time professional) graph is that the lines are closely grouped together—so closely you can’t tell the different lines apart. That grouping means that full-time professionals perform almost as well after burning 3000 KJ than they did when they were fresh! The U-23 riders, in contrast, see lines that begin to drift apart. This means that their performance suffered as they rode longer, harder, or both. What’s the big difference between U-23 cyclists and professional athletes? Most of the time it’s just…time. Many of those U-23s will keep riding, and by the time they are in their late 20s they will see improvements up to the level of their professional peers.

So what does this mean for us as triathletes? Triathlon, much more so than cycling, is less about achieving big numbers and more about slowing down as little as possible. You hear that, Broheim? Your 370 FTP doesn’t matter if you can’t hold a high percentage of it for as long as possible. Let’s compare Broheim with his much less cocky younger brother, Broseph.

Broheim

Broheim’s fatigue resistance chart

FTP: “370” (but probably more like 355)
Best 60 minute Mean Maximal Power (highest average power recorded for 60 minutes in the last 90 days): 348 (nice work, Broheim! Must have been drinking your macchiato that day)
Best 60 minute MMP after burning 1500 kJ: 262
Percent decline: 25%, which puts Broheim in the “poor” category.
WHY IMPORTANT? So say Broheim wants to do an Ironman. He is certainly going to burn through more than 1,500 kJ on his way to “brag for the rest of your life.” So if Broheim’s ability to hold power drops by 25% after only 1/3 of the Ironman, he’s going to struggle for the rest of the ride (to say nothing about the run). Broheim will probably make things worse by going too hard at the beginning of the ride, too, since “I dunno, man, I felt good at the time.”
HOW WE CAN HELP BROHEIM: First of all, Broheim, you need to stop trying to swing your FTP around—clearly it’s not helping you. What you need to do is ride your bike more, and develop some durability by increasing your endurance. This means riding longer at certain intensities, not just riding harder all the time. Also—pace your bike rides better. Don’t burn through so many kJs at the beginning of your rides.

Broseph

Broseph’s much better fatigue resistance chart

FTP: 295 (accurate)
Best 60 minute MMP: 275
Best 60 minute MMP after burning 1500kJ: 227
Percent decline: 17%, which puts Broseph in the “average” category
Why important: Broseph fatigues less than his older brother after spending 1,500 kJs, a fact you can see by the closeness of the red line (his “fresh” power duration curve” and the green line (his power duration curve after 1,500 kJ). Since getting fatigued is akin to slowing down, Broseph is going to spend less energy on the bike, slow down less, and have more energy available for the run.
HOW WE CAN HELP BROSEPH: Broseph can also benefit with more aerobic development (i.e. more riding) and continuing to lengthen his intervals rather than making them higher all the time, but Broseph is in a pretty good spot at the moment.

how to do this yourself

OK, this won’t be comfortable, but true development never is. First of all, we want you to go out there and ride as hard as you can for an hour. Yup. You heard us right. Nope, it’s not a test. Just ride as strongly as you can for 60 minutes and measure your average power for that amount of time. If you use WKO5 or another program like Golden Cheetah it will capture the information for you. Heck, find a 60’ Zwift race if you must, since there’s a lot of that going around. However you do it, record what you did. This is your 60-minute mean maximal power. Now, a week or so later, here’s what you’re going to do:

1. Go out and ride around, tracking your kilojoules burned on your bike computer

2. When you get to 1,500 kJ, stop and eat something.

3. Ride as hard as you can for 60 minutes, recording the average power.

4. This number is your Peak 60 Minute MMP after 1,500 kJ

5. Divide the smaller number by the larger number (you’ll get some decimal less than 1.0, like .78 or something)

6. Subtract that number from 1.0 and multiply by 100

7. You have your % decline from fresh

Now you can see how you did.

• If you fatigued less than 10% that’s pretty remarkable—you are very fatigue resistant already. You are probably best suited at trying to raise your FTP

• If you fatigued 10-20% you are in the “average” category, and you should make sure you are doing plenty of long rides at a moderate effort, and your tempo, sweet spot, and FTP-style intervals should aim at going longer, not higher.

• If you fatigued more than 20% you are in the “poor” category. You really need to spend your time simply riding more. Intervals will help, but they should mostly be high endurance (around 70-75% of FTP), tempo (76-85% of FTP), or sweet spot (85-95% of FTP) and you should also focus on making them longer rather than higher.

Same spot, much happier!

conclusion

Above you can see Coach Molly at the same spot of the Shasta Gravel Hugger. Smiling, even, while Coach Chris had on the “1000-yard-stare-of-death.” Coach Molly has been riding more than enough to have success at this race, and she stuck to her race plan, fueling appropriately and spending her kilojoules wisely. The result? A much better performance than Chris, and a much better feeling all day. How is this pertinent to triathletes, you might ask? Well, if you don’t work on your fatigue resistance, then you are going to be exhausted coming off the bike. If you’re exhausted coming off the bike, you just won’t run effectively. So be like Broseph, but try not to be like Broheim.

Want to get some help with all of this? If you’re interested in getting guided to better performances, a coach can really help with prescribing these workouts and then analyzing the data. Head on over to our Coaching page to find out how Campfire can help you resist fatigue.

Welcome to Our New Coach Accelerator...Coaches!

Sam Kristensen (left) and Adam Goulet (right), inaugural members of the Campfire Coach Accelerator

We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Sam Kristensen and Adam Goulet to Campfire Endurance Coaching as the first members of the Coach Accelerator. Both bring an enthusiasm for making other athletes happier, faster, and healthier, which makes them a perfect fit here at Campfire. Sam and Adam will work with participants in the Athlete Accelerator, providing high-value, lower-cost coaching to those athletes. We will work with Sam and Adam over the next twelve months, mentoring them in the Campfire Endurance Coaching process. The end result? Amazing coaching with an amazing coach at a lower price point.

Sam Kristensen

Sam Kristensen lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife Tara, daughter Olive and son Branch. Sam has been a USAT Level I coach since 2016 with his coaching business/platform Playing for Purpose in partnership with his local tri shop, Tri Town Bicycles since 2016. Sam has 6 years experience coaching triathletes in Idaho, Utah, Washington and California for sprint, olympic, 70.3 and 140.6 distances. Sam served as the volunteer triathlon club coach at Boise State University in 2018. Sam has worked with new athlete's to the sport of triathlon, intermediate and experienced triathletes. Prior to endurance focused coaching, Sam worked 19 years in high school education as a school counselor, baseball coach and athletic director. Sam left the education sector in 2021 to focus more time and energy on triathlon and endurance coaching. Sam's personal triathlon history includes racing at sprint, olympic, 70.3 and 140.6 distances in the United States, Mexico, Germany and Austria.

What is something you wish you had known when you were starting out as an endurance athlete?

Training and racing development takes years, not months to build an aerobic engine needed to sustain fast long course finish times. I could not force results by training harder, more intensely, too quickly. I also wish I understood the value of strength work for injury prevention early on. It was an area I neglected and sustained some run-related injuries from over training without strength work and recovery.

What is a coaching accomplishment of which you are proud?

I have worked with many different types of athletes and my focus has always been to connect with them and understand what they are looking for, in support of their endurance development, training, and racing goals. Some athletes want to finish their first short course event safely with no performance time goals. Some want to finish an Ironman 140.6 safely, and some want to work to finish fast/PR/Qualify for an opportunity at a World's Slot. I really focus on trying to connect with each athlete to support them and develop a plan that works with their unique challenges, lifestyle routines, training limiters, and desired outcomes. Recently, one athlete gave me the most heartfelt compliment. They told me I was a really good coach for them and contacted them out of the blue and knew exactly what was going on without talking to them. That lets me know that they know I am paying attention and doing what I can to support them and that feels great.

What is a personal accomplishment of which you are proud?

Writing my Playing for Purpose Pocket Book a few years ago about key events in my life that developed who I am today and sharing those short stories/lessons with others. Specifically, my former high school students when I did classroom presentations with them.

Burritos or tacos?

Burritos

Star Trek or Star Wars?

Star Wars

Biggest "aha" moment around coaching or working with others you've experienced in the past five years?

In my work as a coach and with others in general, my biggest aha moment is you can't force something faster than the process requires/deserves. There are no shortcuts and short cuts lead to frustration and bad outcomes. It is important to slow down and communicate with positive energy, a sense of humor, authenticity, and empathy.

adam goulet

A sports rehabilitation focused chiropractor and former collegiate middle distance runner, Adam started his endurance career after finishing a Masters Degree in Exercise and Sports Science and becoming a Strength and Conditioning Specialist., Adam has become a multiple time age group national champion in sprint triathlon, duathlon and aquathlon, as well as an age group world champion in duathlon and on the bike at the 6-hour time trial world championships. Now focusing on competing at the 70.3 triathlon distance and coaching, Adam wants to bring his knowledge and experience in multi sport to help you achieve your goals. Success in training is 90% mental and the other half is physical (Yogi Berra didn’t exactly say that but if he had done endurance sports he would have). Adam wants to help you become the best endurance athlete you can be, not only with an emphasis on helping you understand how to train, how to become stronger and how to race, but with a holistic approach to optimize training to the various demands of your life. Adam’s goal is to help make your endurance dreams a reality and show you that, while the journey may have ups and downs, overcoming and achieving your goals is worth all the effort.

What is something you wish you had known when you were starting out as an endurance athlete?

I had been told that nutrition and hydration are the biggest race day factors in competition; however while I could say “knew that” until experiencing the many effects of dehydration it’s really hard to appreciate how big of a factor it truly is.

What is a coaching accomplishment of which you are proud?

An athlete achieving a goal that they did not think was possible. Sometimes athletes will come in and say they want a Boston Qualifier or another objective goal but you can tell they don’t really know if it’s possible. When I can help an athlete learn to believe in their abilities and achieve that goal it is particularly rewarding.

What is a personal accomplishment of which you are proud?

Qualifying for triathlon pro card.

Burritos or tacos?

We are an “and” household, not an “or” household… but tacos.

Star Trek or Star Wars?

I’ve evolved on this, and now full on Star Trek

Biggest "aha" moment around coaching or working with others you've experienced in the past five years?

Coming to realize that working with people to achieve their goals is more about instilling a philosophy, and building a relationship then about any objective outcomes. The goal is rarely about achieving a time, but more often about learning to enjoy the time within the process.

How to work with them

Want to work with either of these two rockstars of the coaching and education worlds? Head on over to the Athlete Accelerator page to learn how to do so.

Below the Base: foundation training for 2020

by Campfire Head Coach Chris Bagg

Hey! You survived your offseason. Nice work. Haven’t taken your off-season yet? Go back and read the first part of this series: Why you Need an Offseason (Even a Short One!). Once you’ve hit the goals of that slice of your training year (rest, enthusiasm, acute training load almost to zero) it’s time to turn your attention to the first part of the year, which I call Foundation Training. One issue with teaching in general, and endurance training specifically, is that few standards in vocabulary exist throughout the particular subculture. What I call “foundation” someone else might call “base.” What I call “base” someone else may call “early season.” The issue truly gets thorny once we begin discussing training intensity (I’m looking at you “tempo,” you chameleon), but as with any issue of nomenclature, the goal of any piece of writing that aims to educate and edify is to move past the labels and provide understandable frameworks so we all can move forward productively. It matters little that I call something foundation that someone else calls base—we both can probably agree that this type of training returns a resting athlete to motion safely, setting him or her up for a productive remainder of the season.

Campfire athlete Bridget F. rocking her off season in New Hampshire

OK, credibility lift out of the way, what does a season look like, anyway? Well, I like simplicity, and I think a season consists of at most two macrocycles that each include most of the following phases (the second yearly macrocycle most likely omits the phase we’re going to talk about today). Those phases are:

1. foundation—checking and preparing the engine

2. base training—building the engine

3. pre-competition—sharpening the engine

4. competition—maintaining and tuning the engine

5. transition—mid-season break or offseason

Depending on your particular level and your goals, the competition phase may be short or quite long, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Today we’re going to talk about part one, the Foundation Period. Some coaches may include this period in their Base Training. That’s fine, and I can understand why they would do that. I separate them because the Foundation Period carries with it more flexibility than the Base Training, allowing athletes to train as they feel on a given day, provided they hit their weekly targets in terms of number of workouts and volume of training. It is a more unstructured period that allows the athlete to discover his or her ideal, repeatable, and sustainable weekly structure of training, something that will become crucial in the heavier Base Training period.

Campfire athlete Becky B. re-entering with a cold run in Massachusetts

Frequency, Consistency, Fun

When you’re starting back up (or starting out for the first time) your primary goal is frequency—that is, the number of times you can engage each discipline over the course of your training microcycle. For some people this is the seven-day week, but for others it may be as short as four days and as many as ten. Let’s stick with a seven-day week for simplicity, and you can extrapolate in either direction, depending on your needs. I think 11 sessions per week is a good number for the vast majority of athletes, broken down as follows:

• 3 sessions of your strongest discipline

• 3 sessions of your second strongest discipline

• 4 sessions of your weakest discipline (for 90% of triathletes, this is the swim)

• 1 strength and mobility session

OK, now the question that’s already on your mind: how long should each session be? Here’s the trick about the foundation period: as long as its longer than 20 minutes, it doesn’t matter. Remember, the first goal here is frequency, which we’ve already established. The second goal is consistency, and to achieve that goal, the workouts must excite and engage you, rather than daunt you. Since an athlete’s weakest discipline is most likely the swim, here’s how you decide how long those are: as long as you can swim while still enjoying yourself (and making it over the 20-minute time boundary). So if that means four 20-minute swims during this period, I’ll take it, as long as the athlete is enjoying him or herself in the water. If that’s too much time in the pool, it may be time to consider duathlon, or…checkers. For me, the run has always been my weakest sport, so here is what my foundation week looks like:

• bike (or skate ski): three one-and-a-half to two-hour sessions

• swim: three one hour swims, totally around 10k per week

• run: four runs: one 30-minute, one 45-minute, one 25-minute, and one 60-minute

• strength (another weakness): one 45-minute session, outlined at the bottom of this article

 What if your enthusiasm is through the roof, and you want to do four-hour rides and 15-mile runs right off the bat? Remember, again, that our second goal is consistency, both now and later in the year, and starting off aggressively only leads to burnout later. Here are some limits I would impose upon my more gung-ho athletes.

• bike: no longer than 90 minutes on the weekdays, and up to three hours of easy riding on the weekend (but only one of those)

• run: no longer than 45 minutes on the weekdays, and up to 90 minutes on the weekend (but only one of those)

• swim: no longer than 60 minutes, with a possible exception of up to 90 minutes if I’ve got a real swimmer on my hands

Finally, our third goal is fun, and to most athletes this means their weekly dose of intensity. Intensity is enjoyable, because most people are drawn to this sport in order to go fast and to feel fast. Intensity also feels hard (well, it is hard), and many athletes correlate that feeling with improvement and with the endorphins that hard exercise releases into our bodies and brains. The problem with intensity is that it is tiring, and we want to be careful with anything that makes us fast in February but jaded in June. What’s the upper limit on intensity during this period, and just what constitutes intensity? This is a far more nuanced topic than I can get through here, but the whole point of an article such as this one is to avoid complexity, so here goes. First of all, how intense? There are many ways to calculate intensity, but many studies show again and again that an athlete’s own rating of “hard” correlates closes to his or her second lactate threshold. If you’re a numbers person, “hard” usually shows up at seven out of ten on the standard rating of perceived exertion scale (RPE) or 15 and higher on the more useable 6-20 Borg scale of perceived exertion. For each sport, limit yourself to no more than ten minutes per seven-day microcycle at or above 7/10 or 15/20.

Gettin’ re-entry rides done on the Wahoo Fitness® KICKR trainers

How Long and What Order?

I would suggest 30 days of this style of training, which is enough to ease you back into the sport, give you a chance to reconnect with your training partners (which is probably the most important part of this period), and touch some of those higher intensity windows. At the end of those thirty days, you’ll be able to look at your training log, and you’ll be surprised at how much training time you’ve racked up, with ideally little logistical effort or stress. In terms of when the workouts fall during the week? I don’t really care. As long as you’re hitting the number of workouts required, you can put them in whenever they work. At the end of thirty days, look at your log for patterns—this is most likely your regular sustainable training calendar, arrived at organically based off of your schedule—not an arbitrary decision imposed upon you by your coach. For me, here’s what my sustainable foundation week looks like:

• Monday: strength, 30-40’ run (Mondays are usually my second-busiest day of the week, and this is about all I can get in)

• Tuesday: 60’ swim, 90’ ride

• Wednesday: 45-60’ run, 60’ ride

• Thursday: 60 minute swim, 90’ ride

• Friday: 60-90’ swim (Fridays are my busiest day of the week, spent all day on the phone talking with athletes, and all that is possible is an early morning swim)

• Saturday: 90-180’ ride or skate ski, 25’ run

• Sunday: 60-90’ run, 60’ recovery spin

Once you’ve settled into your schedule over the course of a month, you and your coach can simply begin to turn the dials of duration and intensity as the year progresses and your fitness builds, all while sticking to the skeleton you’ve established here in the foundation period. The goal is to make training habitual and easy to begin (if you start a workout, you’re likely to finish it), and routine goes most of the way to achieving that goal.

This dynamic warmup is essential for the following strength training sesh

Keep the Strength Simple

I’m not a strength coach, but I’ve had the privilege of working with many great physical therapists and conditioning coaches over the years. Strength work in the foundation period focuses on improving durability of connective tissue and waking up dormant or unused muscle fibers. Coordination is key, as movement quality in your strength sessions will make for improved movement quality in your swimming, cycling, and running. Every session you do should have a warmup, some lower leg pushing actions, some lower leg and upper body pulling actions, and some work designed to improve your core’s ability to limit rotation during action. Here is a sample session, below, with vid links to demo the more unusual ones:

• 5’ basic dynamic warmup

• 2’ Thoracic John Travoltas on a Peanut

• 20 banded arm pull-aparts

• 20 banded arm circles

• 20 deadbugs with or without ball crunch

• 20 hamstring curls on stability ball

• 2x8 single-leg landmine deadlift (each side)

• 2x8 Bulgarian split squat (each side) 

• 2x8 Romanian dead lift or hex bar deadlifts

• 50-100 med ball rotations

• 2x8 front squat

• 3 sets of pull-ups to failure (you’ll very likely achieve a total number in the single digits, even over three sets)

Campfire athlete Annick A. religiously practices the above routine

So, remember that lethargic feeling you had during your off days, when you panicked you were losing water-feel or speed? Find new, fresh, excited energy for your first workouts of 2022. Envision your first race (do you know the course?), and remember: frequency, consistency, and fun!

Your 12-Week Sprint Triathlon Training Plan

by Molly Balfe

Ed. Note—Campfire Head Coach Molly Balfe checks in with thoughts as to how to prepare for your first sprint-distance triathlon. The former president of Tri Team PDX, coach for Team in Training, and co-founder of Campfire Endurance Coaching checks in with both a complete 12-week plan for your first triathlon, AND a complete, free guide to the process, which you can download from our website here.

So you’ve just signed up for your first triathlon!

Whether you were reluctantly roped-in by a spandex-clad friend, or the feat has always been on your bucket list, we, the Campfire coaches, would like to congratulate you on deciding to try your first triathlon. Unlike stepping into a simple running race, tris take an exceptional deal of courage, likely testing your comfort zones in at least one of the disciplines, and this plan will help you along your way. So here is some expert guidance that our Campfire athletes have valued while preparing for their first races.

Approaching your first triathlon with a smile is always the best approach

Necessary Gear

If you’ve begun to gather information for your first tri, you’ve encountered a seemingly endless array of toys and tools you can spend your money on. The fastest and lightest gear may help you at certain points in your triathlon career, but we recommend starting out with the basics. That way, if you conclude that triathletes are nuts, you didn’t waste your comic; but conversely, if you find you‘re up for more triathlon adventures, you can slowly fill your gear closet as needed, with smart gear appropriate for you.  That stated, a few pieces of equipment are necessary to train for and complete your first race:

• Bike – Repeat after us: “I do not need to buy a race bike for my first triathlon.”  Pretty much any bike with working gears and brakes will get you through your first sprint. If you already own a mountain bike, hybrid, or entry-level road bike, that will work! True, a heavier bike may slow you down a bit, but you’ll have the chance to experience your first race and see if you want to invest something more sport-specific. 

• Helmet – This one’s a non-negotiable. All bicycle training and racing should be done wearing a CPSC approved helmet. Same thing as above applies, though: it would be total overkill to invest in a race-specific “aero helmet” for your first one.

• Running shoes – Want to know which running shoes are the best?  Guess what: it totally depends.  Campfire coaches  highly recommend you visit your local running store to have someone help you select a shoe that works for your specific stride and biomechanics. Fashionable fitness shoes may look rad, and deals on online warehouses can be a steal, but they might not protect you from injuries. You’ve likely been running already, so you shouldn’t make any major changes in terms of going minimal or more structured.  In fact, the only major change you should make is considering quick-draw laces.  Invest in a pair of running shoes, and break them in a bit before your race.

• Swimsuit, cap, and goggles – Think about where you’ll be racing when you pick your goggles. If you’ll be in a pool, or a foggy or cloudy lake, get clear lenses. If you’ll be staring down the sun at dawn, go for something tinted. Try them on for at least the distance of your first race, and when in doubt, get something pretty.

• Watch – While this one isn’t entirely necessary, a cheap running watch can make a big difference in your triathlon training. You don’t need bells and whistles, but a watch that can show total time elapsed (and ideally lap splits) comes in very handy. Many people use their smartphones for this function, but we believe it’s best to keep your smartphone technology far away from sweat.

Following the Plan

Campfire Endurance coaches have created a plan that contains two workouts per week in each discipline (swim, bike, and run) as well as one strength session. Check out the plan here, empowering yourself to perform your fastest, happiest, and healthiest first triathlon possible! Ideally, you will complete each workout as written. However, Campfire coaches understand that life can get in the way, so if you’re time-limited, focus on completing the two workouts for the sport you struggle with the most (do it!), and at least one workout each for the other two sports. 

We also included a few “brick” workouts in this plan, instructing you to run right after you ride. “Bricks” should be considering key workouts: they’re a perfect time to practice your bike-to-run transition, and grow accustomed to how your legs feel right off the bike. These workouts are also great opportunities to practice your race day nutrition (more info on nutrition below).

If you need a day off, or you’re just feeling blasted, take a day off! If you’re unsure, we suggest at least attempting the workout to see if you just needed a warm up to blow out the cobwebs. If you start the main part of the workout and it’s just not happening, then call it quits.

The majority of these workouts will be at an easy effort, especially during the first 6 weeks of training. In order to safely build up your endurance, you need to gradually increase your training volume. Even if you feel good, keep the effort level low unless otherwise indicated.

Campfire Athlete Kirk L. on the race course

Nutrition for Training and Racing

Your diet makes a huge difference in how you feel during (and after) your workouts. It is important to pay attention to what you eat while training and what you eat during your regular life. A lot of newer triathletes make the mistake of training to eat, instead of eating to train. While a workout in this plan may feel difficult, it probably hasn’t created a caloric deficit that only an entire pizza can fill. Conversely, if you have been restricting your caloric intake, you may need to eat more to ensure that you are meeting the needs of an increased training load. 

Perhaps most importantly, if you find yourself feeling depleted throughout the day, take a look at your total caloric intake to ensure that you are eating enough. Fueling with training and recovery in mind can help ensure that you enjoy your workouts and feel strong throughout your day. When in doubt, maintain a healthy diet focused on vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains. 

While training and racing, you’ll probably need to explore the sugary world of sports nutrition. For any workout over an hour, you should plan to take a bottle of sports drink to help replace calories and replenish sodium. You should also plan to practice using gels, chomps, or beans during a few of your longer runs, since they are what athletes typically use during races. 

Your nutrition needs for the race itself should be relatively low (provided you aren’t dehydrated or under-fed at the start line). Plan to use a bottle of sports drink during the bike, and take sports drink at each aid station on the run. You can also take a gel or other 100-calorie snack towards the beginning of the run – many Campfire athletes including coach Molly prefer the type with added caffeine.

Campfire Endurance coach, and author of this blog and the training plan, Molly Balfe practicing good post-race nutrition

Preparing for Race Day

It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with USA Triathlon’s rules and regulations prior to your race, especially their most common violations.

On race day, plan to arrive early enough to set up your transition area. Transition is where you will rack your bike and transition from swim to bike and bike to run. You do not have much room for your equipment, so pack only what you will need during the race. For reference, here is a picture of a well-organized transition area:

An exceptionally, if not obsessively well-organized transition area

While it may seem obvious, make sure you know the layout of your race, including where you will enter and exit the water and where you will enter and leave the transition area for the bike and run legs. Knowing where you are headed will save you valuable time during your race.

A Final Word of Advice

Have fun! We love this sport, and we hope that you will love it too. Triathlon is an individualized sport, with a lot of potential hyperactivity and focus on expensive gear, so it can be easy to allow yourself to get caught up in the pressure, anxiety, and competition of training and racing, so remember that we do this for fun. Be generous with your gratitude and give copious high-fives. The more fun you allow yourself to have, the more likely it is that you will continue to come back to this sport for years to come. In fact, it’s been empirically determined that if you smile during a race, you will go faster. Happy training! Need the link to that plan again? You can grab it here. Want to talk to a coach? Reach out to us here. Thinking about your very first race but need some basic guidance? Consider the Athlete Accelerator.

How to Choose the Right Triathlon Coach for You

A good coach stops to explain workouts and sessions clearly, compassionately, and enthusiastically

by Campfire Head Coach Molly Balfe

Interested in finding a coach? Read on for what to look for, and if you’re ready to take your training and racing to the next level, becoming a faster, happier, and healthier athlete, check out our coaching page or The Athlete Accelerator!

So you’re ready for a coach. You’re committed to taking your triathlon training to the next level, and you’re cognizant that expert guidance and accountability is the best way to get there. Hiring a coach provides you with an ally and guide who can help you achieve your goals, manage your time, and take the guesswork out of your training, but the complex worlds of triathlon training, racing, gear, and nutrition can be overwhelming for new (and seasoned) athletes. For the self-motivated athlete, there is no shortage of info available online and in print, but you will quickly find that not only are there are several different schools of thought, but many of those theories directly contradict each other!

How should you proceed? If navigating the online options for coaching can be overwhelming, then how could you even begin to search specifically for the right person with whom you will forge a meaningful relationship? How do you find a good match? What is a good match?A cheerleader or a drill sergeant? Someone who pushes you or reins you in, or both? Whether you’re looking for someone to help you out for a few months as you find your bearings or are set on finding a long-term coach to help you continually improve, it can be tough to begin this process.

Look for a coach that pushes you but also helps you enjoy the sport!

We at Campfire Endurance Coaching are passionate about the coach-athlete relationship. We love this sport, and we want you to find an ideal coach who doesn’t just have that love in common, but whose style and approach creates the best rapport to empower you to be the fastest, happiest, and healthiest you want to be. To help you along your way, we compiled a list of suggestions that we think will help you identify a qualified coach who is the right match for you.

Dive in. The first thing we recommend is to stop second-guessing your desire to hire a coach. We are inundated with disclaimers from athletes about not being fast enough, young enough, fit enough, strong enough, or whatever enough to take their training seriously. In all honesty, very few coaches make a living working with elite athletes. Most coaches were drawn to this profession because they are passionate about the sport and want to support athletes as they work towards their goals. Athletes participate in triathletes for a myriad of great reasons; they want to stay fit, get healthy, challenge themselves, and create a healthy lifestyle. These are all serious reasons, and we take your commitment seriously whether you are looking for podia or finish lines.

When you have made the decision to hire a coach, begin with a self-assessment. Define your reasons for seeking assistance so you can articulate them to the coaches you meet with. Here are a few recommendations to help you clarify what you are hoping to get from your coach: 

Know your limiters. Where do you struggle the most? If you aren’t sure, take a look at your recent race results and where you ranked in the swim, bike, and run (and while you’re at it, check out those transitions!). If you had the fastest bike split in your age group, but you ranked 30th in the swim, your coach may well want to focus on what is happening in the water. If there are big improvements to be made, it may help to spend a few weeks or months focusing on one sport, as it is extremely difficult to make considerable gains in all three sports at the same time. Many coaches use the “off” season to spend targeted time on the sport that holds an athlete back. This way, as the race season approaches, the plan can focus more on intensity and volume across all of your training.

Identify your short- and long-term goals. How will you know that your season was a success? Where do you want your training to be in five years? You and your coach need to be on the same page about where your training is headed, so tell them what your goals are and ask for their feedback about whether they think your goals are achievable. If your goal is to complete a race, you may only need a season of training to get there. However, improvements take time (and the faster you become, the harder those minutes and seconds will come by). Most coaches are looking for athletes who are in it for the long haul and hoping to get stronger and faster each year. The longer we work with you, the more we know about your specific needs and how you respond to training. Short-term goals can be extremely motivating, but should ultimately move you toward where you hope to be in the long-term.

The author, in her element, working with athletes on swim technique

Consider your capacity. Think about how much time you have to devote to training. We all know that life gets in the way of training sometimes, but it is helpful to be aware of whether an athlete’s job requires frequent travel or if they have other obligations (family, other hobbies, getting the band back together) that will determine their available time for training. Especially for longer races, the weekend time commitment can be significant, so make sure that you have the support of the people in your life. If you do travel frequently, you should expect to integrate your workouts into your travel schedule so your training isn’t derailed. If your schedule is typically flexible, but you know you have a few busy weeks each year, make sure you communicate that in advance so your coach can design your plan with these periods in mind. Every coach-athlete dynamic is different, so after you have determined your needs, we recommend embarking upon your search by taking into account the following: 

1.  Strengths – Make sure that the coach you choose has the sport-specific knowledge to help you improve on your limiters. If you are one of the many triathletes who struggles with their swim, make sure you choose a coach who has a history of helping swimmers become more competent in the water. If you know nutrition is holding you back, make sure the coach you select can provide you with the information and feedback you require to help you manage your diet and race needs. Most coaches can provide some level of guidance in each of the three sports, but if you are hoping for specific improvement, make sure you find someone with specific expertise. Likewise, if you already have a long history in one of the three sports, make sure you find someone who is able to provide you with workouts and training that will match your ability and experience.

2.  Availability – How often do you need/want/expect feedback? Are you looking for a static plan with little or no direction or do you want to be able to communicate directly with your coach about a schedule that is tailored specifically for you? Regular email and/or phone communication allows coaches to make real time decisions based on how their athletes are responding to training. In person meetings are rare, and are typically more expensive (especially if they involve evaluating your technique, which is generally a consultation and comes with an additional fee). How frequently you hear from your coach should be explicitly agreed upon by the coach and athlete. The amount of access you have to your coach varies considerably - be clear about what you expect and what your coach is offering.

3.  Style – Are you looking for a cheerleader? Someone to tell you to get off your butt and stop making excuses? Some combination of the two? Know what keeps you motivated and look for someone who can work with you in a way that you find motivating and productive. If possible, talk to some of their former or current athletes to find out more about their experience. If a coach has a reputation for being hard on athletes and you know you need a little fear to keep you motivated, this could be a great match! However, if you know you tend avoid conflict, you may well end up hiding from this coach so you don’t get in trouble. This is not an effective form of training, and does not benefit you. Find someone who works with you in a way that will best ensure your success.

4.  Experience/Education – Make sure your goals align with your coach’s interests and expertise. If you are new to the sport, ask whether a coach has worked with beginners. If you are hoping to qualify for Kona or get your pro card, make sure your coach has a specific plan to help get you there. If you are hoping to balance a busy schedule while getting fit and having fun, choose someone who knows how to be flexible and supportive. Great coaches never stop learning about the sport – they want to be aware of the best new techniques and any worrying trends that are emerging in triathlon. Ask your coach how they stay sharp and increase their sport-specific knowledge. Many coaches hold certifications in the sport; these do not mean that they are more skilled than other coaches who do not, but it does guarantee a baseline level of knowledge.

5.  Cost – There is a lot of variation in coaching fees. In general, coaches who are the most experienced and accessible (meaning how often you can contact them) are also the most expensive. These are typically career coaches who give a good percentage of their time and energy to their coaching business. They work with several athletes and tend to have a great deal of experience. The most economical choice is typically buying a static training plan, but you lose the benefit of a coach’s guidance. When making decisions about cost, be honest with yourself about how much you can afford and how your investment aligns with your goals.

6.  Location – If you want to be part of a triathlon team or are hoping for one-on-one evaluations, it can be helpful to look for a coach that is nearby. However, with the constant evolution of new internet-based evaluation tools and techniques, this may less critical. Many coaches are using video analysis to determine where their athletes can make improvements. Phone and Skype communication can also help bridge the geographical gap between you and your coach. If there is someone who you really want to work with, location can often be overcome.

Finally, we maintain that the absolute best way to know whether a coach is right for you is to talk to them. Much like finding the best house, car, bike, or trainers, sometimes if you simply feel like you click, and you like what they have to say about their style, that should indicate that you will work well together. Remember that you are accountable for at least 50% of the relationship between you and your coach. If something is missing, or if you feel like you need additional help in a specific area, make sure you ask for it clearly. Coaches are highly invested in their athletes’ success, and we want to see you happily and healthily participating in this sport for years to come.

The athletes at Campfire Endurance Coaching are all bound by the same goal: to become faster, happier, healthier people. It's an ethos shared by all the coaches at Campfire, and nicely wrapped up in our motto: Go Fast, Have Fun, Be Nice. We think that keeping these three principles in sight at all time lead to strong performances and happier lives.

We are taking new athletes! Our roster of experienced coaches is ready to form a relationship with you, and help you get better, faster, happier, and healthier for your next training and racing season, so meet the coaches , learn how it works, check out The Athlete Accelerator, and become a member of the Campfire family, if, and only if, we’re right for you.

Mastering Coach-Athlete Communication

Five tips to start and maintain good relationships between coach and athlete

We’ve all heard that all relationships rely upon regular, high quality communication, and the coach-athlete relationship is no exception. In fact, other than the primary relationship in your life and your immediate family, your coach may be the person who knows the most about your life, your goals, your fears, and your dreams. For coaches, your athletes—even though they are probably customers—will make up a close circle of acquaintances. These connections are valuable on a personal and professional level, and maintaining them should be a priority for both coach and athlete. Today we’ll talk about ways to do just that. A good coach-athlete relationship is a collaboration, not a dictatorship, and all of your work should aim towards that eventual goal.

First, though, we want to identify some approaches that will torpedo the communication between athlete and coach. At Campfire Endurance Coaching, we’ve always strived to avoid these pitfalls, as poor communication leads to poor results, and poor results lead to high athlete turnover, which leads to business failure (or, at least, not delivering on your mission statement, if it has anything at all in it about being athlete-centered).

1. The No-Contact Coach. One of our athletes says that in a previous coaching relationship, they would leave comments in TrainingPeaks that said “Is there anyone actually reading this?” to see if they would get a response. Nothing says you don’t care about your athletes and their development more than ignoring them. Is there really anything else to say about this? Don’t ignore your athletes. Athletes, don’t ignore your coaches, but if you’re doing that...well, we don’t think we can save that relationship.

2. The “Just Do As I Say” Coach. “Trust the Plan” has, unfortunately, become code for “Just stop bothering me.” Coaches can sometimes interpret athlete questions or concerns as a lack of trust, but it’s important to remember, coaches, that you are an expert in your field with A LOT of information that is now just part of your basic knowledge. What sounds like a challenge may be interest, so when you feel compelled to shut down communication by saying “Trust the plan” take a breath and do some educating instead.

3. The Absentee Landlord. Similar to No-Contact, but this coach sets up a plan and then sends notes from afar: “Lemme know how the block went” is not coaching, it’s plausible deniability and an abdication of coaching responsibility!

4. The Smoke-Blower. If you are dishonest with your athletes (even in an “encouraging” way) they will eventually recognize that tendency and lose their trust in you. As with any relationship, if you don’t trust each other you don’t have anything. Make sure to set challenging but achievable goals for your athletes and then hold them accountable to those goals (remembering that renegotiating goals is also OK, as long as there is a conversation about it). Athletes—if your coach keeps telling you that you can do something you know that presently you cannot, you might want to look for a new coach.

5. The Athlete-Led Coach. Similar to the Smoke-Blower, but this coach finds a way to agree with their athlete about everything. This is VERY difference from “Athlete-Centered,” to be clear. The result is a program where the athlete does what they want to do and the coach justifies that decision. The result is a co-dependent coaching relationship where the athlete simply does what they’ve always done and the coach makes them think that that’s progress. That kind of coaching usually leads to the same results the athlete has always achieved.

OK, negative coach archetypes established, let’s get into five tips for improving communication between coaches and athletes.

Don’t Make Assumptions About Your Athletes

We all know the saying about what assuming can do, and all of us at Campfire have made asses of ourselves at one point or another because of it. Athletes are humans, which means their moods and goals can fluctuate on any given day. Coaches, be careful of coming up with a set identity for your athletes, like “Alistair is dedicated most of the time, but whenever work gets busy he stops doing his training,” or “Cassie clearly doesn’t believe in the workouts I’m prescribing her,” or “I would be surprised if Jim actually signed up for Ötillö.” The problem with assumptions is that you are taking some real-world data (what an athlete says or does) and then layering your own judgments and beliefs on top of that information. The result is something that is neither your athlete’s or your creation, and isn’t actually true for either of you. NOT a good place from which to make decisions, and an excellent place for miscommunication.

Be Curious and Non-reactive

Your next step, after not making assumptions, is to be curious about what your athletes are saying and doing. If you’ve followed the point above and held off making assumptions about your athletes, you’re in a great position to be curious. Try using phrases like “Tell me more about that decision,” or “How did you get there?” Make sure that your curiosity doesn’t sound like sarcasm, which communicates a different meaning to your athletes. Hand in hand with curiosity is avoiding reactivity with your athletes. If an athlete has done something different than what you had intended, it is very likely NOT about you as a coach. Much more likely is that there are a set of circumstances that make following the plan not possible for the athlete at that moment, and your job is to find and illuminate those circumstances so the athlete can see them. If you react defensively, however, and think that the athlete is judging you and your coaching by making a different choice than what was on the plan you will only make your athlete defensive in return. Now communication is much more difficult, with each army setting up positions in each camp. Not a good model for collaboration.

Create Systems for Several Types of Contact

When we polled Campfire athletes about their communication preferences, the loudest message we heard was that they valued being able to communicate with their coaches in a variety of ways: TrainingPeaks workout comments, email, phone/video conference, and text message. At Campfire we use scheduling software where athletes can book phone calls with their coaches, and we have standards for reply times, which are:

• A coach will respond to an athlete’s TrainingPeaks workout comment in one business day

• A coach will respond to an email within 24 hours

• A coach will do their best to respond to a text message that day (but there are boundaries to this one—coaches have lives and workouts too)

• Athletes can sign up for 45 minutes of phone contact once a week

Setting up clear parameters for contact tells the athlete that communication is a priority for you, and they know that they can get a hold of you in several different ways. Communication systems suggest that you as a coach are professional and deploy different methods for different athletes, which will widen the number of clients you can attract. The biggest upside? By opening several avenues of information, you learn more about your athlete, which will only make you a better coach.

Listen, Empathize, Plan, and Protect Yourself

Athletes go through tough patches, and you will be one of the people they reach out to when they pass through those patches. If you want to avoid being an athlete-led coach (see above), it’s important to recognize your role in this situation. First of all, you are not a counselor or a trained mental health professional, so if an athlete is in a situation outside your scope of care, it’s important to recognize that fact and ask them if they have access to that kind of resource. Having determined that you are talking about a coaching-related issue, you should listen to the athlete’s situation, empathize with them, and then make a plan to help the athlete through the rough patch. One of our athletes says “I had a micro meltdown this summer. I was four weeks out from IM Madison and just mentally couldn't do the training anymore. I had just come back from what had been a punishing and unsatisfying long ride when I texted my coach to ask if we could connect. We were on the phone 12 hours later, talked through what was happening, came up with a plan, and moved on. The expeditious nature was part of the value, surely, but the better piece was not getting wrapped up too much in the why it happened, and focusing more on what to do in the moment. Having a plan of how to move forward brought me back to earth and pulled me back a bit from the ledge.” Your role in these situations is to provide a sounding board for your athlete’s situation, and then to take the lead and offer some direction, since athletes can spin around in one place for a while. Finally, make sure you protect yourself—empathy is a powerful thing to offer someone, and you need to make sure that you don’t become a permanent and ongoing sounding board for your athletes. Draw clear boundaries around communication and your athletes will have better outcomes.

Motivate but Hold Accountable

Athletes sometimes need help with motivation, and during those moments it can be appropriate to give your athletes a pep talk, reminding them of what they have set out to do, that the path is long, but that the outcome will be worth it. You will spend some amount of time pointing out to them reasons to be confident (but don’t become The Smoke-Blower, above!) and appealing to their sense of excitement and vision. You will be a cheerleader, from time to time, in other words. But if an athlete always needs encouragement, the relationship is heading in a bad direction. Athletes need to come into the sport with their own intrinsic motivation (part of your job might be uncovering that motivation for them), and if they rely upon you to furnish that for them you will run out of steam at some point. One way to make sure that they stay motivated is to return ownership of the process to them by holding them accountable to the goals they established when they began working with you. If an athlete has told you that she wants to qualify for Kona but has been shortening her long rides by half, you probably won't be able to cheerlead that athlete to doing what she needs to do to be successful. Holding someone accountable, although it can feel tough at first, is a huge gift for your athlete. It reminds them that only they are responsible for their achievements, and the people around them (coaches, family, training partners) are simply buttresses to their actions. If an athlete learns that lesson and integrates it into their life, then you, my friend, are Coach of The Year.

CONCLUSION

In wrapping up, we can summarize these tips fairly easily: make communication a priority and make it possible via several avenues; be patient and curious with your athletes, remembering that no one knows them better than themselves; keep your assumptions to yourself and delight when your athletes surprise you and defy your assumptions; learn how to empathize but offer solutions, and then hold your athletes accountable to those solutions (if they decide they like those solutions, of course!). Communication is hard, but it is the bedrock skill of great coaches—without it, you literally have nothing.

A Real-world Summary of Kona Qualification Training

Scott G. qualifying for his first Ironman World Championships

We’ve talked before about a big-picture, general view about qualifying for Kona, but what about one real-world example? We are going to walk you through Scott G.’s Kona qualification at Ironman Arizona in November of 2021 so you can see a practical example of what we prescribed and how he was able to achieve his goal.

A Five Year Plan

Although many of you may not want to hear this, qualifying for Kona will probably be a multi-year process, taking some athletes fewer years and other athletes more. Scott started working with us in 2017, coming from a robust cycling background (he raced bikes for many years), a running background in high school and college, and no swimming background. We talked at the beginning about building his abilities over the long term and that we would start thinking about qualifying for Kona after his third year of training. In the meantime we began building for his first Ironman, Whistler, in the summer of 2017. Here were our training goals as we prepped for that first Ironman:

1. Swim a lot, and put a big focus on technique (too much kicking!)

2. Shift his cycling engine from the high-revving world of bike racing to the steady burn of long-distance triathlon

3. Build his run volume to necessary Ironman marathon loads without injury

Happily, the goal of any first Ironman is to finish, and although Scott had some “secret goal” ambitions (he really hoped to be under 12 hours), we knew that the goal was simply to reach the finish line. Scott did so, getting to the finish line in 11:41:53 and 42nd in his age group. An excellent first effort with the following splits:

Swim: 1:32:32
Bike: 5:49:11
Run: 4:11:50

Having set his benchmark Ironman, we set out on journey to get down to the ten hours or slightly below range so he could qualify in the M45-49 age group. Scott has a busy job and full family life, so we couldn’t aim for the traditional 20 hours/week average qualifying for Kona in the <49 men’s and women’s age groups. Here are the volumes we achieved over the next five years:

2017: 487 total hours, 97 swim, 221 bike, 144 run
2018: 486 total hours, 112 swim, 217 bike, 152 run
2019: 561 total hours, 128 swim, 250 bike, 146 run
2020 (COVID year): 654 total hours, 118 swim, 315 bike, 168 run
2021 (Qualifying year): 635 total hours, 150 swim, 275 bike, 160 run

So over the course of five years, we build total volume by 30%, from 487 hours to 635, or roughly 13:20 per week for 48 total weeks. Looking at these numbers, I would guess that maybe Scott had a qualification in him in 2020, but with all of the race cancellations we will never know.

Slow Down Less Rather Than Go Faster

Scott has certainly sped up over the course of these five years, but not hugely. The difference between his second Ironman (Arizona in 2018) and his qualifying Ironman (Arizona in 2021) was only about 15 minutes. Here are some details:

Arizona 2018
Swim: 1:25:59 (Scott’s PR for the swim), 2:00/100
Bike: 4:59:08, average power 208 average HR 138
Run: 3:42:07, average pace 8:28 average HR 136

Arizona 2021
Swim: 1:26:42, 2:03/100
Bike: 4:55:27, average power 211 average HR 136
Run: 3:28:46, average pace 8:00 average HR 137

These are pretty similar races, other than the huge difference in run times, which is what allowed Scott to qualify for Kona. I would say the swim and bike are statistically identical and within the realm of measurement error—we can’t say much about them other than the possible fact that maybe the course in 2021 was slightly faster on the bike. HOWEVER, a 30” per mile difference on the run is well outside measurement error, especially when you see that Scott’s heart rate was effectively identical on the run while going much faster. In the words of…someone, “it never gets easy, you just go faster.” I would amend that to say “you slow down less as you improve your fitness.” In 2018 Scott ran the stereotypical IM: out the gate fast, only to struggle in the second half: he averaged 8:02 for the first 1:51, and then…8:56 for the second half. Not what we are looking for. In 2021 Scott ran 7:59 for the first half and 8:02/mile for the second half, which I would describe as perfect pacing. But it wasn’t simply pacing, of course, since Scott ran the same speed in the first half in 2018. He was just at a higher level of fitness. Let’s head back to the training tape to see what was different…

October 2018
Total Swim Volume: 14:21:30 and 39,000m
Total Bike Volume: 24:31:37 and 418.6mi
Total Run Volume: 18:00:11 and 141.6mi
Total Volume: 56:53:18

October 2021
Total Swim Volume: 14:42:02 and 38,000m
Total Bike Volume: 34:16:39 and 676mi
Total Run Volume: 20:26:55 and 167mi
Total Volume: 71:46:14

Kaboom. Here we go. Almost ten additional hours of cycling (258 miles) and 2.5 hours of running (25 miles) in 2021 as compared to 2018. Before you all go and blast out huge volumes in the final month before your next Ironman, though, let’s look at the preceding months leading into those big months.

2018
July: 41 hours
August: 40 hours
September: 51 hours

2021
July: 50 hours
August: 53 hours
September: 43 hours

So everything about 2021 was more when you back it off and look at strategic volume, and that is what allowed Scott to run so well at Ironman Arizona in 2021: more bike volume which simply made the bike leg less taxing then before, allowing him to run effectively without slowing down the same way he did in 2018. “Hang on,” you might say. “What about that drop in volume in September?” Well, in a real impressive step for a triathlete, Scott took a full week off in September. Seeing that maybe he’d gotten a little tired, we figured he needed a mid-season break, so we took one. The result? PR’s at Oceanside 70.3 and then Ironman Arizona in the subsequent two months, and qualifications to two different World Championships.

Don’t Ignore Your Weaknesses…OR Your Strengths!

It would be easy to look at Scott’s swim times and think that qualification was out of reach: not many Kona-bound athletes get to the big island on 1:26 swims. I know many triathletes who would look at their improvement curves and abandon swim training. Scott hasn’t, as you can see from his historical swim volume over the past five years. With the exception of 2020, when pools were closed for long periods, he has increased his swim volume each year. It speaks volumes about him that he’s been willing to go along with that while seeing relatively stagnant times (1:32 in 2017 to 1:26 in 2021 is not the kind of improvement upon which coaching empires are built). We believe, though, that Scott’s economy has improved in the water, allowing him to ride and run with less fatigue. How can we prove that? Well, we can look at his pool times. In 2018, a 4000m swim would take Scott close to 90 minutes, while in 2021 he would get through the same distance in around 80 minutes. Sure, it would be nice to be faster in the water, but we’re guessing this is a case of technique and relative open water comfort. 2022 will see A LOT of time in the open water.

On the other hand, we never sacrificed cycling or running volume in order to focus on swimming. Scott is a gifted cyclist and runner, and we have seen year-over-year increased in those disciplines’ volume, too. It’s important to remember that your strengths are what will get you 90% of the way to your goals, and until you see a relative plateau-ing of performance, there’s no reason to expect you won’t be able to continue improving them.

Final Thoughts

Building volume over time is crucial if you want to develop as an endurance athlete, but rest and tactical bursts of training are probably just as important. Along with those considerations, balancing the athlete’s life, work, and motivation are also equally important. Qualifying for Kona will require keeping all of these elements in front of the athlete where he or she can see them and not get tripped up by them. It’s your job as a coach to help the athlete manage their training load, and to tell them to take a break when they seem cooked. On the other hand, you will probably have to encourage them to push through some difficult (but not dangerous) periods of fatigue. Remember: the best coaching tool you have in your toolbox is a question: “Hey, how are you feeling?”

The Ultimate Top Eight Gifts for the Triathlete Who Has Everything

by Campfire Endurance Coaching Athlete Amy VT

Triathletes are pretty particular about their gear, if not certifiably exacting. The latest models, lightest material, freshest colors, and most inventive bells and whistles are overwhelming, and personal preference and style can make gift-giving seem nearly impossible. So what do you get the triathlete who has everything? Here are some sure-fire bets of various costs that any triathlete would thank Santa for, no doubt.  

#1 CAMP CAMP CAMP CAMP!

Dream gift! If you purchase a slot in a triathlon training camp, you’re giving the gift of training, camaraderie, coaching, and an ultimately memorable experience. There are tons and tons of camps of different styles, durations, and foci all throughout the year, and all over the world. Check out our 2022 Annual Spring Training Camp in Bend, Oregon for the ultimate gift. If you’re purchasing for a partner, perhaps you’ll get to lobby for your own retreat sometime in 2021 for a quid-pro-quo. If you’re thinking YOU would be the best recipient for the ultimate dream gift of Camp, just forward this list to your friends and fam.

For the next two weeks, during the Black Friday holiday period, you can get $200 off Bend camp with the code BEND22BLACK or a free month of one-to-one coaching (a $400 value) for the month leading into camp (current Campfire Endurance Coaching athletes, sadly, cannot take advantage of this second offer). If you’d like the free month of coaching, simply don’t enter the coupon code at checkout but DO select the option for the free month when you fill out the form.

Camp 2018 in Bend, Oregon

#2 Zealios Skincare Products

Sunscreen, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, anti-chafe creams, recovery salves, and body lotion all specifically designed for the rare physiological traits of the species triathlete. You really can’t go wrong, here, and there’s more. Zealios is an awesome company run by rad peeps out of Bend, Oregon; they offer the cutest little bundles (cuter than baby Yoda) to make for perfect holiday gifts. Be careful, though, anyone who uses Zealios who is not a triathlete might turn into one. 

#3 INSCYD test or WKO5 cycling consultation

What gets measured gets managed, goes an old business maxim, and the same can be said about your training. Although we tend to focus first on the subjective side of an athlete, once that is taken care of we love to dive into the numbers. By purchasing an INSCYD test, you get physiological testing without having to head to a lab. You’ll learn about your anaerobic threshold (we usually call that FTP), but you’ll also learn about VLamax (sometimes called “the secret weapon” of elite coaches) and FatMax, the fastest speed you can move at your most efficient mix of fats and carbohydrates.

We can also sit down with you and look at your cycling through the lens of WKO5, TrainingPeaks’ excellent cycling analysis software. Get a much more accurate sense of your functional threshold power (FTP), and what you should focus on to improve your cycling. If you hire us for a cycling consultation using WKO5, you get:

• An initial phone call to run through your current WKO5 results

• A series of tests to perform to properly “feed the model”

• A second phone call to analyze the results of the test and to prescribe training interventions for the most efficient improvement

#4 Swim Camp

Nothing boosts your swim more than an intensive, dedicated stretch of time in the pool with coaches and lanemates. In addition to two amazing days of training at the Juniper pool in Bend, Oregon. Our 2022 Swim Camp runs from January 21-23, and is jam-packed with workouts, individualized sessions, video analysis, classroom time, and fun time. 

From the first out of the water at Kona, to those who just learned to swim and are worried about cut-off times, everyone needs a personalized analysis by an expert coach. Campers will also receive state-of-the-art video analyses that provide:

• Personalized analysis of your strengths and weaknesses

• Drills intended to correct or limit the stroke dysfunctions

• Suggestions as to how to best train to achieve your goals, given the framework of your current abilities

#5 Travel Torque Wrench

You’ll have to check to ensure your giftee doesn’t already have one. If not, drop everything and get a travel-sized torque wrench right now.  Don’t even read the rest of this list. Torque wrenches are crucial to triathlon and TT bike maintenance, since carbon frames, seat tubes, and complex headsets require a specific application of force while tightening. As triathletes travel all over the world for races, it can be dangerous guesswork to make adjustments without a torque wrench, or a hassle to find a mechanic at the race site. 

Any brand that looks relatively like the below pic is ideal, so long as it’s sold by a reputable cycling retailer, is relatively lightweight and compact, and has at least eight attachments. Borrow a paint pen or label gun (my mom has both) because everyone will want to swipe your athlete’s new prize possession. We won’t offer a special link because we obvi recommend you try your neighborhood bike store and #shoplocal.

#6 MarcPro Recovery System

We guarantee you that every triathlete who doesn’t have a set of MarcPro wants one. This contraption is an EMS device that delivers the most effective muscle recovery available. Essentially, it gives off these crazy vibes that are adjustable and science-based, creating non-fatiguing muscle activation. Marc Pro makes it easy to recover faster, so your triathlete can perform at her or his best, which is an ideal gift, right?

#7 Blueseventy Gear

There are just a handful of world class wetsuits and swim skins out there, and we stand by BlueSeventy. Their entire website is on sale for the rest of November 2021, so you really should load up now. The best part about this gift, apart from the discount, is that you have options: wetsuits, swim skins, bags, or even goggles for a budget-friendlier gift. Sizing is essential for the suits, but you can always exchange them. If you’re unsure what a swim skin is and if your athlete needs one, all you need to know is that races in tropical locations require them, so you might want to start dreaming of vacay 2022.

Conversely, we recommend avoiding these items: hydration systems (too many options), helmets (unless you know exactly what they want), bike travel cases (unless you really know exactly what they want), magazine subscriptions (the quality varies), and bumper stickers (if you have to ask...). Gift cards are also always a winner, in which case we recommend your local bike shop or local manual therapist, like a massage therapist or acupuncturist. 

The above list, however, should give you some much more exciting ideas for your giftee, or maybe you, yourself, in which case you should just forward this message to your whole family. If that’s too blatantly hinty, send us their email and we’ll forward it for you.  

Happy Holidays from the team at Campfire!

Sweat Equity

It was hot a Coeur d’Alene this year, and more hot races are bound to occur in the future—are you prepared?

How Knowing your Sodium Losses can Improve your Energy Budget

Races heat up more and more each summer, with several endurance events over the past decade seeing triple-digit temperatures on race day. Dehydration, an eternal issue for endurance athletes, has intensified along with the rise in temperature, shrinking your margin for error during competition and training. Today we’re going to talk about two ways to improve your chances to avoid the dreaded forced slowdown that comes with dehydration, lack of electrolytes, and too much core temperature.

We’re stoked on this right now because the two owners of CBCG headed to Endurance PDX to get tested by Jacob Rathe, recovering professional road cyclist and perspiration specialist. Jacob is the local Precision Hydration sweat tester, and he clued Chris and Molly in to their individual sodium loss rates. If this sounds interesting, look for a future group sweat test purchase here in Portland.

What’s the Problem?

When you exercise, your core temperature rises. Your body, ever aiming to maintain its homeostasis (your physical status quo), responds by sweating. Sweat should bead on the surface of your skin, evaporating and slightly cooling the blood just under your skin. That blood returns to your core at a lower temperature, keeping your internal heat in check (if we didn’t have this mechanism, we would overheat in the same way a car with an empty coolant reservoir does; in a human context this is called heat stroke and it can kill you).

But the problem is that as you sweat, you dehydrate, losing water and electrolytes in the process. If we stick with the car analogy (why always the car analogies?), it would be as if you lost a substantial amount of coolant every time you drove anywhere. If you didn’t replace the coolant every trip or two, we’d be back to the problem we cited above. Sadly, we haven’t figured out a way to keep our human coolant onboard permanently yet, so we need to replace it constantly. This replacing is called...hydrating, or just drinking.

We’ve known for ages that reducing fluid loss during competition maintains performance, aiming for keeping our water losses below 2% of body weight during events, but until recently we’ve only know that we should replace our lost electrolytes without having a number to aim for. That technology has arrived outside of high performance centers, and it should be the next piece of knowledge you add to your racing and training library.

Electrolytes—and in particular sodium—play a huge role in regulating endurance performance. From cramping to nervous system maintenance to hydration assistance, they help fix many issues athletes experience on the race course. But what if you could stay ahead of your electrolyte losses, knowing what you will lose and replacing them proactively? That’s the information a Precision Hydration’s sweat test provides you: your exact sodium loss rate per liter of sweat, so you can write a salt-perfect race plan for your next event, regardless of the temperature. 

Athlete #1

Athlete #2

Everyone is Different

The biggest advantage of sweat testing is that it is specific to you. At Campfire, we write race plans that will work for 90-95% of athletes, and we do that by overestimating your sweat losses and aiming for more salt intake than you probably need. This approach works, if crudely so, and a better approach can get you the few extra percentage points you need, whether your goal is qualifying for Kona or simply finishing your next event. Above you’ll see two very different results from two athletes, which will result in two very different plans. Athlete #1 is a “low salt sweater,” losing only about 600mg of sodium per each liter of fluid they lose. Athlete #2 loses almost twice that amount! Prescribing the same electrolyte replacement strategy for both of these athletes will result in a “fine” outcome, but you don’t come to us for “fine,” do you?

Sodium Losses are Static, but Fluid Losses Fluctuate

The sodium content of your sweat is largely genetic, and won’t go up or down much at all. Your fluid losses, however, will change due to the conditions around your, your level of fitness, your training, and your acclimation work. In other words, the fluid losses per hour can change quite a bit! As you approach your key races of the season, lifting your sweat rate should be one of your goals. That may seem counter-intuitive (more sweat = more fluid loss = more dehydration, right?), but remember that sweating is your body’s cooling mechanism. If you sweat more, you’ll cool more. We just need to know how much you’ll lose in a range of circumstances. So it’s time for another test, this one free and that you can accomplish on your own: a sweat rate rest. You’ll simply weigh yourself before a hard workout in conditions similar to your goal event, weigh yourself after, and then subtract the fluid that you drank during the workout. The end result will look like this:

Athlete B’s Sweat Loss Calculator

Athlete B loses about 1.1 liters of fluid per hour. If we go back to Athlete B’s sodium loss per liter, we can see that they lose 1262mg of sodium each hour! Generally an athlete can replace about 70-75% of that sodium loss effectively, so this athlete needs to consume at least 1-1.5 liters (that’s 32-48 fluid oz. for you Imperial types) of fluid, making sure that they get in ~900mg of sodium per hour. Let’s say that this athlete will aim for 1.25-1.5 standard sports bottles per hour, which will get them 32-36 fluid oz or 1-1.125 liters. If their bottles have 7-800mg of sodium in each of them, they’ll be replacing their sodium needs. What’s 7-800mg of sodium in real-world sports drink products?

• 3 scoops PowerBar Isoactive

• 2 scoops Skratch Labs Hydration Mix

• 3 tbsp. Gatorade Endurance (roughly 3 heaping scoops)

• 3 scoops Clif Bar Hydration

• 1 package Precision Hydration 1500

We can’t really imagine adding three scoops of PowerBar, Gatorade Endurance, or Clif Hydration to each of our bottles, so for this athlete we would suggest going with two scoops and then a salt tablet that has an additional 2-300mg of sodium to get them where they need to be.

Let’s imagine, now, that Athlete A loses the same 1.1 liters per hour. At 635mg lost per liter, they only lose 700mg of sodium per hour! This athlete needs far less in their bottles as they compete or train. They still need to get in 1.25-1.5 bottles per hour (assuming the sweat rate is the same, which we’re assuming to just keep math, like, simpler), but they’ll only need around 500mg per bottle. That’s:

• 2 scoops PowerBar Isoactive

• 1 1/3 scoop Skratch Labs

• 2 tbsp. Gatorade Endurance

• 2 scoops Clif Bar Hydration

• 1 package Precision Hydration 1000

At hot, windy races such as Galveston 70.3, getting your hydration right means success or failure

The Plan Writes Itself

Now that you know your sweat rate, and how much sodium you lose per liter of sweat lost, and you know you can replace about 70% of your sodium, your hydration plan writes itself. Your goal is to avoid losing more than 2% of your bodyweight, as losses more than that are correlated with less-than-ideal performances. Don’t forget about carbohydrates in your fluid, though! We are living in a carb-phobic period, and we can’t tell you the number of athletes who tell us “we’ll just put this non-caloric effervescent sodium product in our bottles.” NO! First of all, carbohydrates improve absorption of fluid, so you’re already working against the beautiful replacement strategy we just worked out. Second, you’re an endurance athlete, for god’s sake! You run on carbohydrates. Skimping on carbohydrates during your workouts will simply rob your workout of quality.

CONCLUSION

Sodium content testing, up until recently, remained out of reach for everyday athletes, which is a shame, because your race shouldn’t be compromised by the conditions around you. Get sodium-loss tested, work out your sweat rate, and prepare to be impressed by how much better you feel in training and during racing next season!

Good Endurance Training Habits

Always have a bottle on deck during your swims!

It’s late fall, and only a few months remain in the 2021 racing season (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, of course). Some athletes have started their end-of-season break, while others are closing in on their final races. Those who finished up their races in September and October are looking for coaches right now or planning out the 2022 season, dreaming of the successes they’ll experience next year. We just had several new athletes sign up, and it made us realize something: there are a set of habits we consistently attempt to ingrain in each of our athletes—why not make it official and give you a listicle, that highest of journalistic forms?

Fuel Before, During, and After

We can’t think of something that athletes get more wrong, more often. Endurance training requires effective fueling, no matter what you think your body composition goals might be. Even if you and your coach have decided, with the help of a nutrition professional, that losing some weight might help your performance on the race course, you should never, ever, ever skimp on calories before, during, and after sessions. If you fuel your workouts and then recover from them effectively, your training will just be better. If your training is better, you’ll get faster or more economical. Once you’re training better, body composition goals will be more realistic. If you starve yourself, though, you won’t accomplish any of your goals. Set up your life so there are ample calories around to support your training.

Update Your Training App, and Communicate with Your Coach

Why hire a coach if you’re not going to talk to them? All of the legitimate training apps (TrainingPeaks, Final Surge, Today’s Plan) provide easy ways to communicate with your coach. USE them. Your coach WANTS to hear from you. If they don’t hear from you, they’ll wonder what’s going on, and might even doubt that you’re invested in the process. Any good relationship succeeds on regular, open, and honest communication. Leave your coach a comment and schedule a call regularly. What kinds of comments? Three or four sentences is usually enough to give an update on the workout just completed—your coach hates silence, but also can’t read a novel for every workout.

Stretch Cords Before Every Swim

Just five minutes of stretch cord work before you swim will make a HUGE difference in your swimming. You will move better, you’ll be warmed up, and you’ll have worked on a little strength before diving in. Just try it once and see how much better you feel as you start your next session. What should you do? Really anything that looks like swimming, but we’ve always liked double-arm pulls and single-arm pulls in sets of 30-60 seconds. PRO TIP: if you do this regularly and take your swim cords to races, you will have a way to warm up when you aren’t allowed into the water before race start.

Set Up Your Devices for Your Desired Information

It’s never fun to start a workout and realize that you’re looking at all the wrong data. OR to upload your workout and discover that you’ve handed your coach a bird’s nest of almost unusable information. Talk to your coach and find out what data they would like to see. Here at CBCG we don’t like auto-lap (turn if off! Unless you’re racing—then you can turn it on), but we do like heart rate and cadence. Agree upon a set of shared metrics and then make sure to keep supplying that information to your coach.

Learn How to Use a Pace Clock

We really don’t like it when athletes use their smart watches in the pool—it alienates swimmers from the experience of swimming, and there’s all this button pressing. Even worse, most smart watches subtract the rest from the session, stringing together your intervals as if you did them continuously. That’s like doing a bike session and not recording the recoveries between intervals and then trying to convince your coach you rode continuously at 120% of FTP for 18 minutes. The pace clock is a great training device, because it associates you and your brain with the workout at hand, and it doesn’t let you off the hook. Here’s how to use it. You may see workouts written something like this:

10x50 on :50
5x100 on 1:35

OK, what does that mean? That means that, for the 50s, you leave every 50 seconds. Swim a 50 in :40 seconds? Awesome, you get ten seconds rest. Swim it in :49 seconds? Well, you get one second rest. You’ll quickly learn what intervals are “makeable” for you and which ones are stretches. Usually intervals that constrain your rest stimulate your aerobic system, and those that allow you lots of rest help develop speed. That triathlete who says she’s working on “speed” because she just did 50x50 on a tight send-off? That wasn’t a speed workout.

Please, please do your strength work

Make Strength a Habit

In the words of a giant multinational brand, just do it, OK? Find a way to make strength training fit into your life and get it done. A weak muscle will eventually be a tight muscle, and even if your tight muscles don’t end up injuring you, they may constrain your mobility and affect your performance. Also, few coaches will dispute the benefits of core work, and if you’re over 35 you’re already beginning to lose muscle mass (this counts double for female athletes). Remember that this sport is for life, so figure out how to incorporate this sometimes tedious discipline into your existence.

A clean bike is a fast bike, but it also means a committed athlete

Clean Your Bike, and Learn Some Basic Maintenance

When budding Euro-pros start riding at age five, no one cleans their bikes for them. They learn to keep their machine clean, and in doing so they discover all sorts of things they’d miss otherwise: a fraying brake cable, a missing bar end, a cracked shifter. In some cases they discover issues that might become catastrophic. If you work on your own bike (even for just the basics) and clean it, rather than outsourcing it, you’ll be a more self-reliant athlete, able to fix your bike when something odd happens.

Conclusion

These seven tips are only a small smattering of good habits for endurance athletes, and you and your coach will probably agree upon several more. But since improvement at this type of sport relies upon consistent training, you will want to attach good habits to those training routines. This life-structure offers one of the best benefits of endurance sport, and you probably didn’t pick up the sport simply because you loved exercising so much. Use the training structure to improve your habits, and you may find yourself enjoying the sport more, achieving more, and just generally feeling better, which fits with that whole Happier, Faster, and Healthier thing.

Open Water Swimming: 201 Level

Five tips (and one workout) to literally take your open water skills to the next level

It’s race season! It may have been a bit since you’ve competed, so we’re running an open water swim clinic this Sunday at 12pm at Vancouver Lake Park in Vancouver, Washington. If you’re ready to sign up now, without reading all the awesome info below, you can do that! We’re going to cover all of this information at the clinic, so just join us!

What did your last open water swim workout look like? We’re guessing it went something like this:

1. Drag self to lake, ocean, or ditch suitable for OWS

2. Struggle into wetsuit, getting sweaty and/or exhausted in the process

3. Resolve to “just swim the distance” in your workout

4. Dutifully do just that, enjoying yourself (we hope) but not gaining any skills or improving your race day readiness

While that isn’t bad in any way (and kudos to you for going to the open water in the first place), you’re leaving new abilities on the table. With just a few tweaks, drills, and changes to your open water swim sessions, you’ll arrive on race feeling ready for the swim, instead of showing up to a trail run after only training on the track (which, to be honest, is pretty much what you’re doing if you only train in the pool).

What’s the BIG change we’re asking you to make? Well, the answer here is specificity. While in many other places we’ll tell you not to make workouts rehearsals, open water swimming (or any skill-based sport) provides a counter-argument. It’s rare that your triathlon will feature a relaxed, steady effort, uncrowded swim. You need to experience the wild changes in pace, proximity, and direction of your goal effort, so let’s graduate from 101 to 201!

Vary your effort in open water

Part of being race ready for an open water swim is practicing how your body responds to varying intensity in the water. Too many athletes treat their open water swims as long steady state efforts that aim to cover a certain distance. We highly recommend treating at least some of your open water swims as workouts. While you don’t have the helpful walls and lane lines of the concrete box, you can still find ways to include high intensity intervals. Count your strokes or use fixed points on shore as a guide. Practice swimming at a higher intensity and then settling into your race pace so you’re ready for the nervous energy of the swim start.

Get used to swimming in a group

Triathletes are told to draft off the swimmer in front of them to capitalize on the forward momentum that they are creating. When done correctly, drafting can result in a faster swim at a lower effort. The reality, however, is that many swimmers are uncomfortable in groups in open water. We get it: contact can feel aggressive even when it is unintentional and space can be difficult to navigate. Add to this the fact that many of us are reserving our own solo lanes right now and you get a situation where swimmers are acclimated to an environment in which they have plenty of room to swim. This just isn’t the case with races. Whether you’re passing or being passed, it is important to practice swimming with other people so you know how to safely make and interpret contact. Since you shouldn’t be swimming alone in the open water in the first place (right? RIGHT?), you’ve got a ready made contact dummy at your next workout—it’s OK, you get to be their dummy, too. Add in 5-10 minutes of literally leaning in to make contact with each other while swimming. Rub shoulders, hips, mid-section, and thighs and see that it’s really not all bad!

Bring your pool toys

CBCG athletes are well acquainted with the FINIS tempo trainer. In the pool, we use the gentle beep in your head to keep you on your prescribed pace during intervals. In the open water, try using the tempo trainer to keep your cadence up when you fatigue. Set it to mode 3, enter your normal stroke rate, and go for a swim! How long can you maintain that stroke rate? How far do you get before it starts to fall off? Can you get through your goal distance without sacrificing your turnover? Not using the FINIS tempo trainer? Follow this affiliate link for a 20% discount, courtesy of The Endurance School.

Practice starts and exits

Part of your course recon should be identifying what the swim entrance/exit protocol is at your next race. Is it an in-water start or do you run from shore? How many people start at once? What is the terrain like? There is no substitute for swimming in the body of water you’ll be racing in, but sometimes that just isn’t possible. Do the best you can to identify a safe and similar alternative and practice the skills that you’ll need on race day. Dolphin starts can help get you out ahead of the pack, but they also cause an acute escalation of your heart rate. Try them before race day to make sure that you can recover to a sustainable effort. If that isn’t in your wheelhouse right now, you’re probably better walking or running in. Practice your exits as well - far too many people stand up as soon as their feet can touch the bottom. You’re better off swimming as long as you can before you have to stand. Walking is much easier in shallow water!

Know when to hold, know when to go

Understanding your level of effort while racing in the open water (whether in a triathlon or a open-water swim race) is crucial, since you don’t have any reliable way of determining your current pace. One problem many swimmers face these days, in rolling starts for triathlon, is that they end up in a group of swimmers either slower or faster than their ability level. To fix this issue, you need to be able to recognize quickly that you’re in the “wrong” group. To build that ability, regularly perform drafting work either in a pool or in your open water practice sessions (see below). Proper pacing is very often about your ability to feel the correct effort, and that ability only comes with practice. Often you’ll find yourself swimming on another athlete’s feet, thinking “this feels too easy,” only to discover, upon trying to pass, that the pace was good, and leaving that athlete behind will cost too much effort. We’d say that if the effort feels very easy, or only two-to-three out of ten, you should experiment by trying to swim past the leading athlete. Remember the points above that contact is expected in open water swimming, and you aren’t committing a faux pas by passing! Try to be quick and clean with your pass.

If you are swimming on an athlete’s feet and the effort feels “very hard” (we would call that eight out of ten effort), we would suggest backing off, as you are likely in a group that is a bit too fast. If you try to stay there and blow up in the second half of the swim, you’ll lose even more time.

Your effort, whether drafting or not, should always be around the following for different race distances. While doing your practice sessions, try to really associate your effort with how your body feels, so you know what sensations to expect on race day. Not sure what your threshold pace is? Contact us for a consultation and we can help!

• Sprint distance/Olympic distance: 7-8/10 effort or “hard to almost-very-hard”

• 70.3/half-iron distance: 6-7/10 effort or “moderate-hard to hard”

• Iron-distance: 4-6/10 effort or “moderate to moderate-hard,” very dependent on ability and experience!

One session to rule them all

This workout is a classic, but we’d like to credit Gerry Rodrigues at Tower26 for the general shape of this workout. Workouts aren’t rehearsals...unless you rehearse the race several times within one session! We can’t mimic the exact physiological conditions of your body during an event, but we can provide a stimulus so your body changes to accommodate the race. By performing the circuit below four times, you’ll get four “reps” of a swim leg, making for a very efficient workout.

Necessary materials

• A partner (or two)! You really shouldn’t hit the open water alone, anyway, so if you’ve got a swim buddy, preferably close to your own speed, this workout will be more productive AND safer

• An open-water course with three water legs and one beach leg (ideally, this is a long-sided rectangle with one long edge being the beach, the other in the water, and the two short edges of around 100 yards/meters. If you don’t have a course that has some markers or buoys already in the water, agree upon some landmarks for the corners of the course—don’t let perfect be the enemy of good!

The session

Warmup: swim the box once or twice, tossing in the following ladder at some point in the warmup (this is a great routine, by the way, to include on race day as your warmup…it’s like we planned that or something):

• 30 strokes hard, 30 strokes easy

• 25 strokes hard, 25 strokes easy

• 20 strokes hard, 25 strokes easy

• 15 strokes hard, 15 strokes easy

• 10 strokes hard, 10 strokes easy

• 5 strokes hard, 5 strokes easy

Main set: flip a coin between you and your partner. Whoever calls it gets to pick whether they start on the inside on the beach, or on the outside. The goal on each lap is to beat your partner to the inside corner of the buoy. No, it’s not always faster at the inside due to traffic, but the goal today is to incite contact, so get to that inside corner.

1. First short leg (beach to first corner): swim HARD but not all-out—if you sprint to the buoy and then are gassed for the next leg, your partner will probably pass you right back. Be strong but not 10/10 effort.

2. First long leg (first corner to second corner): settle in to a solid 6-7/10 effort, or moderate-hard to hard. Your pace (if you have a reliable manner of tracking it) should be 2-3” slower than your threshold pace (your rested 1500m pace). If you made it to the corner first and you’re in the lead, your goal is to hold off your partner and get to the second corner holding your lead. If you were second to the first corner, try to get on your partner’s feet or hip and then get around them to claim the points to the second corner.

3. Second short leg (back to beach): swim HARD back to the beach—the goal here is to be the first standing up with your wetsuit zipped down (don’t take the whole thing off, but this is a nice first step of wetsuit stripping to practice)

4. Second long leg (back along beach): jog EASY back to the start, zipping your wetsuit back up as you go. This is your RECOVERY, so take it easy, but note how high your heart rate is as your body goes from horizontal to vertical.

5. SCORING! Gamification is a tried and true method of making boring and repetitive tasks fun. Here is how you score each round:

   • First to each corner or buoy = one point

   • First to beach = one point

   • First with wetsuit zipped down = one point

   • Figure out who won the round and keep track of points. Whoever lost the previous round gets to pick their starting position for the next round.

6. Repeat the circuit at least one more time, and up to five more times, depending on goal race distance, length of the circuit, your available energy, goals, and level of continued fun.

Wrapping up

Go out for ice cream! Every open water swim session should have some kind of treat, to suggest to your unconscious that open water swimming, although it requires some effort, results in a tangible, immediate reward. Here in the Pacific Northwest, open water swim sessions end with a trip to Burgerville for a milkshake.

We hope this was an informative post. If you’re ready to practice some of these techniques, be sure to come to our OPEN WATER SWIM CLINIC this coming weekend where you can practice these skills AND take part in this very session (plus others!)

Early Season Swim Development: Go LONGER, Not Faster

by Chris Bagg and Molly Balfe, Head Coaches

If you’re a triathlete but swim with a Masters-style swim team, you may find the following set familiar, as your coach narrates it from the deck: “OK, everybody! Great warmup. Next up we’re gonna do a set of 10x100, followed by 10x50s. Lanes one and two, that’s on a 1:30 send-off base. Lanes three and four, you guys are on a 1:40 base. Five and six, swim those on a 2:00 base.” Setting aside all the “send-off” talk, this main set looks a lot like what the coach (and the swimmers next to you) experienced when they swam in high school: short intervals, usually swum as fast as possible, with the limiting factor traffic rather than any of the athletes’ abilities (if you start deploying intervals longer than 200s, for instance, the swimmers at the front of the group often start to catch the tail of the group, and then no one is happy). 

You’re a triathlete, though, or a longer-distance open water swimmer, and the set above, while perfectly fine as a pool swimmer’s set, isn’t specific to your needs as an athlete. The shortest triathlon swim leg is still a “distance” event, in swimming terms, and your preparation should mirror the demands of the event. Swim Smooth, of course, has been tackling this problem for years, with their “Red Mist” workouts: longer intervals (in some cases up to 1000 yards or meters per interval) with relatively short rest. To make an analogy with running or cycling training, these are “sweet spot” style intervals, or a little bit below threshold effort/pace/power/HR, and they build a base that allows you to place speed on top of it.

Speaking of speed, the usual Swim Smooth system for developing it comes from establishing your swim threshold (critical swimming speed or “CSS”) and then slightly increasing the speed every week over a ten week period. To continue the cycling or running analogy, you would find your threshold power or pace and then—each week—aim for slightly higher or faster intervals each progressive week. Take the bike, for example. Maybe one week your coach assigns you 4x8’ intervals at your threshold of 250w. The following week you’d do 4x8’ at 255w, and then 260, and so on. For running you’d slowly creep up your interval paces, and after a training block (10-12 weeks, for Swim Smooth’s Ten-Week CSS Challenge), ostensibly you’d have a new, higher threshold.

Unfortunately, the physiology doesn’t quite hold up. Doing any kind of work at threshold is a very aerobic affair—in fact, threshold is often defined as “an athlete’s fastest sustainable aerobic pace or effort.” Developing the aerobic system takes time, because you need to build new capillaries to exchange more oxygen, create new mitochondria in your cells to power more respiration, and teach your system to oxidize more fat. If you simply try to speed up, you’ll actually be working above your threshold, missing the intensity that will improve your aerobic abilities. At CBCG, we’ve shifted our approach on the bike and run to one where athletes try to extend their time at threshold (lengthening) before entering an intensive (raising) period. We’ve come up with a system for the pool, and we’re going to share it with you today.

Firstly, though, we’d like to say that we’re firm believers in the Swim Smooth method, and this approach wouldn’t even be possible without their thinking and their established framework. We hope you (and they!) see it as a sensible addition to their program—not a swerve away from it.

OK, disclaimers and caveats aside, here’s what we often hear from athletes after they complete their CSS test and find their threshold pace: “I’m happy with that number, but there’s no way I could hold that number for 1500 meters.” Swim Smooth knows this, and has pointed out that knowing your threshold pace isn’t a perfect predictor, but it gives us a number from which to build training. Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is similar on the bike—on any given day, due to fatigue, fueling, sleep, or any other factor, you may see your FTP swing up or down 20 watts! So the testing system isn’t perfect, and it never will be. These numbers simply give us a way to prescribe training, but we believed that we could improve athletes’ fitness by first improving their ability to swim longer at CSS, rather than instantly jumping into swimming faster. Here’s how it works.

1. Test your CSS: no real changes on this step. Just as you would with our normal swim test (Swim Smooth’s classic test) you’re going to warm up well and then perform two time trials: a 400 as fast as you can go (ideally without slowing down or blowing up), about five-to-eight minutes of easy swimming, and then a 200 as fast as you can go. Once you’ve got those numbers, enter them into this calculator here to find your threshold pace. Remember, this is a decoupling test, so it measures how much you slow down from the shorter distance (200) to the longer (400) and then extrapolates. So if your 200 is much faster than your 400 in terms of pace per 100, the test figures you don’t have much endurance, and adjusts your CSS down. Let’s say you end up with a CSS of 1:40/100.

2. Then, after you’ve given yourself a few days, you’re going to see just how long you can hold 1:40/100 for. Ideally you’d use a Tempo Trainer for this set, but if you don’t have one you can also simply eyeball your local pace clock. The magic of the tempo trainer is that you’ll know exactly when you fall off the pace. We tell our athletes that they can fight back to try and get back up to the beep of the tempo trainer, but once they’re falling behind it’s time to call it. Let’s say that you hold 1:40 for 700 yards, but then have to slow down. Your Distance to Exhaustion (or DTE) is 700 yards.

3. Now you’ll figure out where to pick up weekly extensive progression, finding the main set that is just slightly beyond your DTE. For all of these sessions, we suggest about 800-1500 of warmup and drills before tackling the main set, and then some cooling down afterward. All of these sets should be done with minimal rest, probably ten seconds in between intervals for the shorter ones (200 and below) and 15-20 seconds for the longer ones (300 and up)

   1. Week one: 6x100

   2. Week two: 5x150

   3. Week three: 4x200

   4. Week four: 6x150

   5. Week five: 3x300

   6. Week six: 5x200

   7. Week seven: 2x500 (this is a tough one—you can change it to 4x250 if 500 still feels too long at CSS, although it shouldn’t by now…)

   8. Week eight: 3x400

   9. Week nine: 9x150

   10. Week ten: 4x350

   11. Week eleven: 3x500

   12. Week twelve: 2x750

   13. Week thirteen: 1x1500

4. Whew! Congratulations. That’s a big swim in week 13! If you’ve been doing these sessions each week (or twice a week, which is an acceptable adjustment of the plan) the 1500 should actually feel pretty doable, however. Your body needs fewer adaptations to support longer than it does to support faster.

Now that you can swim your CSS for 1500, though, now is the time to go faster. We suggest you pick up with the Swim Smooth Ten Week CSS Challenge, since you’ve built a robust and enduring aerobic system. You’ve baked your cake, and now it’s time to frost it!

Our Front Line Triathletes: heroes above all

by CBCG athlete Amy VT

“I may be late tonight. I am either going to swim or cut off a toe.” Dr. John Seddon kisses his wife Kyla before embarking upon another heroic day full of training, working, changing the world, and almost always: surprises. 

Harbingers of hope, our CBCG Athletes who are front line heroes have all received their second round of Covid-19 vaccinations. We have always marveled at their dedication, dashing from the Operating Room to the pool, or driving home an hour after a race to begin Emergency Room rounds, but this past year places them on a special sort of podium: one that makes a difference. 

Here are a few snapshots of a few of our remarkable CBCG athletes who serve their communities, our country, and the whole world while somehow managing to train as triathletes. Their days-in-the-life will make you grateful for those extra minutes in the shower after a swim sesh, and their dedication will inspire you, fo sho. 

John Seddon, M.D.

Orthopaedic Surgeon, UC Health Orthopedics Clinic

Colorado Springs, Colorado

THE QUOTE

“I’m honored to continue to serve our community the best we know how. Now that we’re vaccinated, I cautiously predict a light at the end of the tunnel.”

THE HERO

John is a fixer of bones and joints. He specializes in foot and ankle surgery, lower extremity trauma, and deformity correction, which is more than most of us can fathom, let alone understand, but it’s clear that he literally gets people back on their feet, and changes patients’ lives for the better. 

At the onset of the pandemic, Dr. Seddon’s elective surgical volume decreased substantially as resources and equipment were reallocated to assist with Covid-19 units. Trauma volume has remained steady, however, which at times meant doing double-duty caring for Covid-positive patients. 

THE TRIATHLETE

John could easily compete as a pro. You wouldn’t necessarily know by hanging out with him (unless you challenge him to a bike ride), since his nature is so kind, humble, and chill. Don’t be fooled. He’s a ferocious competitor, standing on the podium after nearly every race, and handily winning local events. He’s out of the water in a half-iron distance in 25 minutes, and basically presents no weaknesses. 

No slave to his athletic ego, however, Dr. Seddon chooses a lifestyle that prioritizes his medical work and his family. His amazing wife Kyla supports him and their kiddos: their toddler daughter Ellie, baby son Cameron, and chocolate lab Kona. 

DAY IN THE LIFE

• 4:30 - wake up

• 5am - hour trainer ride

• 6:10am - 30’ run off bike

• 6:40am - shower

• 7:00am - breakfast - coffee, protein shake with cereal

• 7:30am - arrive at hospital, see a few patients

• 8am -  headed to clinic, saw around 20 patients

• 11:15am - left for pool

• 11:30pm - lunchtime swim

• 1pm - headed back to the clinic and saw another 20 patients

• 1:30pm - squeezed in lunch between patients - sandwich and fruit

• 3:30pm - second cup of coffee

• 5:45pm - left for home

• 6pm - arrived home, had a quick dinner with the fam, and to put the kids to bed

• 8pm - left for hospital

• 8:15pm - arrived back at the hospital to fix a hip fracture on a Covid-positive patient, then a washout and external fixation of an open tibia fracture

• 1:45am - left for home

• 2am - arrive back home, lights out, then do it again the next day!  

Andrew Langfield, M.D.

Hospitalist, Highland Hospital

Oakland, California 

(Oh, and Professional Triathlete)

THE QUOTE

“I mostly feel extremely fortunate to have a job I love that is useful right now. I don’t consider myself a ‘front line hero,’ though; this is why I became a doc.” 

THE HERO

What’s a “Hospitalist?” Glad you asked. Andrew is an internist, an inpatient physician who coordinates care for admitted patients. That flavor of doctor is certainly an intense and impressive one as it is, but Andrew has the added layer of working in a “Safety Net Hospital” (one that is federally supported to care for uninsured patients), in an infamously underprivileged  county. “Highland has been hit by this pandemic in all the ways you might expect. We’ve been at capacity for weeks on end; we’ve seen patients improve miraculously, and lost them unexpectedly; we’ve sat with families in their grief - virtually, because they rarely are allowed to visit (truly the worst thing about this pandemic). The best moments are those where you get to be a part of or witness genuine human connection.”

THE TRIATHLETE

When the world was normal(er), you likely saw Andrew running through the pro field at a major race. He’s placed in the top ten at full- and half-iron events, and in the top 15 at countless major pro races. Most significantly, he never once whined about balancing it all. In fact, word to the wise, here are few things you should never say to a professional triathlete:

• “Well, it must be easy for you since you don’t have kids.”

• “Well, it must be easy for you since you’re so skinny.”

• "Well, it must be easy for you since you don't have a normal 9-5 job."

Not only are those futile questions in a chicken-and-egg capacity, but many pros hold down “real jobs,” and some, like Andrew, hold down immeasurably taxing and impressive ones. Here is a classic day from the before times. I just love how he puts his meals in all-caps.  

THE DAY IN THE LIFE 

• 5:10am - alarm goes off, snooze too many times

• 5:25am - finally out the door on the commuter bike

• 5:35am - late to the pool for Masters, miss most of warm-up

• 6:20am - out of the pool 10 minutes early (45' is better than nothing!), finish the commute in to work

• 6:40am - hit the door of the hospital, put on scrubs, first cup of coffee

• 6:50am - get sign-out from the night team on my patients (any overnight events, new admissions, etc.)

• 7am - pre-rounding on the computer (vital signs, morning labs, imaging studies, specialist recs, etc.)

• 8am - start seeing patients

• 8:30am - BREAKFAST! best part of the morning, usually an omelette +/- a big ol' pancake, second cup of coffee, banana for later

• 8:50am - finish seeing patients

• 9:30am - formal rounds begin (meet with rest of team, go see the entire census starting with the sickest)

• 12:15pm - LUNCH! and noon conference, chow on a sandwich + yogurt + fruit + cookie + milk while getting some knowledge, third cup of coffee

• 1pm - finish rounds, start working on all the to-do's (phone calls, orders, consult questions, discharges, procedures, etc.)

• 5pm - SNACK! usually bowl of cereal + granola bar

• 6:30pm - ride home, 6:30 is always the goal but of course some days this doesn't happen, other days done earlier but stay to catch up/work ahead

• 6:50pm - home, decompress

• 7:15pm - evening session, usually 45-60' run, or trainer session, or strengthening (kettlebells and plyos)

• 8:30pm - DINNER! I'm lucky that my wife loves to cook, but she's arguably busier than I am, so we usually try to cook a big meal for the week

• 9:30 - DESSERT!, or beer, or both

• 10pm - bedtime

Becky Matro, MD

Gastroenterologist, Scripps Health

San Diego, California 

THE QUOTE

“Basically, I'm proud of being able to provide safe care and reassurance, and to encourage patients to prioritize their health, even during a pandemic.”

THE HERO

Becky does a true hero’s work of specializing in inflammatory bowel disease. Both Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease fall under this category, proving that the world is a better place because of Dr. Matro’s work. She performs procedures like endoscopies and colonoscopies for outpatients, and every 7-8 weeks, she hits the hospital for rounds, consulting for patients who may’ve been admitted with a primary GI problem, or something else such as a heart attack, or Covid-19. Like Andrew, she humbly doesn’t consider herself a true “front-liner,” but we do, since she’s right there in the hospitals during these dangerous times, doing hero things. 

THE TRIATHLETE

In the past four years, Becky has achieved major PR’s in four disciplines! Through hard work and dedication to her program, she shaved hours off of her iron-distance split, posting an 11:32 at Challenge Roth, and qualified for the Boston Marathon and Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Not enough? She posted a successful Everest attempt on her bike last year, spending over eighteen hours on the bike.

Becky was elected to the Wattie Ink. Elite Team, a few years ago, and has recently been able to race for them despite the pandemic via their weekly online Zwift races including team time trials. Her coach says, “Becky’s determination to improve is remarkable, and she puts her money where her mouth is, steadily improving and setting new personal bests each year. She is a coach’s dream come true.”

THE DAY IN THE LIFE

• 5am - wake up

• 5:15am -  on trainer for 90’ sesh

• 6:45am - shower

• 6am - walk my dog, Koha breakfast/coffee

• 7:10am - breakfast and plenty of coffee

• 7:30am - work

• 5pm - hopefully left by now for my swim reservation!

• 5:15pm -  45’ swim, due to restrictions  

• 6:30pm - take Koha out again

• 7pm - dinner, unwind with some Netflix or a book

• 9pm - bed

Cameron Wynhnof

Volunteer Firefighter, Banks Fire District

Banks, Oregon 

(Oh, and also Engineering Manager at Intel) 

THE QUOTE

“Emergencies always happen, and the community will always need help. I am just thankful I can be there with the time I have.”

THE HERO

“Cam Bam the Tri Dad” manages a team that works on semiconductor equipment that produces CPUs (Computer Processing Units) also called chips. Wait. What’s that got to do with fighting fires? Oh!  That’s his career at Intel. He is also an ERT (Emergency Response Team) leader responding to emergencies at a moment’s notice. 

At Banks Fire, an hour west of Portland, Oregon, he is part of the TOD (Tour of Duty) Firefighter/EMT program, attending weekly training sessions, and serving weekly 12-hour shifts at the station from 7pm-7am, also responding to incidents at a moments notice. The pandemic introduced a boat load of changes at both Intel and at Banks Fire, the most significant of which being the PPE such as respirators and suits required when responding to calls. How he does it all and still spends tons of quality time with his totes adorbs toddler, is a wonder, and he’s often seen dashing out of the pool to pick her up in a matter of minutes. 

THE TRIATHLETE

If you’re spectating a race and swimmers are coming in, watch out for Cam! His high school swimming days have stayed with him, despite a four year diversion playing soccer for Westminster College. He’s nailed both the half- and full-iron distances, as well as XTerra, and is a recent recruit to the CBCG athlete roster This year his eyes are set on at least Ironman 70.3 St. George, Ironman Coeur d'Alene, and Maple Valley 70.3, “at least.”

THE DAY IN THE LIFE

• 6am - wake up

• 6:45am - at Intel...grab a coffee 

• 7am - it all starts

• 11:30am - lunch

• 1pm - meetings including interviews for 2 hours

• 3pm - emergency call (asERT leader) to evacuate an entire factory building

• 3:10pm - run out to rush to the building, assemble teams, and search buildings occupied by people on SCBAs (self-contained breathing apparatus), coordinating with electrical teams and other Life Safety teams

• 4pm - all searches come back with no injuries, 

• 6pm - everything is back to order, and running fine 

• 8pm - back home

• 8:15pm - ZWIFT ride of 4x10" FTP/Z3 

• 9:30pm - hip strengthening, mobility band work, weights for the arms 

• 10pm - shower 

• 10:15pm - bed

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Doctor Alison Siepker, LCSW, BCD

2nd Marine Division

Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

QUOTE

“When the pandemic hit, my OSCAR team and I knew we needed to keep our services obtainable, and managed to launch entirely new procedures really quickly, despite limited resources. In the military we often take pride in doing more with less.”  

THE HERO

Apparently her friends call her Ali. Phew! That moniker is much simpler than the letters, accolades, decorations, and titles that formally accompany her name, all of which are very, very well-deserved. LCDR Siepker is Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy currently assigned to the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune. She serves as an Operational Stress Control and Resilience (OSCAR) Provider, which is pretty cool, as is her background. Read on, it’s worth it!

Born in Newcastle, England, Ali’s family moved to Dubai when she was eight-years-old (her dad was a chemical engineer), and she graduated from Dubai College. She then began her military career in the U.S. Marine Corps. “After I got out, I used my GI Bill to graduate from the University of Hawaii at Manoa while my husband (also a marine) was stationed there with an infantry battalion. I subsequently pursued my degree as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, empowering me to serve as a psychotherapist for active duty Marines and Sailors, as well as to advise Commanders on anything mental health related that may impact their Marines, Sailors, or their units, in general.”  

THE TRIATHLETE

Fortunately, the U.S. Navy promotes fitness, so if Ali goes for a run in the afternoon, it’s pretty much considered part of her job. A few years ago she tacked-on the extraneous community of the Wattie Ink. Hit Squad, and recently joined the Gravel Collective. She qualified for Ironman 70.3 World Champions at the Japan 70.3, and began gravel riding in earnest after racing Haute Route Rockies. This year she’s got some serious events on the calendar: Unbound 100, Gravel Worlds, and Leadville. ”I like riding the Tank Trails on Camp Lejeune, which you sometimes have to share with tactical vehicles, but it beats riding in regular traffic.”

Check out her typical day below, “...unless it's a Tuesday when I'll be racing the Zwift WTRL race series, with Wattie Ink., which is a highlight of my week!”

THE DAY IN THE LIFE

• 0630 - wake up

• 0700 - shower, eat breakfast and put my uniform on

• 0800 - arrive in office 

• 0830 - patients until noon

• 1200 - lunch 

• 1300 - work on notes, or meetings with commands 

• 1500 - leave for training 

• 1530 - swim, run, and/or ride!

• 1730 - shower

• 1800 - dinner, then chill watching TV or hanging out with husband Geoff 

• 2130 - bed

Dr. Adam Goulet DC, CSCS, CCSP

Sports Chiropractor, Evolution Healthcare and Fitness

Portland, Oregon 

THE QUOTE

“We are fortunate to have been able to continue providing world class care throughout the pandemic, so hopefully we have made people’s body’s just a little more resilient through the Coronaverse.”

THE HERO

Adam specializes in sports rehabilitation, using soft tissue manipulation, fasciae manipulation, and rehabilitation exercises to treat everything from shin splints, to torn knee meniscus, to spinal disc herniations. Yowza! On a great day he can utilize the crazy, fancy method of Blood Flow Restriction therapy to advance and improve the healing and rehab process. Google it!

Evolution Healthcare & Fitness is where he spends most of his days, bouncing from side to side (healthcare and fitness, get it?), seeing patients on one end, training them on the other, and squeezing in his own workouts with an extraordinary poundage of weights on either end of the bar. 

THE TRIATHLETE

A member of the Wattie Ink. Elite Team, Adam is no slouch at swimming, cycling, or running - especially the Olympic Distance. He began as a collegiate All-American in Track and Field at Eastern Oregon University. He’s an internationally-ranked athlete in triathlon and duathlon, winning his AG at ITU Age Group World Championships: the ultimate podium. His quads are extraordinarily large. 

DAY IN THE LIFE

• 6am - wake up

• 6:10 - breaky

• 7:50am - leave for pool

• 8:30 - jump in for an hour swimmy

• 9:45am - quick rinse

• 9:50am - quick fuel

• 10am - 75’ track sesh 

• 11:30am - drive back to work, snack before first patient

• 12pm - first patient 

• 5:30 - leave for home 

• 6pm - home and snack or early dinner

• 7:30pm - begin paperwork on the computer 

• 9pm - bedtime

• 10pm - lights OUT!

Nathan Killam

(Oh, and Professional Triathlete)

QUOTE

“I've been in structure fires where ceilings are coming down around you, fire is everywhere, and you can't see anything because of the thick smoke, and you're like, ‘Oh, it's getting pretty hot in here, eh?’”

THE HERO

Okay, Killam is not technically a CBCG Athlete, but he’s been part of our family for over a decade. And he is definitely, irrefutably a front line hero. A career firefighter in Vancouver, British Columbia, Killam has seen it all. He quips, “It’s not like Backdraft. We don’t just go running through the wall of an inferno.” Nonetheless, he has countless, harrowing stories of combatting conflagrations. 

Bravery is only a component of what makes Killam’s career astonishing. Juggling life as a husbo, dad, and successful professional triathlete is a circus act to say the least, featuring a four-day-on and four-day-off cycle (is that a week?) including two 14-hour night shifts. His day in the life below will leave you wondering if he is really human, after all. (NB: I’ve often decided that he is not.)

THE ATHLETE

Google him. 

THE DAY IN THE LIFE

• 7am - drove home from 14-hour night shift

• 7:30am - devoured coffee and some fuel

• 8am - rode my bike halfway to Whistler and back

• 3pm - quick run off the bike

• 4pm - quick shower, recovery smoothie, and kiss to the family 

• 4:30pm - jumped in my car to head back to work

• 5pm - family meal at the station, and thus begins my next 14-hour night shift

Incidentally, Nathan’s first born child, Aiden, was born the next day. So next time you’re leaisurely sipping your recovery protein smoothie in your Normatech Recovery Legs, raise your cup to the above heroes, who augmented their contributions to society this past year, and will always serve as paragons of balancing it all.

No Arm Warmers, No Regrets: dress perfectly to train in any weather with your own personal guides

by CBCG athlete, Amy VT

You’ve got to get out the door for a ten mile run, but you have an inner chill. A glance out the window revealing a gray drizzle is uninviting, to say the least. So you bundle up in layers and a shell, a hat and gloves, and thermal tights only to be cooking yourself five minutes into the sesh. You didn’t need the gloves or shell at all, and now you’re stuck carrying them awkwardly. 

Rosanne Kelley knows when it’s time for tights and an earband

It’s the first sunny day in weeks and you’re stoked to get out and ride. You surely only need a basic kit with a simple base layer, right? Rounding the corner from your house, though, you wish you had full-finger gloves. Hitting 20-mph on the open road, you wish you had your arm warmers. Descending a steepie in the shade, you wish you had all the above, and a wind vest. 

Jeff Lam is glad he wore his neck gaiter

Hej! You’re all waxed up and you just got a new Swix® ear band for Christmas. Nordic skiing sounded like a rad idea, but staying in to watch The Godfather trilogy under a blanket sounds much better right now. Yeah, it’s sunny, but it’s negative 13-degrees Celsius out there! You decide to psych yourself up with a few burpees, and sport a full parka, tights, wind pants, your impossibly huge gloves, and a pom-pom beanie. Sho ‘nuff, five minutes into your skate ski (you know, the sport that utilizes every muscle and spikes your heart rate?) you realize you don’t need your hat or jacket. 

CBCG athlete Annick Chalier found the perfect conditions for a Wattie Ink. Thermal Jacket

It’s impossible to judge precisely what to wear to train outside when you’re sitting around inside. An inner chill can be deceptive, as can a glance out to the sunny street glimpsing scantily clad passers-by. 

Thus, I created my own formulae to help me dress for any sport in any weather and avoid regrets. My guides are super-specific to me (I run cold), as well as super-specific to conditions and types of workouts. They can be hard to trust when I'm bracing myself for those first steps in the cold wind, but I’ve continued to refine each guide to precision, and now I simply cross-reference them with my weather app and workout type, and have faith. 

Here’s my running guide. Would you believe it took me over a year to refine? I kept tweaking and adjusting as I observed when I shed my gloves, or stripped down to a sports bra. Note that one key variable is workout intensity, since I dress differently for sprinting on the track versus jogging an easy reco run. 

And, voila, my cycling guide. So many variables here, especially when it comes to whether I’m riding in the sun or not. There’s a ton of wiggle room with cycling, too, as shells are easily stuffed in burrito bags, and arm warmers are designed to come off while you’re in the saddle. I don’t get into the different genres - MTB, gravel, TT, easy group ride, etc. - but I am familiar enough with my own personal guides that I can extrapolate. 

Skiing is my latest addition to my lists, since I believe it can be the hardest apparel to judge. Sun exposure and wind are crucial variables, especially since I often ski high in the sky in Colorado. Last year I spectated my coach, Chris Bagg in the Birkebeiner, the largest and most famous Nordic ski race in the world. I was shivering on the sidelines in a parka as I watched racers skate by in tank tops and no hat! I mostly need my guide to convince me to not add that extra layer since I’ll regret it when I get going, but it’s also useful for the most important wardrobe choice any skier faces: beanie, earband, buff, or no hat at all. 

You should make your own! My personal ones actually reside in the notes app on my phone, so I’ve always got ‘em. I contemplated printing these prettier ones to post on the fridge, but that would be selfish as someone else in my household runs hot, so our layering standards are totally different. I recommend being patient as you create, change, and refine yours for specific conditions, and you should totally extend to other sports. I’d love to see what you draw up for paddling, snowboarding, golfing, or cornhole. Next up for me: rollerblading. 

My coach, Chris Bagg and I love to ski in our neck gaiters and Wattie Ink. Thermal Jackets