Taper: Rest & Practice The taper phase is the most essential time for the athlete to shed all of their accumulated fatigue. I start my IM taper with a big rest. This is something different for every athlete, but usually a couple days off followed by several days of active recovery. Once you have rested, its time to start three weeks of race simulations. They will start longer and get shorter as you get closer to the race. It is imperative that these workouts are as much like race day as possible. I tell athletes that they are answering questions for race day during all of these workouts. I treat brick sessions like race day and always follow them with a day off. I plan two race simulation workouts a week in the first two weeks and then one in the final week. The athlete should feel fairly fresh to begin each race simulation workout. Ensure that your athlete is recovered before moving onto the next session. I usually start with a 60-mile ride with an 8-mile run-off. Then, I reduce them until race week. The week of the race, I will have athletes do a 45-minute ride with a 2-mile run-off. Taper week looks like this:


Monday Tuesday


Wednesday


A.M. Off


1,500-­‐yard swim


Practice breakfast and swim warm-­‐up. Then, 2,000-­‐yard swim at race effort and close with hard 50s.


Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday


45-­‐minute ride at race watts directly to a 2-­‐mile run-­‐off Off


20-­‐minutes of each sport at the race venue


Race: Just another day!


Recovery: Ironman recovery can be tricky, but is very simple. Regardless of whether the athlete meets his/


her goal or not, they usually are very motivated. Post Ironman, the athlete must focus on recovery before returning to racing. They need to do things that will rest their body and mind so that next season will be even better. Most athletes wrongly believe that this is best done by continuing to train hard. Everyone has a different method or theory for recovery, but I like a week of active recovery and


rest followed by a couple weeks of down time. This time is crucial in allowing the body to rebuild. It is a reward for a long season of hard work. The week immediately following Ironman looks like this:


A.M.


Monday Tuesday


Wednesday Thursday Friday


Saturday Sunday


20-­‐minute swim or spin Off


20-­‐minute swim or spin Off


20-­‐minute swim Start essential rest Off


Nutrition & Pacing: Nutrition and pacing are two very important issues in Ironman racing and training. As the athlete


develops fitness during the base phase, it is important to introduce proper nutrition, including calories, food types, hydrating, electrolytes and timing. The Sunday swim is a great time to figure out what your athlete can handle on race morning. Every ride and run is critical for the athlete to find out how many calories they can take per hour on the bike and run. I usually aim for athletes to consume 150-200 calories per hour. The amount of water and electrolytes the athlete takes on race day depends on the temperature and their sweat rate.


Pacing is critical in an event this long, and it is very important for the athlete to use a wattage device or heart rate monitor to measure exertion. Each swim, ride and run training session should educate them on how they feel at different levels of intensity. Remember that each workout is an opportunity to answer questions for race day.


Greg Mueller owns InnovativeEndurance.com and coaches athletes all over the country at every level. In 2010, Greg coached the overall age group national champion, the under-23 elite national champion and the female 20- 24 national champion. Greg is a USAT Level II triathlon coach and can be reached at Iammueller2@aol.com.


P.M. P.M.


45-­‐minute spin 3-­‐mile run


page 14 | PERFORMANCECOACHING


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