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At the end of 2019, you probably saw a lot of "year in review" stats floating around social media from your fitness-fanatic friends. While a
great way to celebrate all that your body has accomplished over the course of a year, it's not uncommon to hear things
like “I only need 50 more miles to make it to 5000 miles of biking for the year, I need to run 8.37 more miles to reach my yearly goal or I didn't reach my swimming goals."
Not too long ago, GPS watches didn't exist. The website MapMyRide.com (or run) didnt exist until around in 2005. Unless you measured a distance by a bike computer, ran around a track (or marked course) or drove a specific distance in your car, there was no easy way to know your running miles. To track your workouts, you kept a written log in a journal. There was no Strava or Training Peaks to accumulate your swim, bike or
run total distance. In many ways, life was actually a lot more simple without
all of these gadgets. You start a workout, go by feel and finish by time. And there was no social comparison to validate your athletic worthiness.
Today, people obsessively analyze over data. While data can be beneficial (when used properly), it can often lead to injuries, burnout and body image issues. Are you guilty of running back and forth by the front of your house just to make sure your run distance had two zeros at the end? Do you get anxious if you can't complete a given number of miles for the day/week? Whether it's swimming, biking or running, it's easy to obsess over even numbers - something in you tells you that you just have to get to x-miles to feel satisfied and accomplished.
As an athlete, you may be tied to training by distance for you believe that completing a certain number of miles (either over the course of several months or within one workout or week) will help you feel more physically prepared. Or, maybe you are using certain metrics to give you confidence in your abilities to complete a certain distance on race day. It's not uncommon for athletes to believe that completing a set number of miles/distance is the only way to prepare for a long distance event. At Trimarni, we prescribe all of our workouts by time for our athletes. As for me and Karel, we never go by miles when we train. Here's why.
More enjoyable workouts
When it comes to training, in my opinion (athlete/coach), completing a structured workout as planned is much more enjoyable when you can do what you need to get done, in a certain allotted amount of time, and then go on with the rest of your day. There's no chasing an outcome but focusing on the present moment. Even if you have a general idea of how much distance you will be covering within the workout, the focus is on the workout itself - not the outcome.
For example, a few weeks ago Karel and I had the exact same long run workout. We started off on the same route, did the exact same workout and Karel’s workout lasted 1:29.07 and my run was 1:37.07. Even though we did the same workout, it's obvious we differ in speed, ability and experience. So why would I go out and run 13 miles when Karel "only" runs 12 miles. Or should Karel run 14 miles just so he can run the same time as me? These are all things to consider with time vs. distance based training. When our assistant coach Joe rides for 3 hours in Jacksonville, FL, he can easily cover 60+ miles. For us in Greenville, we are lucky to get in 50 miles (so.many.hills). Training by time - with a specific workout focus to adhere to - removes a lot of pressure and expectation that can suck the fun out of training.
You are on your own journey
Ten running miles, 20 biking miles or 3000 swimming yards. To complete this distance, every athlete will require a different amount of time. But increase the intensity and you may cover a little more distance. On a day when you are tired or asked to run easy, you may cover a little less distance. If the workout is more skill focused, it may take you a bitl longer. If it's an easy day, you have the liberty to go easy. Focus on the getting through the minutes you have assigned. Try to focus on successfully accomplishing what's planned for you without comparing yourself to others or feeling like you always need to do more.
Be respectful of your body
Your workout should be based on your ability to complete a given workout within a time that makes sense for you (work/family/fitness), in your current fitness journey. Every individual handles training stress differently. There are many different ways to achieve similar physiological outcomes. And at some point, there will be little return on your training investment if miles is the only marker of a successful workout. Remind yourself that no one workout stands alone. When your training adds up and you bring fatigue to future training sessions, your fitness carries over. There are easy workouts and hard workouts. Don't worry if you don't cover the proverbial 20 mile run while training for a marathon, a 3 hour run when training for an Ironman or a 112 mile bike ride. Many injuries (and burnout) occur from the ongoing need to chase miles at any cost. Don't compare your pace to anyone else (or a past version of yourself).
New perspective
When a workout is assigned by distance, a few things can happen. You may look for the easiest (or quickest) way to accomplish the distance instead of selecting a terrain or course that works on your weaknesses. You may feel judged by others seeing your stats and feeling like you are "too slow." You may end up going too hard or you speed up to try to get in the assigned distance when you are crunched for time. Not worrying about the distance completed can bring less pressure to the workout, which means that you give your best but also listen to your body. By going by time, you bring a new perspective to your training, you gain confidence from consistent training (less risk for injury/burnout) and you have more joy for what you get to do with your amazing body.
Because most athletes associate miles to their longest weekly workouts, here's how we do "long workouts" at Trimarni coaching for our Ironman athletes. As a reminder, feeling prepared for a long distance event is so much more than just checking off workouts. Not only do you need to arrive healthy, motivated and injury free to experience success on race day but you also need to have a well planned nutrition strategy, a good understanding of how to manage the given terrain/conditions and great mental fortitude.
- Swimming: Instead of putting all the focus on distance, we schedule workouts between 45-90 minutes and always focus on frequency swimming - 4-5 times per week. We also include specificity in every workout, strength work (towel, band, agility paddles, tech paddles) and speed within endurance sets. We don't believe in long, slow continuous swimming (ex. 3-4 x 1000's) but instead, swimming well (ex. lots of 25s-100's with short rest to build endurance).
- Biking: We always go by time and the miles are never the focus. There is structure in every long ride (intervals) that we prescribe and we feel the sweet spot duration for Ironman biking volume is between 4-5 hours - with intensity and running off the bike. Rarely do we have athletes riding longer than 5.5-6 hours. We also have our athletes biking a lot, with ~50% of weekly training volume coming from the bike. This biking frequency makes for great overall fitness gains.
- Run: We never have our athletes run over 2 hours. Most of our Ironman athletes will run for 1:45-2 hours as their longest run. But, we also do a lot of two a day runs, back to back to back run workouts (ex. Fri PM, Sat off the bike, Sat PM, Sun AM), brick runs, strength-based runs (hills and weight vest treadmill walking) and progressive runs. We also really enforce good form running - helping our athletes learn how to run efficiently well. There is little to no physiological benefit from the added work that the body has to endure when running more than 2.5 hours. Most often, form suffers and the risk for an overuse injury increases. Plus, after 2.5 hours of running, your body needs a tremendous amount of time to recover. In the sport of long distance triathlon, it's not about being fast but being great at not slowing down. What preceeds the run greatly impacts how well (or not well) you will run off the bike.