- Morning Trainiacs, when I first started out on YouTube
I was like, the only person doing any triathlon content.
Since that happened, a lot of pros have come in
and started sharing a lot of their own training,
and that's one of the coolest things about YouTube
is that we get an inside look into what Lionel Sanders,
Sarah True, Lucy Charles, Sarah Crowley,
Sam Long, just to name a few athletes
are actually doing, and one really interesting thing
came out of it.
Lionel Sander's video from a few weeks back,
where I don't think a lot of people actually saw
what was going on, just barely off in the corner
of the video, I think we saw one thing
that a lot of us can emulate
that maybe Lionel didn't intend to share.
So what we've got here is Lionel is doing
a bike workout, and we're seeing notes
that he's posted up on the wall.
And his photographer, videographer, Talbot Cox,
he ended up going over to the wall here
to show one really big key message
about how you string together workouts.
And that it's not just one workout that is epic
that ends up making a big race,
it's that you string together multiple workouts
that are just good,
over the course of several months.
And that's what actually results in a really good race.
But in the corner of that, as we're about to see
we get a little insight into Lionel's training.
So there is the message,
but what we see here in the corner
are actually some power targets.
And if you end up letting this play out,
we can see boom, these are his stages,
power meter power targets.
And we've got aerobic is, we can put this all up
on the screen here, we'll list this out
and you can pause it and maybe take a screenshot.
Aerobic is 210 to 230 watts.
I'm guessing this is endurance low, endurance mid,
endurance high, ranging from 230 watts
to 240 watts.
But the really interesting part down here
are the race pace intervals.
And he's got Iron Man 350 to 375 watts.
Half Iron Man, 375 to 400 watts.
Olympic, 400 to 425 watts.
And Sprint, 425 to 450 watts.
Now us mere mortals are probably looking at this
going like, oh my god, for an Iron Man
Lionel is doing 350 to 375 watts?
I don't think so, and I think that's where the lesson
about how we can perform our bike training
to emulate Lionel Sanders comes in.
Now why I don't think that those are his actual
race power targets are because of this.
Remember this, Iron Man, 350 to 375 watts.
We could actually go back and Lionel published
a couple of his best bike splits ever.
This was Iron Man Arizona
where he did a phenomenal race.
He biked 403, and there his normalized power
was 317 for an Iron Man.
We also have the power file
for his 2017 Iron Man World Championship
where he placed second, going 413 for the course
and his normalized power was 326.
This is right in line with where I hear
some of the best bike riders in triathlon are sitting,
somewhere in that 300 to 330 watts
for a full Iron Man.
What we can also see is
at the one hour Canadian record attempt
that Lionel did, there's a spot here
where he gives us a bit of an indication
of what his one hour power is,
which is theoretically, his true FTP,
his one hour max power.
- Victor's assessment was quite true.
The first 30 minutes, not too bad
and I had done a 30 minuter,
and I was like, okay I think I can hold this.
I held, in my practice, I held 380 for 30 minutes.
But yeah, I mean, it don't even start until 30 minutes, so.
- Right there, where he says that he did a 30 minuter
at 380 watts, my guess is that he was doing
an opener before the one hour attempt
at maybe just around but slightly under
the power that he was going to do
for the one hour.
So I'm guessing that his one hour max power,
his theoretical FTP is somewhere in the 380 to 400 mark.
I'm just gonna guess.
Now when we go back and we see the stages power meter target
what we know is that he isn't doing his Iron Man racing
at 350 to 375 watts
because that's right up at his max power.
For one hour, let alone four.
We have to assume that this is Lionel Sanders here
in a stages power meter which we know
is very accurate when it's calibrated properly,
but here's where the lesson is.
Several years ago, when I got into longer distance racing,
I was starting to train for those longer distances races
at roughly my race target power.
I was starting to get comfortable at the race target power
of 225 watts.
I would do my intervals at that target race power
and then I would go to the race
and then I would try to meet those interval power targets.
And I didn't really have huge success,
I was in like, the 220's per 90K and a half Iron Man,
but when I really stepped up
and started being able to do a 218 Half Iron Man bike split,
a 213 Half Iron Man bike split,
it was when I'd learned
that you actually don't train at your race power
for the preparation of a race,
you train above your race power.
And I think that's what Lionel is doing.
So what we do on our app
is instead of saying, go do race effort bike intervals,
we say, go do 5% above your race effort,
10% above your race effort,
20% above your race effort.
What we're instructing athletes to do
in their long bike, followed by a brick,
leading into a race in the last three months,
is we're saying, go do your target race effort
plus a little bit.
Sometimes these are plus a little bit
based off of power, which is easy to do
for a Half Iron Man and an Iron Man.
Sometimes it's plus that 5 or 20 percent,
based off of rate of perceived exertion
which is much easier to do for a sprint
or an Olympic race.
But the idea is that you train above your target race effort
with intervals, and then you come down
to a level that is much more manageable
because you've been doing higher power
with long, long intervals.
And then by the time you get to the race
and you step down that little bit,
all of a sudden it's gonna feel very cruisy,
very attainable.
Mentally, it's gonna be easier for you to hit
in the race, and you're going to be fresher for the bike.
So when you're training for a triathlon,
what I recommend is you do one bike workout a week
that is race targeted.
In that bike workout a week, you do longer intervals,
anywhere from 10 minutes, up to two hours even
for the Iron Man distance.
When you're at the shorter end of that,
being the 10 minute intervals,
maybe you're 20 to 25 percent,
either power or rate of perceived exertion
above your target race effort.
When you're at the longer end of that, really long,
you're maybe 5 to 10 percent above.
As you start progressing and getting closer and closer
to the race, you make the intervals longer and longer,
you make the rests shorter and shorter,
and what ends up happening is you're getting
closer and closer and closer
to an actual race effort
that you know you can go and execute on race day
because you've gone and done intervals
at even more power for long durations.
How much is a long duration?
Well, for Iron Man, you're probably looking
at a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of intervals.
For Half Iron Man, somewhere around 75 minutes
to 90 minutes of total intervals.
For an Olympic distance race,
somewhere in the 30 to 45 minutes of total intervals.
And for a Sprint, we're looking at 20 to 30
total minutes of intervals.
And if you do this, you're gonna have a ripping kind of bike
and you're gonna be really fresh for the run.
Now if a lot of this is too much for you to handle
but you do want to get this kind of training,
there's a link in the description below
to our training app, that you can go and try for free
for 14 days.
If you like it, stick around,
it's just 57 bucks a month.
If you want to see the full video from Lionel,
you can check it out right over there.
And we've put a lot of work into finding information
that we hope masters and age group athletes
will find helpful, so if you did find this helpful
I would love if you hit the like button below.
Later, Trainiacs.