- Morning, Trainiacs.
Heading to the river to do an open water swim.
Just a short one, and that's actually really
all we've got today.
And that's kind of astounding,
considering that for the past three weeks,
I have been in the hurt locker in a big sort of way.
This has been by far the biggest amount
of training that I've done, but it's also led
to the biggest amount of fitness that I've ever built.
(energetic music)
(groovy rock music)
So this training for Ironman Challenge Roth
has been, by far, the hardest training that I've ever done.
There have been a ton of moments
that really, really reminded me
of like, that fatigue, that crushing fatigue,
that brain fog, that just lack of productivity
that I had when I got overtrained in 2017.
But there are some things that are different this time
from 2017 that tell me that I'm on the right track, right?
Now back in 2017, I decided that I was going
to take triathlon a lot more seriously.
I was going to commit a lot more time to training to do it.
I hired a coach and I trained and I trained and I trained,
and I became extremely, extremely tired.
Constant naps, constant brain fog.
No matter how much I slept, I could not get rid
of that fatigue outside of the workouts.
And that's really similar to what I'm feeling right now.
But the difference is that, back in 2017,
the fatigue happened in the workouts, too.
In 2017, I get into some workouts
and I get 60% of the way through it
and be like, I can't do this.
Like, just, I don't have the stuff.
And I would bail on workout after workout after workout.
My perceived exertion in the workouts was like
through the roof.
Even though wattages, heart rates
were all fairly normal, I was just dying in workouts
all the time.
That is not the case right now.
While I am taking a lot of naps,
while I am sleeping a lot, I'm getting into workouts
and it's like clockwork.
Boom, you say 260 watts for 15 minutes?
I do 260 watts for 15 minutes.
You say I need to swim hard for an hour?
I swim for an hour.
And sure, I've got fatigue, but look at what we're training
to do as Ironman athletes.
We're training to go 140.6 miles.
That's gonna take a lot out of you.
So, I'm very cautiously optimistic
about where we're at, Trainiacs.
And I'm pretty sure that everyone around me
who's watching me get ready for this
thinks that I'm just a naked guy on the side of the road.
Eh, not the first time.
(groovy rock music)
If you're from Winnipeg, you know how dicey this is.
(groovy rock music)
(water splashing)
Woo, that was good, Trainiacs.
That was really good.
That was 42 minute swim, swimming 3275 meters.
Call it 3600 yards.
Average pace of, get there, 1:16 per hundred meters.
Now, before you start saying like, wow Taren,
you're gonna win the Olympics, it's with the current
the entire way.
Just with the current.
Love that, love that.
So what I like to do there for my open water swims
is there's a river in Winnipeg called the Red River,
and it's all twisty and turny through the entire,
like basically, dead straight down the middle of the city.
And what I do is I come and I park at the Canoe Association,
which is like up here, and then the river
goes all the way around there.
Oh wait, backwards.
Goes all the way around there.
I park my bike and lock it up there,
and then I swim back with the current.
I'm not just a pretty face, Trainiacs.
Hello.
Bike saved, mission accomplished, workout over.
They're not all this easy.
Let me show you.
Come on guys, come on.
Salad, Zas.
(dogs running)
All right.
Now that I have washed the Red River
out of some of my ears and nose,
let me show you what I mean with what's been going on
in the last few weeks.
What we've got here on the left
is the performance management chart
for the last 365 days.
And to give you some context, like the blue line here
is say, your fitness.
Like, that's kind of how prepared you are to race.
Like, what is your cumulative load of training
preparing you for.
Last year, best race I did was Half Ironman Worlds,
and coming into that race, my fitness was 82.
Not bad.
Kind of 100 is like, peak fitness.
And then off season, got down to about 47,
but it started coming back nicely.
And getting ready for Half Ironman Puerto Rico,
that number was (hums) 78.
Still, not bad.
Very happy with it.
All time, that 86 number that I did
for last year's Half Ironman Worlds, what I have peaked at.
But then, since, consistently up and up and up.
And then I had a little bit of a down few weeks.
Up and up and up to a point
that right now, my fitness is at 118.
However, fatigue, the pink line, fairly high.
Hence the tape.
Let me show you what we've been doing.
So starting six weeks ago, I started getting into
like, the big bulk of the training.
So we did a 13 hour week.
And then we did a 13:40 hour week.
And then a 15 hour week.
And then I said, dude, like I am cooked, here.
So then I got three days of just casual, do whatever,
25 minute day, 35 minute day, a one hour day.
Nothing serious.
But then, it got big.
About two and a half weeks ago,
we did a six hour plus ride,
going 200K, and then a two hour 45 minute 30K run.
And it's been constant after that.
So you see all of these?
The only real workout that I've missed is a Monday swim,
and I've done that both days the last two weeks.
But still, three weeks ago, 15 hour week.
Last week, 16 hour week.
This week so far, we've got almost a nine hour week,
and coming up this weekend, another six.
So we're talking another 15 and a half hour week.
Now, before you start saying, holy smokes,
you're not even taking a rest day in there,
well there are real no days off,
but Monday and Friday are still lighter days.
So Monday is a one hour, 10 or 20 minute strength ride,
and when you've built up to this point
of doing like, 16, 17 hour weeks,
just doing a one hour ride,
even when it's like slightly intense,
not crazy intense but just slightly intense,
is essentially a rest.
Today, a 40 minute swim, essentially a rest,
because your body's, you know, gearing up
to be at that 118 fitness level,
and then you just give it something here.
That gap gives you a little bit of rest.
So the difference between this year,
where I'm pulling like, the biggest hours,
the most amount of fitness I've ever done,
and 2017, is that I have more rest built in now.
It's just that when I go hard,
I go really hard in the paint.
So we build up tons and tons of fitness
because I can be consistent, and as long as I keep knocking
off those workouts, I'm showing that I'm making progress
and we monitor that with, how did the workouts feel?
Do they feel good?
Can I execute them?
Can I finish them as prescribed?
Good.
How is heart rate variability using the Oura Ring?
Is it consistently increasing and not dipping
under a moving average?
Good.
Keep going, keep suffering, Taren.
And I have been.
So there you go, Trainiacs.
That's it.
Takeaways?
Be careful with your fatigue.
If you're on Team Trainiac, if you're doing things yourself,
if you're working with a coach,
there's a difference between an appropriate amount
of fatigue, which we deserve, as Ironman athletes.
I mean, we're trying to do something pretty stupid.
So we're going to get fatigued.
But make sure that your performance isn't deteriorating
and monitor it with things
like how much sleep you're getting,
maybe HRV, maybe overnight resting heart rate,
things like this, to make sure
that it's not something more than just, I need a nap,
or I'm training for an Ironman, so I'm tired.
We deserve to be tired, if that's the case.
If it was easy, we probably wouldn't do it.
That's all.
All right, gotta go suffer for the rest of the day.
- I'm the one that's suffering. (laughs)
- Later.
Pay cuts for everyone.