Final Multisport Race of 2017

My race report for the Thousand Islands Duathlon is up. I think it was a successful end to the season for me. I'm happy moving forward as a duathlete for the next few years. Training two sports still gives enough variety to keep things interesting, and biking/running keeps things nice and flexible (unlike swimming). I think ultimately spending some time focusing on biking and running will make me a better triathlete when I return in a few years. And duathlon is a new challenge for me so despite just finishing this season I'm already excited about the next.

Taking the girls on a post-race tour of the Brockvillle Railway Tunnel

Now it's time to plan my running races for the fall and set some goals for those.

More lessons learned

This has been a bit of a different year for me, training-wise, as outlined in various blog posts. "Different" mostly in a bad way, but "different" still gives one the opportunity to compare the experience with previous years and perhaps gain some insight into what the different effects are of the various approaches.

Here's a few lessons learned so far:

1) Miles on the trainer are more valuable than miles on the road

When I gave up on my structured training plan in the spring, it was liberating. No longer a slave to banging out intervals in my basement, suffering away on the bike trainer, I was free to enjoy biking outside. And I did. I was having more fun and logging more time in the saddle than I had been. So you might think more time in the saddle = more bike fitness, but that's not the way it worked. I still have deliberate workout goals, using heart rate to guide my efforts (no power meter on my road bike), like "2 hours in Zone 2" or "2x20 minute efforts at threshold". But my bike fitness didn't really improve and may have actually declined a little - as much as anything I think it was the lack of the dreaded VO2Max interval sessions that was doing it.

I got some nice rides in though, getting some good ones in beyond my usual environs. Here's a typical ride around where I live:

This one yielded a total of 91m elevation gain over 60km. So pretty flat, and on straight roads through farmers fields. Not very interesting. So I've made more efforts to get in opportunities to ride other places - twisty, up-and-down roads through woods and lakes between Perth and Westport, for example. Or this ride around Mont Rigaud:

Pretty much the same distance as the above ride, but 378m of elevation gain over the 60km. That's a more interesting ride.

A combination of life circumstances and a desire to put in a good build leading up to the Thousand Islands Duathlon have meant that over the last few weeks I've been back on the trainer rather than outside. And I've noticed a real difference in my bike fitness levels (they're actually improving!).

So quality trumps quantity, and you can't beat the quality you get from a good trainer session.

2) Stretching is overrated

Last year I wrote a pretty extensive blog post weighing the merits of stretching. Being really inflexible and having a history of injuries, I wanted to do whatever I could to help the cause. There's real debate on whether stretching helps, hinders, or does nothing at all. Ultimately I concluded that I wanted to keep up the regime.

This year, however, I haven't really stretched - a result of my lack of deliberate structure in my training. Coincidentally or not, I've been completely injury free this year. To be sure, there are other factors at play (general fitness accumulated over the years; holding off on speedwork until after months of outdoor mileage), but in retrospect I feel like stretching didn't really benefit me, and the fact that I'm by far the most injury free I've been when omitting stretching completely has me sold. I'm done with stretching. You were right, Paulo.

3) Core strength matters

Another part of my routine that's fallen by the wayside has been core strength exercises. I know this is important for all 3 sports, but I was particularly conscious of it as it related to swimming, since engaging the core is such a big part of a solid swim stroke. I had a good routine going in the winter and abandoned it in the spring, and my core strength is certainly not what it once was as a result. Obviously with no swimming I haven't noticed an impact there, but surprisingly enough to me, I have noticed an impact on my cycling. As part of my renewed efforts to get some solid training in leading up to Brockville, I'm back on the core routine and I feel like I'm able to transfer power to my pedals better (and sustain it) as a result of my returning core strength.

So there it is: 3 lessons to take into next year.

• If the goal is to maximize results, prioritize quality sessions on the bike trainer over outdoor rides.
• Don't worry about post-exercise stretching (I still see value in pre-exercise dynamic stretching).
• Have a good core strengthening routine and be consistent with it.