feature extreme training

feature extreme training
Extreme
Training
52
Triathlon Magazine Canada May & June 2008
feature extreme training
How hard can
you push to be
a champion?
left Faris Al-Sultan at the
2006 Ford Ironman World
Championship, Kona
by Kevin Mackinnon
W
hile standing on the podium after my first Ironman, I asked the
race winner, Scott Molina, considered one of the world’s premier
triathletes of his era, what I should be doing in order to recover after
such a hard race.
“I have no idea,” Molina said. “I’m never going to do another one of
these. You shouldn’t, either.”
Two years later, when he won the Ironman World Championship in
Kona, Molina claimed the one win that had eluded him through his
amazing career. For years Molina had struggled in the heat on Hawaii’s
Big Island. For years he’d folded during the marathon. In 1988, though,
he was supremely prepared to handle the rigours of the race. At the
press conference, he was asked what sort of training he’d done to prepare.
“I’d like you all to think of me as a sane human being,” Molina joked,
“Which is why I’m not going to tell you about those workouts.”
When I asked him about his comment to me in 1986, Molina just laughed.
“Never talk to me the day after an Ironman,” he said. Then he quickly
followed with: “Did I really say that?”
o what is extreme when it comes to preparing for an Ironman?
S How much training can a body endure to prepare to race an event
that, at best, lasts seven hours and fifty minutes? I figured I would ask
a few of the world’s best Ironman athletes what their most memorable
training days have been over the years. I wasn’t looking for Lisa Bentley
Computrainer-during-a-cruise feats of mental tenacity. I was in search
of multifaceted challenges, such as keeping your eyes open as you
struggle to get home after a 300 km day on the bike. Here are a few of
the answers I got:
Norton’s Epic Eight Days
photo davidmccolm.com
I
nstead of discussing his extreme training regimen, Molina has joined forces
with Gordo Byrne and New Zealand triathlon coach John Newsome to let people
experience it all themselves. The trio created an elite series of camps, aptly named
Epic Camps, in 2002. The camps include an insane, sorry, a large amount of training
over eight painful days.
Here’s how Canadian pro Tara Norton (who graced the cover of our March issue),
described her last day at the Epic Camp in New Zealand:
“Today was the uphill triathlon,” Norton wrote on her website earlier this year.
“We swam across Lake Hayes and back … Onto the bike and up Coronet Peak again.
That is some climb, especially after the hours upon hours of training over the last
seven days. But I just rode steady and made it to the top. The run up to the summit
was pretty interesting as parts were so steep I was even having trouble walking.”
Over the eight days of training, Norton would swim 42 km, bike 1,090 km
and run 125 km, all in 62 hours. Yes, that works out to just under eight hours of
training a day.
May & June 2008 www.triathlonmagazine.ca
53
feature extreme training
Over the eight
days of training, Tea at Everest, anyone?
Norton would
W
swim 42 km,
bike 1,090 km
and run 125 km,
all in 62 hours
– just under
eight hours of
training a day.
hen I asked Chrissie Wellington, last year’s
Ford Ironman World Champion from England,
what was the toughest workout she had ever done,
she didn’t describe a traditional triathlon set at all.
Wellington is coached by Brett Sutton, considered by
many to be the coach who expects more from his athletes than virtually any other, which is why it comes
as some surprise that Wellington’s toughest day came
long before she’d met the Australian.
Wellington’s challenging day came during a bike
tour in Nepal. Things were so cold that when she
woke up, her chain had frozen. To thaw it she used the
simplest, quickest and most direct method available.
She peed on it.
That was the beginning of a 125-km ride over dirt
trails through a snowstorm. The ride included a climb
up to 5,200 m. A descent down to 4,300 m. Then
another climb to 5,200 m. Since the frozen chain and
the climbing wasn’t enough of a challenge, Wellington
also found herself dealing with a f lat tire, too.
“I finally arrived exhausted, but blessed by the sight
of Chomolungma (Everest),” Wellington said, “Then
came a cup of warm tea, along with pain and pleasure
in equal measure.”
Long, fast riding
with Faris
aris Al-Sultan did his first extreme day of
training as an 18-year-old.
“I did a lot of crazy workouts when I was younger,”
the German said. “One of them was a 70-km run when
I was 18. It was a loop that I usually did on my mountain bike and I tried to see if I could run it or not.”
He could and he did. It’s not just running workouts
in which the 2005 Ironman World Champion has
been pushed to the limit, though. Since 1999 he’s
done a yearly training day on the bike from Al Ain to
Abu Dhabi and back. For those of you not up on your
United Arab Emirates geography, that’s 337 km.
“Of course, you have to stop to get water and food,
but you do it all in one session,” Al-Sultan said seriously, to make sure that I realized he did actually stop
a few times over the eight-an-a-half hour ride and
wasn’t some sort of type-A training addict.
Last December, Al-Sultan did the ride with two
German training partners, Werner Leitner and Swen
Sundberg. Together they averaged 41.8 km over the
distance. Many stages in the Tour de France are ridden
much slower, and that’s with a pack of 180 riders to
keep things moving.
“This is fun,” Al-Sultan said. “I definitely think it’s
something that no one wants to miss.”
above Tara Norton at the Epic Camp in New Zealand
54
Triathlon Magazine Canada May & June 2008
photos left to right Tara Norton Collection, davidmccolm.com
F
feature extreme training
It was a 65 km running day for Biscay, including
a marathon on a treadmill. A 30-minute warm up
jog, the treadmill marathon, then a 90-minute run
through the mountains in Switzerland.
above Hilary Biscay at the 2007 Ford Ironman World Championship, Kona
May & June 2008 www.triathlonmagazine.ca
55
feature extreme training
“Never talk to me the day
after an Ironman,” Molina
said. “Did I really say that?”
Canadian power
M
arilyn McDonald, Calgary’s 2004 Ironman
Malaysia Champion, offered two examples of
extreme training sessions. For some reason the softspoken but fiercely competitive 30-year-old likes to
pair her challenging days, even just before a major
competition. Take, for example, these two rides she
did leading up to Subaru Ironman Canada last August:
“On the Wednesday Chris (her husband, Ford
Ironman Louisville champ) and I did an eight-and-ahalf hour ride, all above 7,000 feet. We climbed up
to 14,000 feet at the top of Mount Evans, the highest
paved road in North America, and then rode back. On
the Saturday we did a 200-km ride which was like a
bike race.”
Did it work? “It set me up for the fastest bike split at
Ironman Canada,” McDonald said with a smile.
Those rides were likely quite easy compared to the
two sessions she did three days apart during her lead
up to Ironman Malaysia in 2004. To prepare for the
heat and humidity, she set up a wind trainer next to a
treadmill at her local fitness club in Calgary. Wearing a
tracksuit, she rode the trainer for 90 minutes, then ran
on the treadmill for an hour. Then it was back to the
trainer for an hour, and the treadmill for 30 minutes.
“I just kept swapping clothes as they got too wet
and increasing the intensity as the workout went on,”
McDonald remembers. “I was in there for five-and-ahalf hours – I went through an entire shift of staff.”
A marathon
on the treadmill
Fitness or fanaticism?
M
olina has returned to both Kona and other
Ironman events over the last few years, finishest you think only one Sutton athlete might not ing as the top age group competitor at the inaugural
be represented in this story, forget it. Athletes Ironman Arizona race in 2004 as a master. He confrom his Teamtbb team were the easiest source for tinues to push his Epic Camp athletes through the
extreme sets.
intense and immense training volume and isn’t afraid
Hillary Biscay’s toughest workout came during the to swim, bike and run side by side with his star pupils.
summer of 2006.
So are workouts like these the key to Ironman great“Actually, it was more of a whole day of training,” ness? A few years ago, just minutes after she finished
the Californian said just days before competing in fourth in Kona, I asked eight-time Ironman World
her second Ironman of 2008 (of eight planned) in Champion Paula Newby-Fraser if her performance
Malaysia. “It was a 65 km running day, including that day made her want to start training hard enough
a marathon on a treadmill. A 30-minute warm up to go after the win in Kona.
jog, the treadmill marathon, then a 90-minute run
“I look back at those days and wonder how Paul
through the mountains in Switzerland.”
[Huddle, her husband] put up with me,” she said. “I
What, only mountains? Nothing epic like, say, would come in after an eight-hour training day and put
Everest? According to Biscay, the workout was my feet up and just wait for him to get dinner.”
tough enough.
“Maybe that’s what it takes to win the World
“I hurt pretty much everywhere for a few days, but I Championship eight times,” I suggested.
had my best Ironman marathon a few months after that,
“If that’s what it takes, and it had wrecked our relaso I think it must have done something,” she said.
tionship, it wouldn't have been worth it,” she replied.
L
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Triathlon Magazine Canada May & June 2008
photo davidmccolm.com
above Marilyn McDonald at
the 2007 Subaru Ironman
Canada, Penticton