Olympic Odyssey: A New Standard   (April 15, 2008 )
Former World Number one Chris Hill takes us to Beijing through the athletes’ eyes

Like the all the greatest athlete and coach combinations, Javier Gomez, along with Jose Rioseco, are redefining the sport of triathlon with efficiency, talent, and pure speed.

Spaniard Javier Gomez doesn’t spin his wheels like other less efficient triathletes. All his horsepower goes directly onto the pavement, pedals and water. This not only propels him forward in a race, but it also consigning the old standards of men’s triathlon to the past.

Like the leaders of the sport before him; Mark Allen, Brad Beven, and Simon Lessing, Gomez’s career is starting to acquire the momentum of a runaway success.

His racing resumé of nine BG World Cup wins and 15 consecutive podiums is quickly exceeding dominance, eagerly edging its way toward legendary (the men’s World Cup win record for an active athlete stands at 11, held by 2000 Olympic champion, Canadian Simon Whitfield).

But it is another champion athlete that Gomez, 25, is beginning to resemble most.

Both were born in Basel, Switzerland but the similarities don’t end there. Triathlete Gomez and tennis player Roger Federer seem close sporting cousins. Both share an ability to single-handedly reset their sport’s perimeters of possibility, all with what looks like a modicum of effort.

As Federer rips a stunning cross-court winner with more angle than a marine’s sideburns, Gomez crushes the hearts of his opposition with unparalleled swim and run poise.

Gomez’s swim is freakish. His best 1500-meter time is under 16 minutes, which puts him in a class alone with former swimmer Andy Potts of the United States. But the difference with Potts is that Gomez’s swim personal best was recorded this year when training for triathlon not in his competitive swimming days.

“I had my best 1500-meter time ever this year,” Gomez said after the New Plymouth BG Triathlon World Cup. “I’ve always kept on swimming. Even nowadays I do three good months of swimming in November, December and January. And I always have a race at the end. This year I did my PB in the 1500meter, which is 15:45.”

“Under 16 minutes is enough for triathlon, I think, but I am not a very good swimmer in open water. I like the swims that are totally flat, like a swimming pool. Last week I had a very bad swim, I was 24th out of the water. Running into the water is hard.”

Hard for Gomez one week, easy the next—he’s that type of athlete.

In Mooloolaba, after the beach start, Gomez tripped over the first carpet of water—it wasn’t even a wave—when the other athletes beside him, all Kiwis and Aussies with surf skills to burn, waded another 20 meters or so.

Another athlete in this situation might have dreaded the same predicament reoccurring in the beach start at New Plymouth the following weekend, but not Gomez.

He led on the beach run to the water, replacing his bellyflop of the previous week, with a few giant steps. The fact he subsequently added a couple of graceful duck dives proved he is a quick school and reaffirmed his Federer type genius.

Gomez’s race brilliance does not end there. His run is now second to none and because of his swim, it goes against triathlon’s natural order.

Triathlon’s natural order states that a pure swimmer CANNOT be a pure runner. Australia’s Craig Walton and Athens Olympic gold medalist Kate Allen exemplify this.

Gomez, however, does not run like a swimmer or swim like a runner—he swims like a fish and runs like a gazelle. And his physical appearance on the run should not deceive the spectator.

The ruby hue that flushes Gomez’s cheeks is only a red herring, fooling the viewer that he is hurting. It only acts to distract from the relative ease of his strides, the smoothness of his locomotion—again the triathlon equivalent of Federer.

Before the 2008 BG Triathlon World Cup season commenced, Gomez spent some time training in South Africa. One of his sessions included a running race.

“I did a 10-kilometer race on the road in South Africa,” Gomez said of his 2008 preparation. “I ran 29:47. I got third and Tim Don was fourth, 25 seconds behind. Two African guys ran really fast and won. I tried to run with them and managed only four kilometers. We ran the first three kilometers in 8:25. Then the last five kilometers was hilly so it was slower.”

Great Britain’s Tim Don is known as probably the number one triathlon track runner with a 3:46:60 PB for 1500 meters. But sometimes Don’s form does not carry over to running ten kilometers off the bike.

For Gomez, it always does.

On Mooloolaba’s hilly 10-kilometer run course, Gomez knocked out 30:29 and on the undulations in New Plymouth, 29:37. If you couple this, as Gomez did, with second out of the water the results are scary for the opposition.

They are also scary if you are the type of athlete that likes to slink into an Olympic year with solid races building to a crescendo. Gomez, obviously, is not this type of athlete. To him, great form now is a harbinger to great form in the future.

“Things are going well,” Gomez said about his two wins in two races and the frame of mind they put him in. “It is a positive pressure and a motivation. It is a sign things are going well. I won the first two World Cups so it is just perfect.”

“I did not expect to be in such good form. It was so much better than what I thought before I came to New Plymouth. Things are going well, I am training well and I must keep on working for the Olympics.”

His coach Jose Rioseco was also happy with his athlete’s early season form. As Gomez loomed large down the finish straight in New Plymouth, Rioseco stopped pacing and started punching the air. The victory obviously meant a lot and it was a team effort.

“He was very happy because I did a very good race,” Gomez said of Rioseco’s quiet fist pumping, “better than last weekend and that’s the important thing. My coach is a great support and he has coached me since I was 11 so he is more than a coach, he is more like a friend.”

After New Plymouth post-race press interviews, countless selfless t-shirt signings and drug testing, it was time for coach and athlete to make the 4-kilometer journey back to the Devon Hotel.

Wheeling his bike when the rest had ridden, Javier Gomez joined his coach for the tramp home as darkness descended. When victories convert to Olympic confidence, they crunched the numbers and plotted the next along the deserted Sunday night streets.

Their partnership becoming as successful as coach Tony Roche and Roger Federer when the pair worked together in his prime.
Former World Number one Chris Hill brings his unique elite athlete perspective in weekly Olympic columns to ITU’s website, triathlon.org. He competed on the ITU World Cup circuit, winning three titles and ten medals in total. He was crowned the overall World Cup series champion in 2001. That same year he was silver medalist at the ITU World Championships in Edmonton, Canada. Watch for Chris Hill’s column, “Olympic Odyssey” every week on triathlon.org.
 

By Jeff Henderson

 
Sweet, sweet trash …
Courtesy Jeff Henderson

“County-road-sign makers seldom tell you twice. If you miss that sign in the weeds that’s your problem, not theirs.”
        - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This is a story about butter. Somewhere in the telling, power and desire and revenge creep in, but fundamentally it is a story about butter.

Man evolved in the cradle of civilization, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, amid warm breezes and hospitable soils. As man wandered and spread, he ventured to less hospitable climes that required him to build shelters. In his home and away from the land, man desired ways to preserve food for tomorrow, so he salted and pickled and preserved and eventually cooled, first with ice and later the refrigerator. In warm weather, desiring to protect his animal’s products from the heat, he placed butter inside the refrigerator and it stayed cold and firm for him.

When kept outside the refrigerator during moderate temperatures, man discovered that butter stays soft and spreadable, a much desired quality. So as to avoid removing the butter in mild weather and placing it back into the refrigerator during warm weather, he invented a particular spot for his butter, a compartment with a warm surface where he could control the temperature and soften the butter to his liking.

And so the butter sits in its compartment, soft to the touch but not melting at 50 degrees, inside a refrigerator cooled to 40 degrees, inside a home heated to 70 degrees, in a climate where the outside air might be 50 degrees. Three layers of precisely regulated thermal control engineered to provide man his desired butter at the desired temperature, all of the time.

How we have fallen. Our need for control and convenience and possessions has driven us to madness, no longer able to respect the earth that long has sustained us. This earth is recoiling, straining and shifting beneath our weight, yet we insist on maintaining our foolhardy ways.

Our swath of destruction cuts wide, no longer limited to securing food, clothing, shelter. Our pastimes-the things we pursue for amusement-now scar the land, pollute the skies, befoul the water. We pander to our basest instincts-the thrill of the hunt, the rush of competition-while ignoring the intelligence we have cultivated over a millennium.

On October 13, 2007, an army of athletes assembled upon the island of Hawaii for the Ironman world championship.  From all corners of the globe they came, 1,787 strong, to prove their ability to conquer the water and ground beneath them. Aside from 68 residents of the state of Hawaii, all of them flew jet airliners to attend; the combined distance traveled amounted to 18,312,992 miles (portlandtri.com/miles.html). Eighteen million miles-for one day of sport.

The jet airplanes belched 3,634 tons of carbon dioxide and other destructive greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the equivalent generated by 525 average American homes producing heat and light for one year.

When did we stop caring? When did it become acceptable to shirk responsibility, to shift it to another person, another country, another generation?

- - -

This fall I volunteered at the Westchester Triathlon in New York. After the race, I stood beneath an unusually warm September sun breaking down bike racks in an endless parking lot. I tore them down and placed them in the back of a truck; by mid-afternoon, all that remained of the transition area was trash, the waste generated by 1,000 athletes over a six-hour span.

Gel packets. Scraps of bagel. Plastic water bottles by the hundreds, a consequence of our evolution to single-use containers. All of it destined for the landfill, as Westchester does not contract a recycler. The amount of trash, and the inability of its producers to shuttle it to the trash can, was astounding.

As I stood resting, preparing to resume cleanup, two Team-in-Training women joined me in the otherwise empty lot. They each carried a plastic bag. Wordlessly they began circulating, emptying bottles and cans, placing them into the bags. As I broke down a nearby aid station, I watched the parking lot transform from a field of litter to a manageable bulk of waste. They disappeared after an hour and a half, taking their collected recycling with them. They probably saved Westchester half its trash bill.

- - -

Sport has long been an innovator.  Things we have learned about health, longevity and nutrition have often been driven by athletics. Through it we have discovered new materials, perfected technologies, improved systems and processes. And yet sport now falls behind, catering more to conspicuous consumption than long-held principles of conservation, efficiency and adaptability.

With our food, we demand organic. Our homes are triple-sealed against drafts, our thermostats and lighting computer-controlled. We buy Priuses and separate glass from cardboard. Yet our races stagnate. At the Chicago Marathon, 1.8 million cups were used to dispense water; few events practice recycling or composting. We travel thousands of miles to “destination races” while the local YMCA can’t draw 100 to its Spring Fling. A steel bike could last a lifetime; instead we buy carbon and replace it the very next year.

Sport is stuck in the age of excess. While the rest of the world educates itself about carbon offsets, global warming and alternative energy, we content ourselves with bigger cars (to haul our gear) and more exotic races.  It is no longer acceptable for those who care to clean up for the rest of us.
Jeff Henderson forsook the world of competitive swimming for triathlon in 1997. Since then he has busied himself competing, officiating, writing, and race directing.  He directs the Musselman Triathlon, the Fly by Night Duathlon, and the City of Portland Triathlon. To stay sane, he cares for Ophelia, Dixie, and Wyan, three charismatic yet remunerative backyard chickens.

By Luis Vargas, markallenonline.com

Unless you are planning on racing in the Southern Hemisphere, the preparations you’re making right now are most likely for holiday festivities-selecting the fattest, juiciest turkeys, trimming the Christmas tree, shopping for gifts and planning vacations. With no big race to prepare for, what should a triathlete to do to make sure his or her 2008 performances are an improvement from 2007 showings?

In this first in a series of four articles, I will give you some tips as to what you should do this time of the year to ensure a successful next racing season. In the following articles, I will concentrate on how to plan your season, which is the other important component of the off-season.

I have been around this sport for 20 years and have seen both ends of the spectrum when it comes to off-season training. On one end are the triathletes who take too much time off and sit on the couch for too long. They put on way too many pounds, and it takes them forever to lose the weight once the season begins. On the other end are the athletes who train too long or too hard in the off-season. They achieve personal bests in training on New Years Day. Needless to say, the proper amount of training and preparation lies somewhere in between these two extremes. Here are some tips to making the most of your off-season:

Take a physical and mental break
Once you’ve finished your last race of the season, it is imperative to take a break. It is important to let your body recover, but perhaps more importantly, let your mind rest from all the stress incurred from training and racing. Play a team sport, hike with your loved ones or go on a skiing trip. You can still do some running, swimming or biking-just keep it fun and unstructured. New activities will invigorate you. Plus, your non-triathlete friends and loved ones will be happy to spend time with you!

Concentrate on technique
During the racing season, many athletes are so worried about split times and distance that they forget about technique. Therefore, the best time of year to work on technique is the off-season. Once you begin your off-season triathlon-specific training, be sure keep it easy to moderate in order to focus on technique. Get your swim coach to film your stroke. For the bike, concentrate on pedaling circles. If your bike is uncomfortable, this is the best time of the year to purchase a new set of wheels or get a professional bike fit on the rig you already own. Your body will have the time to adjust to any bike changes over the next few months. For the run, I recommend working on some running drills to improve turnover and minimize the time your foot is on the ground. Most top runners can maintain 90 steps per minute or better. Count the steps on one leg only or double to 180 and count both legs over a minute.

“Don’t be a (January) national champion”
I am not sure where I heard this quote, but I like it. Every time someone tells me about a great set of repeats or some crazy ride done at an incredible pace during the off-season, I use it. The likelihood that you’ll be able to maintain this sort of effort throughout the entire year is not very good. Training takes effort, it causes pain and it wears on you. Save your energy for when it counts later in the season. Being fit in January does not mean you will be that much fitter by June. The more likely scenario is that you’ll perform at a lower level during the summer due to training too hard and drain yourself mentally from such a high intensity.

Train your weaknesses
I like this motto in general, but I want to make sure training your weaknesses does not turn into logging mega-mileage during the off-season. If swimming is your weak sport, concentrate on improving technique rather than logging 5,000 yards in the pool five times a week. Most improvements in swimming stem from honing technique. If you swim 25,000 yards a week and have bad technique, you will cement bad technique into your muscle memory and make it that much harder to fix. You will become a very fit, but slow swimmer.

On the other hand, if running is your weak sport, I do not recommend training for a marathon to become a better runner. Rather, work on your running technique with running drills as I mentioned above. If you have to schedule a running race, I suggest distances up to a half-marathon. A full marathon is generally a very difficult event for an inexperienced runner. It can take up to a month to fully recover and it’ll drain the energy you’ll need for the triathlon-racing season.

“But Coach,” you say. “I signed up for Ironman Canada and I want to make sure I can run a marathon!” Here is my take on that: For most triathletes, Ironman is an exercise in energy management. In fact, the great majority of athletes walk during the marathon to insure fluid and food intake. In all actuality, when compared to a solo marathon, the Ironman marathon is more like a training run. A solo marathon is more an exercise in pain management; the pace is high and runners barely break stride to get that half-cup of water. Most runners do not walk unless they hit the wall-it is a very different event. Running a marathon in the winter only proves that you can run a marathon and can handle a three- to five-hour effort. Similarly, I have seen many top marathoners struggle during an Ironman. Performance at one does not translate to the other. Scheduling a few long training runs of 20+ miles during Ironman training should mentally prepare an athlete who has any doubts of his or her capability to complete a marathon. I suggest you save your energy during the off-season and train properly for the Ironman.

Finally, if the bike is your weak sport, it is usually due to lack of experience on two wheels or a bad bike fit. Spring for the good bike fit at your local bike shop, get on your trainer or go outside if the weather permits. Get a consistent dosage of aerobic riding during the off-season. I find that hopping on a trainer is hardly the most enjoyable activity over the off-season, especially for runners and swimmers-but if you make a commitment to it, you will be rewarded once the triathlon season comes around.

Strength training
As triathletes, we like to think of ourselves as very fit individuals-we run, we bike, we swim, we do it all. Yet we find ourselves getting sore if we play tennis or do yard work. This becomes even truer as we get older. Therefore, strength training will help us strengthen those muscles that we generally do not use in triathlon. I recommend strength training year round, but I know that many athletes cannot find the time to do all three disciplines and also hit the weight room. For this reason, the off-season is the perfect time to get back on some strengthening program. It will improve your power and help with injury prevention. Ask your coach to design an off-season strengthening program for you.

Plan your racing season
Now that you are doing the right things, the next question is when to start doing specific race training in order to peak at the desired time of the competitive season. This will vary depending on your race schedule. Since I answer questions regarding planning a season on a daily basis, I have a good idea of the most popular patterns.

1.One big A race of the longest distance. This type of schedule is for the person attempting to peak for one race, and that race is also the longest one of his or her year. This can be your first Ironman, your first half-Ironman or even your first Olympic-distance race. It can also be for those veterans who already have a guaranteed slot in one Ironman race. I love this type of schedule, as it is what I stuck to in my racing years.
2.Two or more A races of the same longest distance. This type of schedule is very popular with those who sign up for multiple iron-distance races or perhaps qualify for Kona at one of the other Ironman events. Same principles would apply for those who race multiple half-iron-distance races or for short-distance racers who’d like to qualify for the International Triathlon Union world championship or national championship at the Olympic distance.
3.Two or more A races of different distances. This type of schedule is usually way more complicated. The long-distance races dictate the volume, but given that there are some shorter A-priority races, you may need to do some speed work at the right time to insure good performance.

Stay tuned! In next Tuesday’s installment of this four-part series, I’ll delve further into the three race-season patterns above.

Luis Vargas is a co-founder of markallenonline.com, an online triathlon coaching service he founded with six-time Ironman world champion Mark Allen. Vargas races as an age grouper and raced at a high level for 15 years, having been a member of Team USA at the Olympic distance. Vargas also completed Ironman Hawaii six times with a PR of 9:34.

E-mail Luis Vargas at questions@markallenonline.com.