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Ironman Nice - Race Report

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

So that’s it, Ironman Nice has been completed, and now it’s time to tell you just how it all went, so read, enjoy, and then decide to do something to REALLY challenge yourself this year ;-)

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Ironman France, Nice, June 27th 2010

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Hands down, this was is the hardest, most gruelling, relentless race I’ve ever competed in, but it’s also the greatest. I’ll kick things off by telling you the lead up to the race:

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I eventually flew out to Nice on the Thursday, after being sat on the runway for 3 1/2 hours due to a strike in France. Upon arrival, I got to the hotel (in the centre of Nice), unpacked a few things, built my bike, then went off to meet my buddy Sam Wait at the Ironman Expo to register, sign the waiver and get our transition bags, race numbers etc..

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After looking round the expo, we headed off to have a look at the start along the Prom Des Anglais, right on the beach. Already the whole place seemed to be buzzing, with hundreds of soon to be Ironman athletes wondering around, swimming in the beautiful sea, cycling, running, and soaking up the sun. The organisers were in the process of constructing the finish line, stands, transition tents and bike racks, and I got massively excited picturing myself crossing the line at the end of the race.

Getting hungry, I headed back to the hotel via a butchers and fresh veg shop, then cooked up fresh chicken breast and steamed potato  on the George Foreman grill and vegetable steamer that I’d packed in my suitcase in order to ensure my diet remained clean. After happily watching Italy crash out of the world cup, I headed out for an easy 30 minute run with a few 60 second bursts of pace, then headed back, showered and into bed.

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I was up at 6am the next day, steaming more potato, and some eggs as well, then headed off to the beach for a swim around 7 with Sam. The sea was immense. Warm, blue and a pleasure to swim in. A far cry from Weymouth Beach in April when I began this seasons open water swim training. Part of my bike had been damaged in transit, so I took that to the Shimano bike mechanics at the Expo, who sorted it out for me. After a bit of sunshine and a lot more chicken, rice and potato, I headed off to meet my girlfriend who was flying in that morning, before later heading out for an easy spin on the bike with Sam along the prom. Then it was more chicken, more rice, more eggs, then bed.

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On Saturday morning I’d planned to get up early and head out for a swim, but woke up at 5.30, and decided that an extra couple of hours sleep would do me better than half hour in the water, so went back to sleep. I headed out with my girlfriend to the Expo, bought some new tires for my bike, fitted them, left her on the beach and then headed back to the hotel to pack my transition bags, do some final checks on the bike, and ensure all my nutrition was sorted and ready for the morning. By now I’ve got pretty excited, and am getting the standard random giggles whenever I think about what I’m about to do the following day. It gets to 5.45 and it’s time to head off to check in my bike and transition bags. The nerves start to set in a little now, not so much about the race, but whether my knee, which had been in poor form for the last 3-4 weeks, would do it’s job on the day. Anyway, checking in was smooth and stress free, and took little time, which left me loads of time to cook and eat before getting an early night.

However, I ended up watching Ghana beat USA in the World Cup on TV, so bed didn’t end up as early as I’d hoped! After tossing and turning, I finally got to sleep, and 4 hours later was up at 3.30am, cooking and eating skinless steamed potato, steamed rice, grilled chicken, steamed eggs and half a small slice of pineapple as a treat. What a breakfast. It was so dry that every mouthful needed to be flushed with a big gulp of water, and even then it wasn’t fun! Still, it was going to do the job, and do it well, so I forced it down (well, most of it). I had a quick shower to wake myself up properly, necked an energy drink while getting dressed, grabbed my stuff and headed out, excited, and ready to get stuck into some serious work.

After leaving my girlfriend at the entrance to the bike park, I headed in, pumped my tires, attached all my food and drink to the bike, queued for half hour for the toilets, got the wetsuit on, and headed down to the beach with 2500 other people.

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I wasn’t too excited about the swim start. I’d raced in Bolton last year and that wasn’t too fun, but there was just 1500 people there. 2500 people in the sea was set to be a nasty encounter, with punches, kicks pushes, slaps, and people pulling you down and swimming over you. Still, I decided to get right in amongst it and hammer it out any way I could. The atmosphere was already electric, and as soon as it hit 6.30am, the race began. We piled into the sea, and the carnage began. Arms flying, head getting whacked, kicked in the face, pulled under, swallowing water, it all happened. Do you stop? Not even if you wanted to. Stop and you’ll get swum over, probably concussed, and may not come back up until you get dragged out. Not an option. To be fair though, I quite enjoyed the swim! Most of the time swimming for 70 minutes gets pretty dull, but when you’re constantly having to avoid being hit, it makes it a little more interesting to say the least, and time passes nicely. I swam pretty well, and had no problems. More than I can say for the owners of the dozens of empty swim hats and goggles I saw floating and sinking in the sea, some right at the very start!

Anyway, my swim split was 1h12m which I was happy enough with, and after slipping out of my wetsuit, grabbing my transition bag and getting ready, I legged it out, got my bike and headed off, feeling fresh, happy and ready to bang it. The bike leg starts off flat, fast and easy, so I was able to stay aero for the first 20km and hit some good speeds at a high cadence. You then hit the first hill, a 500m climb up a steep incline. We’d been warned about this as being a tough hill, but to be honest it was nothing even compared to Abbotsbury hill. The hardest bit was trying not to crash into the hundred other people climbing it at the same time.

A while into the bike, and there’s an epic 20km climb, which isn’t made any easier by 30+ degree heat. This was intense and the climb seemed to go on forever. There were people stopping on the side of the road, falling off, bikes breaking and ambulances with lights flashing. Never a good sign. The good thing was that at the top of this climb you knew that you’d done the hardest art of the course. I’d felt strong the whole way for the first 49 miles, but at mile 50, I had the worst most painful, horrific cramps I have ever experienced. Not just in one place, but in both sets of quads, both sets of hamstrings, both glutes and both sets of abductors. I hoped that I;d be able to shake these off, but despite taking on plenty of water, loads of energy drink and salt sticks, it wouldn’t go. Every now and again my legs would literally stop working due to the involuntary contractions, with quads fighting hamstrings and hip flexors fighting my glutes for the right to take me down. I kept having to slow, almost to a stop, and it for the first time it crossed my mind that it was possible I wouldn’t actually be able to complete the race. This is when mind over body takes over. It’s just cramp I told myself, and despite the absolute agony that caused me to occasionally let out some sort of an ‘arrrgghhh’ sound, just a minor setback. I could still move, so I could still bang it out, and even if it meant slowing considerably, stopping was never an option. Anyway, there were a couple of fun descents, some nice flat roads and the a nasty 12km climb, which again, went on, and on, and on. The landscape and scenery was immense, among the best I’ve ever seen, but when you looked over the edge of the 2-3ft high wall lining the road, you saw a shear drop down the mountain. best to stay away from there given the cramp situation!

After this last big climb the bike was largely easy. The cramps were still horrendous and frequent, but the remainder of the course was downhill, and flat at the bottom. The descents were amazing. Flying down a mountain at 30-35mph on a bike, round 180 degree bends, past shear drops, was an awesome sensation. Not so awesome for those who came off. I must have seen the ambulances go by around 10 times during the bike course. There were people with bust bikes all over the place having fallen off. Couldn’t help but just feel glad I was in one piece!

My bike split ended up at 5h57m, which although I was aiming for 5h30m, I was pleased with due tot he situation with my legs. I entered transition, someone racked my bike, then I grabbed my bag and hobbled off to get into my run gear. By now the day was intensely hot, up to around 35 degrees, and the run didn’t look fun. It’s flat, yes, but utterly relentless and extremely hard with no respite from the intense sun. My legs were still fully cramped, and so just moving was an effort, but I started the run relatively brightly. As the cramps worsened and the heat intensified, my speed dropped. The course involved 4 laps of running up the prom for just over 3 miles, then back to collect a coloured wristband, until you’d collected all 3 bands and were finally allowed to finish on your last lap after 26.2 miles of pain. The thousands of onlookers in the crowd that lined the streets were fantastic, and every time you’d start to walk, you’d just here ALLEZ! ALLEZ! and would have to get your ass back up and at least try to run, cramp or no cramp.

The run went on for what seemed like an eternity, when in fact it was around 4h16m. Severely unimpressive, and a far cry from the 3h30m I wanted to hit. But bearing in mind my legs had been in a severely damaged state for around 7 hours by the end of the race, I was happy enough to come home in 11h39m.

The sweet end

The sweet end

Upon crossing the finish line, you get what you’ve been picturing every time you thought about skipping a training session, every time yo feel at all down during the race, and every time you thought about just giving up; that golden Ironman medal. The thing that tells the world that you’ve just swam 2.4 miles, cycled 112 miles, then run a 26.2 mile marathon at the end of it, and that reminds you of what you’ve achieved, and that you can accomplish just about anything you set your mind to, so long as you’re willing to commit, sacrifice, and stop at nothing to achieve what you set out to. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is simply the word extra. Extra will power, extra motivation, extra effort, extra attitude and extra determination to succeed. The accomplishment of the 2000+ people who managed to finish this race, and in fact the race itself, is truly extraordinary.

Next stop = Ironman UK in Bolton, August 1st 2010. Yep, 5 weeks after Nice!

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5 weeks into the Ironman project

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I’m currently just more than 5 weeks into the Ironman Project, in which I’ve cut my training volume by around 40%, played around with a few things, and am hoping to achieve a time 1 hour less than last years Ironman UK time. I have to say, even I’m a little suprised with just how well it’s all going thus far.

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In week 3’s testing session, I knocked 5 minutes off a bike: run brick session, with plenty of gas left in the tank. In week 4 I banged out a PB in the pool despite only having done 3 swim training sessions (other than the kick sessions I was doing previously due to shoulder operation). Most recently, at the end of week 5, for a 40 mile bike ride I increased my average speed by 1mp from 2 weeks previously, and a total of 2mph from the same session in week 2, which is more than a 10% increase in speed over 40 miles in just 6 weeks. Run times are also improving well, with average pace over 8 miles increasing by 20 seconds per mile within the last fortnight.

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As well as all this, the strength and conditioning is having a major impact in terms of injuries and various aches and pains. Staying in the aero position on the bike is much, much more comfortable for prolonged periods, with no ache whatsoever (I’d often get a little lower back ache from time to time before). There’s no knee pain during running (I used to get a little due to overpronation and tight ITB’s), and the shoulder is feeling strong once again.

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So, all in all, the program is still going extremely well, and I’m very excited about the next couple of months and the lead up firstly to Ironman Nice, and then to Ironman UK 5 weeks later. I’m also excited about releasing the details of the program to you just as soon as I’ve finished the guinea pig side of things. Until then, I thought I’d share just one workout with you, so check out the video, and I’ll write again soon.

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Stay strong.

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Andy

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Functional strength training for endurance athletes: Part 1

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

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Endurance athletes typically have a few things in common.

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Firstly, they love what they do, and knowing the fact that 99.9% of the population couldn’t imagine doing the sorts of races they do, whether its a Channel Swim, Ironman triathlon, mountain marathon, century ride or ultra distance run. Having the determination and dedication to complete and compete in these events is true testament to the human will, and something that only a small minority of people are capable of. The endurance athlete loves to push him/herself to the limit, overcoming barriers in training, and breaking down every wall that stands in their way on race day.

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They also love to train. Endurance athletes are quite happy to slog out 10, 20, 30 hours per week at their chosen sport, and make the sacrifice that is necessary to achieve their goal, whether it’s simply completing the course, or a top 5 finish. The training mindset of the endurance athlete is one that is strong, whatever the weather, against the odds, and willing to go the extra mile.

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However, like everyone, endurance athletes have flaws. The biggest that I can determine is that they (not everyone, but the vast majority) neglect strength training, or at least don’t perform the correct type of exercises in the gym. It is this similarity that is the focus of this article.

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Ask any endurance athlete out there why they aren’t performing strength and conditioning as an integral part of their plan, and I can guarantee that one or all of the following 3 points will come up:

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Strength training will make me heavy, slow and inflexible . . . .

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First off is the thought that performing strength training will make them heavier, sluggish and inflexible, and so strength training should be excluded from their training plan. There are a couple of things to address with this misconception. Firstly is the nature of the training that the athlete is associating with strength and conditioning. Often when people think of strength training, they think of traditional bodybuilding training, which is largely dysfunctional to the endurance athlete (although still seems to be advocated in a number of endurance sports training books). However, with a functional training program that has been designed in order to specifically enhance performance, you’re not going to get huge muscle mass gains, you won’t get any slower and you won’t get less flexible. In fact, you’ll actually become faster due to increases in strength, power, economy and movement patterns, you’ll get more flexible due to the integrated nature of the training, and as for getting bigger and slower? Nope. Regarding this, the first thing to mention is that the strength gains you’ll be getting are largely going to be down to improved neuromuscular performance, without a big increase in muscle size. Secondly, in general, endurance athletes are largely ectomorphs, who find it extremely hard to gain any significant muscle size. Those two things aside, the strength and power improvements you’ll gain will totally outweigh any added weight as you’ll be stronger, more powerful and more efficient at your event(s), thus making you a superior athlete and improving your performance greatly.

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I don’t have the time to train strength . . . .

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The second point is one of time. The endurance athlete spends so much time each week actually out on the road, in the pool or on the trail, that they believe there is no time left to perform strength training. To be fair, in their current regime, they’re probably right. But they shouldn’t be. There is time, and plenty of it. More so, it is a case of not being willing to ‘sacrifice’ a little swim, bike or run time in favour of 45 minutes strength training 2-3 times per week. The philosophy of the vast majority of endurance athletes is that in order to get better at swimming, cycling and running (or whatever your sport entails) the only and best way is to do more swimming, cycling and running.

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This is largely where overuse and overtraining injuries set in; that niggling hamstring injury that forces you to take a few days off every couple of weeks, that knee pain you get after mile 13 in your long run, the lower back ache when staying in the aero position on the bike for more than 5 minutes or when running up hill; the list goes on. In order to get better at your discipline, it’s NOT necessary to do it for longer, you just need to do it better. There’s no point rowing the boat harder if it’s pointing in the wrong direction.

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Strength and power training won’t help me as an endurance athlete . . . .

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My third point is the single greatest myth when it comes to training for the endurance athlete, and that is the fact that the endurance athlete feels that strength and power work will not improve performance in their endurance based event.

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During my recent mentorship at the Institute of Human Performance in Florida, Juan Carlos Santana explained this beautifully. Basically, believe it or not, endurance sports are ALL about POWER. The equation for power is work/time, So if an athlete runs a 3h30m marathon one year, then runs the same race the next year in 3h flat, she has become more powerful, as she has performed the same amount of work, in less time. The more functional power you have, the greater your stride length, swim stroke and cadence will be. Another equation for power is force x speed. If you’re stronger, you can generate more force, and as the equation states, power is dependent on strength and speed. So, you can see that it is absolutely necessary to develop functional power (it’s no good working on a 1 rep max power clean) as well as working on strength in addition to speed.

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By incorporating an appropriate and functional strength program into your training, you will improve also economy no end, meaning that movements require less effort, and so performance improves and injury risk reduces. Just think, in a 2 ½ hour run each foot will hit the ground around 13000 times. If it’s planting incorrectly, then that’s 13000 incorrect foot strikes in a single run. How many more times does your foot need to land poorly before your knee hurts, adductor pulls or achilles inflames? Not only this, but with incorrect movement patterns, comes power wastage, and if the body is not generating power from where it’s meant to, it’s got to find it from somewhere else. If however you’ve been (and still are) performing the right types of conditioning exercises, then you’ll minimize this and increase your power output and thus improve performance.

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An appropriate functional strength training program will give you the following key benefits:

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· Improved economy

· Reduced risk of injury

· Improved power output

· Improved neurological performance

· Improved lactate threshold

· Increased flexibility

· Increased functional strength

· Increased stride length

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From this article, you should now be thinking differently about the need for training strength for endurance sports success, and in part 2, I’ll be going into a little depth regarding just what a truly functional strength training program involves.

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2 Weeks into the Ironman Project

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Well, today is one of my rest days in terms of training, so i thought I’d take the opportunity to let you now how the initial 2 weeks of training has gone on this new way of training that I’m ‘guinea pigging’ is going.

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In week 1 I trained for a total of just 7 hours, and in week 2 I racked up just 8, but ALREADY the results are starting to show! Now obviously I’m still not going to give away any specifics with regard tot he program, but I have to say that the extra rest I’m getting seems to be making a real difference. Despite working long days (3 days a week I’m up at 4.30m to train a client 30 miles away), I’m able to put a great amount of energy into every single session, no matter what time of day I’m training.

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This week I did a little testing session on the bike, and hit out a time that was slightly better than the same route, at the same sort of intensity, as I did at week 20 last year. As for running, I hammered out a hardcore session yesterday (I’d love to tell you the details but just can’t!!!), and knocked up a time that last year took me to week 12 to achieve. In terms of the swim, well that still sucks as the shoulder really isn’t up to it yet. Having said that, I’m just doing kick right now and having never put any focus whatsoever of kicking, it’s improving rapidly. Last year my swim times plateaued  in training after hitting my time target for a 2.4 miler at about week 24. As soon as my shoulder is swim ready, it’ll probably take about 10-12 weeks until I’m hitting the same time as for last year. BUT, my feeling is that if this year I can do a little kicking rather than dragging two hairy anchors behind me, I still should be able to knock some time off last years IM swim. So right now I’m happy enough to kick kick kick!

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So you can see that right now, things are looking pretty good with training. Times are coming down, fitness levels are on the way up, and the training is time efficient and fun. Bonus.

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Until next time.

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Andy

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Triathletes, do we need to train so much?

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Triathlon training at any level takes time, and lots of it. Professionals may train for up to 30-40 hours per week, and novices right up to age groupers will often put in between 4-25 hours per week depending on their circumstances. But is all this really necessary? Do we NEED to train for that long, or is alot of what we are doing, purely JUNK MILES? Is there a better way to train?

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I’ll be clear on something right now: The purpose of this post is not to try and change the way you train, or to rubbish any other method of training, rather, it is to encourage people to have an open mind when it comes to training for triathlon, and to let you know just what I’m up to right now in terms of training, following my week in Florida.

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During the mentorship program, in one of our final lectures, we got talking about swim training, and in particular, why it is that a sprint swimmer will put in so many hours and miles in the pool each week, when they are training for a race that lasts less than a minute. Do they really need to spend so long training? After all, a 100-400m track athlete doesn’t spend so long training, and we are all humans, so how is it beneficial for a sprint swimmer to train for so long? Would it not be more beneficial to have shorter, more focussed workouts, and more rest in order to allow proper recovery and reduce the risk of injury and over training? After all, how many swimmers (in particular children who are overtrained) develop shoulder, back and hip problems? I don’t know the exact figure, but it’s alot! We then spoke about marathon running, and again, is it really necessary to put in 40-80 miles a week, or would it be more beneficial to have shorter, more focussed workouts, with a bigger emphasis on recovery? After all, you make your improvements while you recover.

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We then touched on triathlon, and again the same things came up. Is it NECESSARY to do so many hours? Has ANYONE ever experimented with far less hours, but a much increased quality of training at the expense  of junk miles? If you’re training for a long race, do you have to train for as long as the race (or at least each discipline) will take you? If you’re training for Ironman, that could mean putting in 2+ hour swims, 8+ hour bike rides and 5+ hour runs. No not every session, but you get the idea I’m sure. What I’m also sure of, is that there HAS to be a much better way to train. Step up Juan Carlos.

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At the end of the mentorship program, a few hours before we were flying back to the UK, I sat down with JC to get his thoughts on Ironman training, and in particular, to help me reduce my own Ironman training volume. Now, as well as the fact that I’m 100% sure that there are more effective methods of training for triathlon than are currently being utilised, I’m also recovering from a shoulder operation which has sidelined my swimming for 12 weeks, cycling for 8 weeks, and running for 11 weeks. On top of that, I work a long hours (much like you), and juggle a girlfriend, friends and family at the same time. Right now I have just 18 weeks to get into the best, injury free condition of my life in order to knock the 45-60 minutes off my Ironman time at IM France on June 27th (that’s my personal goal for the year).

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JC is a huge lover of all things sport and fitness, and was more than happy to look at my proposed training program, and after checking out my program, subsequently decided to slash my training hours by about 40%, and ‘play around’ with intensity a little, as well as introducing some pretty exciting new techniques. We then came up with a plan of attack. A structure was formed, followed by specific phases, and I spent much of the long flight home planning out each individual session. What we have come up with is something that has NEVER been tried, or at least documented, within the industry, and could well be something that will help triathletes all over the globe to achieve their goals in less time, with more recovery, and increased performance.

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What methods are we employing?

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Well…..there have to be some secrets right?! All I can tell you is that a couple of methods could, and probably will, raise a few eyebrows in the triathlon world, but both JC and I are extremely confident that what we have devised will work, and when it does, we are going to be ready to transform the way many triathletes go about their training, leaving you with more time, more energy, and better performance.

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From now, leading up to June 27th, I’ll be posting regularly on here letting you know how the training is going, the results I’m seeing and everything else….except of course the program! So keep your eyes on this area, and feel free to add your own comments ;-) Before you leave, checkout this video of myself and JC talking about the plan right here

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Wish us luck!

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Andy

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