I am excited to report on a huge weekend of racing here, riders winning Pro/1/2 races, wins, podiums, constant personal PRs everywhere — you never forget hearing these stories, and I fully know success is about improving, and success breeds success.
One result I want to write about today is Ed Crossman of Georgia, who raced Florida 70.3. Ed is beginning to understand he can perform at new levels in 70.3 Half-Ironman, push new limits.
“I had an awesome swim PR,” Ed Crossman said, “I had an awesome bike PR, and then I had a deadly run. The heat escalated real quick and I couldn’t keep my HR down or my stomach calm.”
Ed’s run began at 7:30 pace for four miles and then went downhill — on a hilly course. He performed unbelievably well in the first two parts, but the run failed him — he was well below goal pace.
Successful athletes want more. Successful athletes want perfection. Ed is a big guy who is a good swimmer, has a massive V12 on the bike, and he’s a strong runner, but we need to improve his 70.3 running performance specifically.
And now we work. Now we refine swim mechanics to help running economy, now we perfect a hard swim start and find the pace for the remaining 30 minutes in the water, condition the body to this. Now we learn to rip a linear split on the bike, find that threshold so he can produce 7:00 pacing in training. We train for the heat, we do more off-bike strength work to support his 170-lb-frame during these longer runs, we aim for full negative splits in training on the bike and then transitioning to the run in this fatigued state.
When we enter the peak training phase by mid-summer, where will we be? Will he be able to physically and lifestyle-wise be able to do so many T2s in training that going from the bike to running is as intrinsic as breathing fresh air? Will he be able to perform upper-sweet longer run intervals with less recovery?
You take a body of talent, and you master the basics, and then you can start to really work on the details, to understand what the athlete is all about. You will see body weight come down and wattage and pacing go up. I will analyze his data like a fanatic. You will see improvements all the time, but there is still an issue: he still cannot produce strong negative splits on the run during hard bricks. How do we achieve this? You continue to break down and break down the inventory of workouts to address these weak-points.
You set that goal.
And you train hard.
And you eat clean.
And you sleep right.
And you are going to hit your marks in training.
And you move the bar higher.
And then you move the bar higher.
And you create the difference between winning and losing. And you create goals you can achieve. And every day you move closer.
And you want more perfection.
And you continue to create separation from this Edward Crossman to the Edward Crossman of tomorrow, of next week, to the Edward Crossman of October 4th, 2015, who will be in peak condition for Silverman 70.3, yearning to qualify for 2016 Worlds 70.3.
