Sick!

In my previous blog I spoke about being Walloped by Winter and what to do about it. The Winter season is also when Cold and Flu season peak. I'm not sure about you, but for me, I am typically felled by one garden-variety head-cold each winter. Seems par-for the course.

For endurance sports athletes, it presents a bit of a challenge. How do you beat the cold, and get back to normal ASAP? There is that gnawing worry about the down-time and the lost fitness.

Years ago, when I was much younger and perhaps not as wise, I used to push things and not listen to my body. I would ignore the early signs of the cold coming on - the body aches, the weakness, the head or chest congestion. Then it would hit in all it's fury - down for a few days, but then I would rush the come back, and the cold would then drag on for sometime with remnant symptoms hanging around for weeks.

Two events changed my views on getting sick in this way.

One time before my biggest triathlon race of the season, I came down with a head-cold just over a week out from the race. It was a doozy - sent me to bed for a few days. I was then wrestling with what to do in the run-up to the race. I chose to do nothing - no training at all. All tolled, when I toed the starting line, I had done no training for a full week. I did not feel that great physically, but that race ended up being one of my best races of the year! The one week sick-with-a-cold taper in full-effect! Lesson: A week of resting and recovery from a cold, does not impact your fitness.

The other event was more sinister. I came down with a really bad chest cold. It was very bad. I thought I had recovered and I jumped right back into training at a high level. I had a relapse, that morphed into full-blown pneumonia. This really knocked me out. Close to being hospitalized. Had to take 3 weeks off work. Two of which were spent at home in bed.

Follow-up x-rays and testing discovered that I had done some permanent damage to my lungs - perhaps losing as much as 25% of my absolute, lung capacity. Disturbing news for an endurance athlete. However, I was advised that the lungs can over-compensate and some of this 25% deficit could be taken back and the loss not noticeable.

Lesson here - listen to the body. Take the time to recover fully, before resuming heavy training!

In summary - when you get sick with a head or chest cold, just take the time to fully recover. Recent, studies have shown that despite what all the cold-medication companies tell you, nothing that you can take will make the cold go away any quicker. The OTC drugs, just make some of the symptoms easier to cope with. In short - rest and relaxation and letting the body fight and deal with the infection as best as it can,  is the best thing to do, and for the endurance sports athlete that means stopping training until you are 100% recovered and ready to go. When you get those early symptoms - the weakness, the body aches etc . . just shut it down and get as much rest as you can. Help your body help, itself!

On the defense front - the old fashioned way of frequently washing your hands, has been proven to be the best defense from getting sick in the first place. It's far better and more effective than many rumored methods that people talk about. Many of the more popular defense methods - over-dosing on Vitamin-C,  taking echinacea etc . . have proven to have little to no effect on cold prevention! Eat a healthy and well balanced diet, and you should have all the natural disease prevention and immunity that you'll ever get. Also, make sure you are getting enough sleep. Recent research has concluded that sleep, is the #1 recovery tool for your body.

Again - wash your hands. And if you do get sick, don't panic. Just take the down-time to rest up a recover well. Know that under normal circumstances your garden-variety head or chest cold runs it's course in a week to 10 days, and there is really not much you can do about that other than doing nothing at all!

Have you been sick this winter? How did it go?

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Walloped by Winter! What Are You Doing?

I saw a map this week online. It showed that  2/3 of Canada & the U.S., ie most of the North American continent, was covered in snow. I know that for almost all of Canada (save for the lower-mainland of B.C. and Vancouver Island) - that's normal. The snow-cover and deep cold has also extended much farther south in the U.S. than "normal" this winter.

We've been walloped by winter, actually. In my area, just north of  Toronto, ON, after a number of rather benign winters, it's been full-on this year with, from what I can tell,  record snow-falls and, the coldest average temperatures in over 10 years. For endurance sports athletes who for the most part train outside - runners, triathletes, and cyclists, it's been challenging to keep the training going. How have you been coping?

I've always had two views on this - you either take it inside, and shun winter as much as you can, or you embrace it, and make the most of it.

For the Shunners, the solutions, are obvious: For the triathlete - swim/cycle/run, can all be done indoors. If you are into this, and have access to the right facilities and equipment, in a perfect world, there can be minimal interruption in your training. True - the cycling and the running, on indoor trainers and treadmills can get a little tedious, but videos can be a great distraction and some of the interactive, computer driven indoor bike training set-ups are truly extraordinary! If you are just a runner or a cyclist, just plug into the above.

For the Embracers - the great outdoors can really open things up. Full disclosure - when I was training seriously for triathlon this was my approach. I was never a fan of the treadmill or the indoor bike trainer. What did I do?

First - I never stopped running outdoors. In fact, winter is when I would lay down the most overall volume of miles running. With the right apparel and attitude, you can run in just about any kind of weather, anywhere. Sure the footing, was lousy, the deep snow sometimes slowed you down, and the wind would force your pace to a crawl. Note the word "volume" back there - that was the focus . . not speed, pace or time. Just get the miles/K's in!

Second - I cross-country skied . . . a lot. Both classic and skating. Nordic skiing is the king of aerobic sports - it works more muscles in the body than any other single activity - upper body, lower body, core etc . . It all get's worked. When I had a great winter of skiing - where I put in the biggest volume of skiing and took my skiing to the highest level of performance, I noticed two things: 1) My cycling and triathlon performance the following summer was always better. 2) Despite very little cycling through Dec/Jan/Feb, come March, after just a few weeks of riding, I could ride 100K at a decent pace with very little ramp up!

Third - I did not eschew the indoor training completely. I would get in the pool maybe ounce a week, just to keep in contact with the feel of the water. I would also get on the indoor bike trainer, and would do one or two very high intensity sessions a week, lasting no more than 60 minutes. As to the latter, they say that even for the cyclist, who just rides, the time on the trainer in the winter, is better spent with a focus on higher intensity, power based riding, than slogging out long sweaty sessions on the trainer. These days, I only ride, and that's my focus: 3 - 4 very specific high quality session on the bike, and never more than an hour. Plus some cross country skiing mixed in.

As a Canadian, I've always had to put up and deal with a winter of some kind. It's part of being a Canadian, in my view - that's why I have always embraced winter. The Winter Olympics are about to begin, and I've found a great deal of truth, honesty and inspiration in the Canadian Olympic Committee official hashtag for the Canadian Olympic Team - #WeAreWinter.  For Canada and Canadians it's perfect!

Do you shun or do you embrace winter? What's your strategy to coping with this real winter we are having this year?

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Shorter Cranks: A Case (n=1!) For Older Cyclists & Triathletes

There is a bit of a buzz these days for going to shorter cranks (crank arms) for both triathletes and cyclists. It's not for everyone, and like many things there are some misconceptions and misunderstandings of what's going on.

If you are in a great position on your bike and are having no issues, then going to shorter cranks is most likely not going to be helpful for you: Shorter Cranks does not automatically equal better/faster! If you are suffering some specific issues, relating to to your bike fit and in particular, where an opening of the hip angle will be helpful, then going to shorter cranks may be beneficial to you.

I had always ridden on 175mm cranks on every bike (road & tri bikes) that I have ridden since getting into cycling via triathlon in the early 80's. I had never given this a great deal of thought, because every, "58cm" bike I had ever owned, came with 175mm cranks on it! However, a couple of years ago, when I had just turned 50, I noticed a few things when riding the road bike:

1. I was getting increased lower back pain when riding
2. I could no longer ride in the drops of my road bike for extended periods of time
3. I had lost a bit of my jump

A swapping of kit on one of my wife Paolina Allan's bike made a set of Shimano Dura Ace 170mm cranks available to me. I looked into this a bit, and came across the findings of the 2001 Jim Martin study in several articles online (this one on the Cervelo web site), that came to the conclusion - basically, power generation is the same for a rider, using a wide range of crank lengths. I also compared notes with friend and Pro triathlete Jordan Rapp, who had just gone to shorter cranks on his set up, and noticed no difference in performance.

I started to put this together with what I knew was happening with my body - as I aged, I was becoming less flexible, and I was becoming weaker and less fit. Hey, it's inevitable! Shortening the crank arms, making the appropriate changes in the fit elsewhere (raising the saddle and bars slightly, to compensate), would open up my hip angle, and also make the circles that I pedal in slightly smaller.

The great news about the new crank and bottom-brackets, is that with the right tools, these are very easy to make changes - so, out with the 175mm cranks and in with the 170mm ones. I did this in the winter, so that the first few rides would be on the trainer. Just to check everything out.

I did notice a slight difference when I first started to ride with the 170's. However, by the end of a 45 minute ride on the trainer, I could not really tell any difference. Some informal bench-mark testing on the trainer over the next couple of weeks, backed up the research and observations previously mentioned - I noticed no difference in my "performance". Another difference I noted was that, at a given level of effort, I might need to drop down one cog to maintain the pedal RPM that I preferred. For me, not a big deal as I have always been a bit of a "spinner" with a naturally higher pedal RPM.

The real test came in the spring when I was outdoors again and going for longer rides:

A) Lower back pain was much reduced on longer rides
B) I could now ride in the drops like a used to
C) My jump in big accelerations on group rides was much better.

Conclusions: If you are an older triathlete or cyclist, (45+), and you are not feeling comfortable on your bike, and you have some other issues such as I noted, and all other things being equal, you might want to look at your crank length and consider trying shorter cranks. Even shorter than "recommended", or what just came on your bike. Note - at 6'2" (188cm) generally speaking, my recommended crank arm length would be 175 and as noted, on every bike I owned, it came with 175's. For me going shorter helped.

Hope this helps.

Are you an older cyclist/triathlete? Have you tried shorter cranks?

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PowerBar - An Early History

"Steve, I can't afford to buy an ad right now, but I can send you as many boxes of PowerBars, as you like"!

And so began my relationship with PowerBar, and PowerBar founder Brian Maxwell. I was trying to sell Maxwell an ad in the magazine that I was working for at the time. We agreed on a volume of PowerBars that would be the "payment" for the ad, and Maxwell was good on his word, the shipment of PowerBars did show up, and I used them regularly for my training and racing for triathlons in the late 1980's.

It's hard to imagine these days, but PowerBar had humble beginnings. The products introduction also started up a whole new category of sports nutrition. Prior to PowerBar, "sports nutrition" for endurance athletes was water, Gatorade and bananas! Maxwell, a world class marathon runner, had struggled to finish a few marathons, due to what we now term, "bonking", or what in physiological terms is called hypoglycemia - what happens when you start to deplete, your bodies carbohydrate stores, that start to dwindle significantly beyond the 90 min to 2 hour mark, when working at a moderately high intensity. You can keep going, but you need to take in more carbohydrate to replenish those stores.

Maxwell had qualified for the ill-fated 1980 Canadian Olympic team. It was the pinnacle of his career as a distance runner. Unfortunately, he never made it to the Moscow Olympic Games due to the boycott. He took a job as the Track Coach at his Alma Mater, University of California, Berkley. Maxwell and his wife Jennifer Biddulph, a nutritionist started to think about and try and come up with solution to this issue of, what then was commonly referred to as, "hitting the wall" in a marathon or other long distance endurance sport, when the body starts to run low on carbohydrates and the blood sugar starts to drop. They started making and baking energy bars in their kitchen of their home in Berkley, CA. It took a while to come up with a formula and a composition that would be functional. Eventually they did. By 1986, and with $55,000 cash, they started PowerBar!

It was a tough go, as many business start-ups are, particularly because, as noted, it really was a whole new category. There were many skeptics. A key strategy, was to get as many athletes, to try the PowerBars  - thus, the using of the PowerBars themselves as currency to "pay" for advertising, marketing and sponsorship opportunities. They gave away, a lot of PowerBars in the early years, and really launched as well, the whole business of experiential marketing  - try-this-ounce-and-you-will-then-be-a-customer! PowerBar and Maxwell also pioneered the concept of, "photo contingency sponsorship" - they would sponsor athletes, and then pay that athlete, either in cash or early on, in more PowerBars(!), only when they would get photo logo exposure in magazines and other media!

 FYI - The PowerBar logo colors, that are used to this day, are the team colors for the UC Berkley Sports teams!

Early competitor, Gary Erikson, who founded Clif Bar in 1990, pays tribute to the hard-work and legacy that Brian Maxwell laid down in Erikson's excellent book "Raising The Bar".

The first real boom in the sport of triathlon occurred in the late 80's and it coincided with the early years of PowerBar. Long distance races, such as the Ironman triathlon, that for the top competitors take 8 hours to complete, require that competitors take in significant amounts of carbohydrates for them to keep going for that long. Many triathletes were early adopters and fans of the PowerBar product - that gave them 220 calories of carbohydrates in a neatly wrapped, easily transported and easily digested package.

Other endurance sports, such as cycling, soon caught on as well and the growth in the early 90's for PowerBar was impressive! In addition to Clif, a number other companies jumped into the sports nutrition business and by the end of the decade it had become a world-wide, $billion business!

In 2000 Brian Maxwell and his wife, sold PowerBar to world-wide food giant Nestle, for a reported, $375 million. Sadly and tragically, by then a father of six, Maxwell died of a massive heart-attack, in 2004 while out for a short run!

After my phone-call and ad deal with Brian Maxwell, I met him the following year at the annual Interbike trade-show. We talked about sports. We talked about our shared Canadian roots, and we talked about sports nutrition. Of course, ever the promoter and salesman, he would not let me out of the PowerBar booth without, putting another box of PowerBars in my hands!

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Tying It All Together for Endurance Sports Events

 Working the Mic at the recent Monster Dash run in Toronto*. Picture - MyNextRace.com

I just finished reading digital marketing guru, Mitch Joel's new book Ctrl-Alt-Delete. It's a highly recommended read. Three big take-aways:

1. Social media, and marketing through social media is big!

2. The current buzz with brands, is wanting to speak directly to end-user customers.

3. Everything is going mobile!

Endurance sports events be they, running, cycling, triathlons, MOB's or themed runs, sit at the intersection of the above. By their very nature, these events are social - with lots of social interaction going on. I mentioned this briefly in a previous blog. However, this week I came across an info-graphic that spelled this out in more detail with some interesting data and stats.

These events are also the meeting up point for brands(sponsors), and the large amounts of numbers and data that these events are starting to generate and put together - to say nothing of the gathering of hundreds, if not thousands of people in one spot, at one time. Remarkably, few events seem to be taking full advantage of this. Some are, but more could and should do more. 

It goes without saying that the demographic attracted to most endurance sports events are plugged in to a high degree via mobile devices.

At the Running USA conference last winter, a marketing executive who works in the endurance sports space, said to me, "Consider you are at an NHL or NBA game, with 10,000 or more spectators. Think about how much marketing and promotion you have been exposed to from the time you buy your ticket, to the time you leave that game. Now compare that with the promotion and marketing that goes on an endurance sports event with similar numbers from the time you register, to the time you are finished and heading home". Many events, are not taking full advantage of the opportunities here.

It's a great opportunity to leverage the social nature of these events, the social interaction that is organic to them, the high adoption of social media of the participants, and the want for brands to talk directly to end-user customers.

An example of linking that up with mobile follows:

With my frequent work as a Race and Event Announcer*, I often see the collision of the old and the new at the events that I am working at and where the above opportunities go wanting. Often the number one question that I get asked when I am on the mic at an event is, "Hey - where are the results being posted up?". Many smaller to mid sized events still post up printed hard-copy, for participants to check their times/results - if the event is a timed event, with results. In the online, digital age, this now is passe. I'll often announce, where on the race site, that hard copy of the results are posted up, and you'll see that huddle of people surrounding the posted sheets of paper checking their results. However, if a company such as Ottawa, ON based Sportstats is timing the race and producing the results, those results now go almost instantly on-line when a person crosses the finish-line (or timing mat out on the course), to that events page on the Sportstats web site. If people, have a mobile phone with internet access, they can go right there, and see their own results on their own mobile device in the palm of their hand! Even more, Sportstats has a App that ties all of a persons results together that can be customized for that person. People can even "follow" a friend doing an event that Sportstats is timing around a race course. I make the announcement over the PA about this new way of accessing results to. I think it's catching on! 

See the linkage and possibilities with all of the above?

If you are an endurance sports event organizer:

- Are you taking full advantage of the social media opportunities for your event?

- Are you allowing your event sponsors to speak directly to your event participants?

- Are you tying this all together for mobile?

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Race More?

 Recharge with Milk Wasaga Beach Triathlon Finish-line - Photo http://www.mysportsshooter.com

I was about to embark on writing a blog straight-up, about the benefits of racing more, for triathletes. I was and still am of the belief that many problems and challenges that the modern triathlete encounters, in races, particularly longer distance triathlon races, could be over-come in part, by racing more.

Then, two things happened:

1. I attended a local social event in my area where over 30 triathletes, many of whom I knew personally, were in attendance. As some know, I work as a Race/Event Announcer almost every weekend at triathlons, running and cycling races. As I stood there in the room filled with triathletes, I realized that I had not seen any of these athletes, with the exception of one, at a race all year!

2. The following day, I asked the question, "Why doesn't the modern triathlete race more?" on my Facebook page. There were an enormous number of responses - some very detailed and informative. You can see the thread of responses here. It's a good read.

Both of these previous points, caused me to re-think things a bit.

From reading the Facebook thread, it's clear that these days, time and costs are the key things that limit the number of races that triathletes do each year. There is no question that races are getting more expensive - for obvious reasons: The costs to put these races on have gone up substantially. As for the time issue, if you look at the largest age-groups in the sport, most active, modern triathletes are right in the middle of their key child-rearing years with 1, 2, 3 or more young kids at home, and also at a time in their careers, when time-on for work, is at it's highest. Add all that up and, and it makes sense why, the modern triathlete races less now, than a previous wave of triathletes did 10+ years ago.

I still believe that many triathletes, particularly newer athletes, in the sport for four years or less, would benefit greatly from more frequent racing. I am backed up on that point by some of the leading local coaches, who also feel the same way, but are pushed back on this, by the athletes they coach. Knowing this, and reading the responses on my Facebook posting, one wonders where the cart and horse are with this. Many athletes want to get better. They want to go faster. A proven way of doing this is to race more frequently (within reason, of course).

Which leads me to what is the definition of a race? My sense is that for many modern triathletes , their definition of a  "race" is a big production + long distance triathlon = expensive.  However, not all races have such big production, and there are certainly many shorter race options (and are hopefully less expensive). Despite what athletes think, these outings can be very helpful and valuable experiences in their overall development.

Also there are "other" racing options - standalone, running, cycling, and swimming events, that again, can be if you look around, not terribly expensive and time efficient. As an example, many local cycling clubs, offer weekly time-trial races, that for club members cost from nothing to a few dollars (with club membership). While not a triathlon race, these standalone races in individual sports can provide great feedback, and serve as outstanding training efforts for the triathlete. Some of these are mid-week, and because of their short and brief nature, can take up less time, than a "normal" triathlon training session.

What do you think? What is your definition of a "race"? Knowing that racing more, will make you better/faster, is that something that you would commit to?

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Have Endurance Sports Events Gone Retail?

 A long line of porta-potties at a recent large running event in Toronto*

I have written in this space before recently about what's been going on in the endurance sports events business, here, and here. A lot is going on! The growth right now is impressive. If you add up all the running, triathlon, cycling, themed running events, and also the mud/obstacle races and events in North America, you are looking at a impressive double digit growth in participation numbers and an aggressive addition of new events along the way. It's hard to keep up with it all.

With all this growth has come competition - serious competition. So much so that, from what I have seen events have gone retail, where everything about an event starts to matter. Your brand. Your logo. Your date. Your route or course. How hard or easy your event is? Your registration process. How many porta-potties you have*. The enthusiasm of your volunteers. Your charity. Your timing and results company(if needed). It all starts to matter. Even stuff you have no control over, like the weather starts to matter! Get two years of lousy weather for a start-up event, and it might be done right there!

Onsite experiences on race/event day are critical. People will come, and maybe they get spoken to in a wrong tone by a volunteer, there are not enough porta-potties or registration/kit-pick-up takes forever. Just like in retail, they will silently go away, never to return, and even worse, they'll most likely tell more than a few people about it. On average, people tell 4 people about good customer experiences, but tell 13 people about bad customer experiences. And that's what RD's need to do and understand these days, beyond getting the cones in the right places, and the directional arrows on the road right - they are in the business of delivering positive participant experiences.

Even the process of race and event registration, these days almost 100% through online services, can be critical in the whole event experience. Some are complicated and unwieldy - with high abandonment rates. In other words, that person who was going to register for your event, gave-up part way through the actual registration process, for one reason or another. You got them to the door . . . but then lost them! Check out some of your sports online forums, to see what people are saying about your registration provider. You might be surprised.

It's important that events think more like businesses, albeit small ones and even non-profit ones, about their brand, and about their image, because, as noted, it's all starting to matter.

The mud & obstacle events and the themed runs, have really driven this point home. How else to explain, the extraordinary growth? Some of these event series did not even exist two years ago. Some will surpass a one million participants this year! In these situations, branding, and imaging matter greatly. There is a buzz. People want to be going to the cool event that everyone else is doing.

Now you may be thinking, "I run a triathlon or a running race. Why should I be concerned about a mud run or zombie run?" Be concerned - they are competing just like you for mind-share and commitment from reasonably young, and active people. And some of those events now really have some serious momentum, behind them and mega-buzz. You run a cool and great event, but it's just a 5K run. You have to think about everything at your event and every touch point with your event participants. How is it impacting them? Is it a quality and a positive experience, or at least matching up with their expectations?

I know the organizer of one of the largest triathlon series in North America, who stands at the finish-line of all of his events, regardless, of the weather, and personally says, "Thank you", and shakes the hand of every finisher who comes across the finish line at every event. Sounds corny, but that's the kind of thing that people remember - just like in retail they remember the good and the bad, experiences. Events need to do everything they can to make sure that everyone's experience at an event is an outstanding one. If so, just like in retail, they will be back!

Whether you like it or not, events have gone retail. What are you doing to make your event stand out? What are you doing so that each and everyone of  your race/event participants have an extraordinary experience?

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