Threshold Performance Club | The fitness newsletter

Threshold #2 | Progress. Every month

In April 2022 I placed my official order for a spot to compete at Ironman Weymouth.

5 months to progress to the point where I could call myself and athlete.

I'd been here before. In a different sport. Cricket, competing at the 2010 European Championships with the Isle of Man team.

You can find my performance stats on ESPN here.

But this Ironman thing is different.

As with last week, the main section is split into 3 parts. Nimble enough to digest in the time it takes to drink your morning coffee.

Progress for Ironman Weymouth was split into three buckets, absolute fitness, nutrition and mental psychology. It was vital each of these three categories I was progressing month over month.

• Fitness, in absolute terms - none of this "I feel great" - actual 5K, 90Km times which cut the mustard.

• Nutrition, dialing in what optimises my performance.

• Mental psychology. Endurance sport is a game or between the ears.

My absolute fitness

As of November 2021 I could run a 5k, full pace, at mid-19 minutes.

I hadn’t yet stepped in a swimming pool.

I hadn’t yet ridden a road bike.

Crazy to consider an Ironman race, right? I’m not so sure. Having a crazy goal, one that is super ambitious is awesome. It can provide structure to your life - it did with mine - and stretch your abilities to the point where you cannot remember the state of fitness you were in prior to setting off on the long journey to becoming an Ironman.

The first few months of structured training revolved around pushing my fitness up to be able to complete each individual part of an Ironman independently of one another. I had to learn how to swim front crawl for 1.9km. I had to understand how to pace a half marathon. And I had to experience what 90km felt like on a bike. Zwift helped here.

From this base, each incremental month forward was tailored around increasing my base and top line speed within each discipline. Top line V02 max sessions didn’t creep in until I could already run a fair pace. Hill sprints on the bike only came in once I could sustain a 3 hour ride.

This progression - not just going from zero to full race pace - 100% helped me to build into becoming a strong athlete.

I’d highly recommend this mechanism for building up month over month.

Nutrition

I thought nutrition was: “eat pasta a day before you want to perform with energy”. Oh how wrong I was.

Fast forward to June this year, I had full glucose monitoring with my Supersapiens patch; I moved to a fully plant-based diet; removed all sugar from what I ate (aside from glucose drinks from the likes of SiS); learned that berries & granola is NOT a good meal to start the day with & so many more pieces of information.

Nutrition, besides the obvious, can make or break your training sessions. It is absolutely vital for a strong session to keep your energy levels up, but also to ensure you don’t crash immediately after training. Fuelling assists recovery.

For a long time I’d been a constant intermittent faster, consuming coffee in the mornings and only reaching for denser fuel past midday. Once I was into the multiple training sessions per day camp this shifted. Requiring enough calories to ensure once the afternoon workouts were in motion, I wasn’t too drained from the morning.

Progress your nutrition game. It can have a huge impact on the future you.

Shop natural supplements formulated to enhance performance: 

🌱💊 542 Performance Nutrition Daily Green’s ultimate super greens capsules are a perfect blend of superfoods, vitamins, minerals and wholefood-sourced ingredients enhancing your immune system to help you perform in training.

🍄 542 Performance Nutrition Mushroom+ capsules are single-ingredient, high-strength mushroom supplements, helping you deliver energy to your body for training.

💪 542 Performance Nutrition Marine Collagen is the highest quality, and most bioavailable source of collagen available, helping to provide structural integrity to joints and bones.

💤 542 Performance Nutrition Ashwagandha+ (KSM66) is formulated with Cordyceps & Ginseng to help combat stress and adrenal fatigue, while also supporting the immune system, energy levels & mental performance. 

🏋️‍♂️ 542 Performance Nutrition Plant Protein delivers 17g of premium vegan protein per serving with just 1.5g of carbs, 88 calories & no artificial sweeteners.

🏋️‍♂️ 542 Performance Nutrition Whey Protein delivers 22g of premium whey protein per serving with just 1.2g of carbs, 108 calories & no artificial sweeteners.

My mental strength

This is the most crucial aspect of the entire training programme. Specific to me, I had to overcome the physical and mental challenge of swimming 1.9km - in the ocean. The big blue which has a tendency for being rough, especially around the coast of the UK.

I’ve always been fascinated by sports psychology. How two athletes of the same calibre can go head to head, yet one always wins. Take tennis, it’s not just that Federer & Nadal were so much better than every other professional - I mean they lost matches from time to time - they were a cut above the rest when it came to absolute mental focus in matches.

3 months out from Ironman Weymouth I turned to Dr Jim Taylor; he’s one of the top sports psychologists in the world working with top endurance athletes, and in our world of digitalisation I turned to his physical book purchased second hand on a marketplace. Some things are better in physical format, mental models which I want to revert back to daily are easier to access on paper.

If you’re signing up to an endurance event, >50km of exercise, my personal opinion is the mental side of the sport should engulf >25% of your training. It’s the single biggest factor that can determine if you DNF or finish, knock 10 seconds off your PB, or fall short of your target time.

During my 70.3 I came off the bike with sever back spasms, 500m into the run this evolved into abdominal spasms. This had the dual effect of being uncomfortable and inhibiting my intake of fluid and fuel. Not a good combination. I do not recommend. This turned the half marathon - after the 90km bike - into a survival race.

I had a target time in my mind for the entire event, but once an injury sets in, it’s survival. Then it’s a mental strength race.

So, that’s how I progressed.

Endurance strength running session with inspiration from Zwift Academy Tri 2022 8.75km progression run

You’ll need a treadmill for this one. Or perfect hills @ 3-4% incline.

Warm up:

• 2km @ Z1/Z2 heart rate

Main set:

• 1 minute @ 80% of 10km pace

• 3 minutes @ 80% of 10km pace @ 3% incline

• 1 minute @ 80% of 10km pace

• 2 minutes @ 80% of 10km pace @ 4% incline

• 1 minute rest @ walking pace

Repeat x4.

Recovery

• 2km @ Z1/Z2 heart rate zone

That’s week 2 of Threshold.

You can keep up to date with my training over on Strava or Instagram here.

Have an epic week of training.

Any feedback is welcome - again, 4 coffees down at this stage.

Rob