Author Topic: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?  (Read 10238 times)

ukgm

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1255
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #15 on: August 04, 2018, 03:49:02 AM »

Some background:

I started paddling about a year ago, and this summer I managed 4.34 mph in a 2 mile race (27:44 time), on my 11'6"x30" SUP.  That was 5 minutes faster than my time last year, and good enough to win my division in the Rec race, but nowhere near how fast the 6-mile racers were going.  For reference, the guys in the 6 mile 14' race were doing between 5 - 6 mph on the same course (1 lap was 2 miles, 3 laps for 6 miles).  So even if I could have kept up my pace for 4 more miles, I would have been dead last in the 6 mile race. 

As a personal goal, I would like to get up to being able to race 6 miles.  At 45 I'm not expecting to beat any 30 year olds, but I would like to not finish last.  A week after the race I tried to paddle at my 2-mile speed for as long as I could - I made it 2.5 miles before I totally crashed. 

So my question is, how to train for 6 miles:

  • Do I first work on getting above 5 mph for 2 miles, and then work up to 6 miles?
  • Is 5.5 miles mph even possible on my current board?  I gather from other comments on the forum that 14' would only make me 10% faster or so.  But should I start on a longer one?  Problem is, 14' locks me out of the Rec race category around here.
  • Or would you drop speed, paddle at whatever rate I can do 6 miles at, and then work on faster?
  • Or, a combination of the above?

Thanks for any tips.

- Kevin

This is an impossible question to answer properly without knowing more about the you, the athlete. Some things i would typically ask someone i was coaching would be:

- Where in a race do you struggle ? Doing the distance ?, the start ? the surges in pace ?
- How many years have you been paddling anything ?, what's your sporting background prior to this ? Were they technique heavy sports ?
- How long can you train and how many hours can you realistically put into it ?
- Do you want structure ? Do you like it ? Would you enjoy SUP less because of it ?

..... and this is just the start. Training has to be tailored not just to the physiology of the athlete but also their lifestyle and psychology (and then finally to their chosen event).

However, in most cases, consistency will be the first high impact port of call for those looking to train and will improve will generally yield the best bang per buck return. Just getting out regularly will see decent improvements. It's finding the last 5% that's a bitch. Look at the link of my primer further up the thread. The plan there isn't the point, its the text before that that explains the principals of training that's worth understanding. Once you understand that, training is easier to plan. I don't do structured training with SUP these days as i use it as recovery days from my cycling but I'm still improving as I've only been in the sport 4 years.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 03:56:26 AM by ukgm »

cocoloco

  • Waikiki Status
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #16 on: August 04, 2018, 10:23:45 AM »
Consider the MAF approach as well. Dr. Phil Maffetone developed this as a way to reduce injuries and illness related to endurance training. Quite challenging to train that slow!

https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/

hbsteve

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1701
    • View Profile
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #17 on: August 04, 2018, 12:43:32 PM »
Someone with more knowledge can explain this better, if it is still effective.
When I raced open water shells on the San Francisco bay, we were taught to fluctuate our pace slightly. 
The idea was that constant effort was more tiring than mixing it up. 

ukgm

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1255
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #18 on: August 04, 2018, 12:50:52 PM »
Someone with more knowledge can explain this better, if it is still effective.
When I raced open water shells on the San Francisco bay, we were taught to fluctuate our pace slightly. 
The idea was that constant effort was more tiring than mixing it up.

It depends on the duration. For example, an over under style pacing around the lactate threshold for 60-90 mins can be good at raising lactate threshold. Or it’s good at being able to handle variable changes in effort in a race. It’s not more tiring to hold an effort (and that depends on the athlete, their background and their training volume), it’s just different kind of physical stimulation.

ukgm

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1255
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #19 on: August 04, 2018, 12:53:47 PM »
Consider the MAF approach as well. Dr. Phil Maffetone developed this as a way to reduce injuries and illness related to endurance training. Quite challenging to train that slow!

https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/

Injury prevention aside, the thinking that anaerobic work is detrimental to aerobic work development is an outdated concept.

ukgm

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1255
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #20 on: August 04, 2018, 01:56:42 PM »
Consider the MAF approach as well. Dr. Phil Maffetone developed this as a way to reduce injuries and illness related to endurance training. Quite challenging to train that slow!

https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/

Injury prevention aside, the thinking that anaerobic work is detrimental to aerobic work development is an outdated concept. It also ignores that athletes may be high or low responders to that method.

cocoloco

  • Waikiki Status
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #21 on: August 04, 2018, 05:15:57 PM »
No disagreement there. The question posed by Maffetone is do you want to be fit or do you want to be healthy. As an example most Tour de France cyclists would agree that what they're doing is not healthy. They are definitely fit though. The two may be mutually exclusive depending on training intensity. His 180 minus age formula is just an attempt at steering you towards healthy while still increasing fitness. Just something to consider.

FloridaWindSUP

  • Sunset Status
  • ****
  • Posts: 335
  • Marine Biologist, Riviera Paddlesurf Ambassador
    • View Profile
    • James' Blog
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #22 on: August 04, 2018, 08:15:40 PM »
Hi Kevin-

You're doing well, especially for being on an 11'6 x 30 board. The "hull speed" of an 11'6 board is 5.23 mph, whereas for a 14' board it's 5.77 mph. It's extremely difficult to maintain hull speed for a race distance unless you're extremely fit and skilled. Board shape and width also play a role. A 30" wide surf-style board is going to be dramatically slower than a 25" wide pointy-nosed board, even if they're the same length. So I would say you miiiight eventually be able to maintain 5.0 mph for a race distance if you train really hard, but my guess is that it's not going to happen anytime soon unless you get a faster board.

As for training, you'll get the best results by training consistently (like every other day), and training HARD- like really going as fast as you possibly can for whatever the training time or distance is. Beyond that, I think time spent on short distance, high-intensity intervals is most effective. You want to bring your sprint speed up, and then your longer distance speed will come along with it. I'm talking really short, really hard sprints. Like a good workout would be: warmup, ten 30 second all-out sprints with 1 minute rests, cool down, done for the day. Other days you might do warmup, 1 mile as fast as you can, 2 minutes rest, 1 more mile as fast as you can, done. Only about once a week or so do you need to do a longer continuous paddle, and even then I think 30-60 minutes or so is plenty.

Enjoy figuring out what works for you. :)

-James 
14x23 Riviera RP
14x27.25 Fanatic Falcon
11'8 Exocet WindSUP
10'4 Angulo WindSUP
...and a bunch of windsurf stuff

ukgm

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1255
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #23 on: August 05, 2018, 12:50:39 AM »
No disagreement there. The question posed by Maffetone is do you want to be fit or do you want to be healthy. As an example most Tour de France cyclists would agree that what they're doing is not healthy. They are definitely fit though. The two may be mutually exclusive depending on training intensity. His 180 minus age formula is just an attempt at steering you towards healthy while still increasing fitness. Just something to consider.

I understand your point. Our governments current recommendation is 25 minutes or exercise 3 times a week. That’s nice, safe and productive. As soon as you start pushing the volume, the health balance is always a risk. I know increasingly of a scary number of athletes developing heart problems. The problem is Maffetones work is badly out of date coupled with that if someone wants to improve their speed, it flies in the face of safe limitations.

ukgm

  • Teahupoo Status
  • ******
  • Posts: 1255
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #24 on: August 05, 2018, 01:16:30 AM »
On the subject of prescribing intervals for a Paddling athlete, I would suggest not having them too short as it can encourage bad technique to develop. This depends on the athletes level of experience and current standard of ability.

Either way, if you want to improve, every training programme should have:

Controlled physical overload.
Appropriate recovery (within session and post session).
Supercompensation from training
Controlled and designed progression. (Sessions should change in terms of length, recovery or intensity - based on what you need at any given point).

(Plus if things don’t improve, reflect and change something)

« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 01:18:28 AM by ukgm »

manta

  • Malibu Status
  • **
  • Posts: 58
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #25 on: August 05, 2018, 05:11:45 AM »
An often overlooked factor is just training with other people.

I have been training mostly on my own and thought I was getting pretty fit. Yesterday I did a training session with someone better than me and realised I am not fit. He pushed me in ways I would never be able to push myself. I realised a lot about how I had been training and that it was not "hard" at all.

Having other people on the water to chase, draft and do drills with makes the whole experience more enjoyable. There will be days you will get to the water and not feel like pushing yourself and then once everyone is on the water before you know it you have put in a very decent session. Try and get in a squad and do regular squad training it opens a new world.

Lake Paddler

  • Malibu Status
  • **
  • Posts: 95
    • View Profile
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #26 on: August 05, 2018, 06:10:01 AM »
The "hull speed" of an 11'6 board is 5.23 mph, whereas for a 14' board it's 5.77 mph.
Just curious: how do you measure or estimate hull speed?

TallDude

  • Cortez Bank Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 5714
  • Capistrano Beach
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #27 on: August 05, 2018, 07:54:46 AM »
Steroids ;D  They are amazing!
It's not overhead to me!
8'8" L-41 ST and a whole pile of boards I rarely use.

FloridaWindSUP

  • Sunset Status
  • ****
  • Posts: 335
  • Marine Biologist, Riviera Paddlesurf Ambassador
    • View Profile
    • James' Blog
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #28 on: August 05, 2018, 11:05:50 AM »
The "hull speed" of an 11'6 board is 5.23 mph, whereas for a 14' board it's 5.77 mph.
Just curious: how do you measure or estimate hull speed?

For a displacement vessel (like a SUP), hull speed in knots is equal to 1.34 time the square root of the waterline length in feet.

It's an approximation, but for SUPs it works pretty darn well for predicting the speed at which the "wave drag" of your vessel becomes very difficult to overcome.
14x23 Riviera RP
14x27.25 Fanatic Falcon
11'8 Exocet WindSUP
10'4 Angulo WindSUP
...and a bunch of windsurf stuff

Area 10

  • Cortez Bank Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 4057
    • View Profile
Re: Faster vs. Longer - how to train?
« Reply #29 on: August 05, 2018, 12:26:51 PM »
Yes. And the top elite guys regularly exceed this “limit” (even in windless flat water), showing just how amazingly good they are.

Does anyone know of any easy-to-understand calculations for any theoretical limits on the speed of a foil?

 


SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2024, SimplePortal