RESOLUTION - The act of resolving to do something; a course of action determined or decided upon.

What are your New Year's resolutions for 2008? More important, what are you willing to do to accomplish them? What course of action will you take? Whatever your direction, discipline will be mandatory to maintain this course of action. A wonderful high school coach once shared with me his definition of discipline:

1. Discipline is doing what has to be done.

2. Discipline is doing what has to be done, when it has to be done. Not 2 days from now or even 5 minutes later; you do it right now.

3. Discipline means doing what you have to do as well as you can, never half-hearted.

4. Discipline means doing it as well as you can all the time. You can't get by with doing something well today and half-hearted tomorrow. You do it as well as you can every time.

Or, as the coach said: Do what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well as it can be done, and you do it that way every time.

With this definition of discipline as a guide, let's make some New Year's resolutions, and by all means keep them simple. With most triathletes and runners, it's straightforward; they want to get faster, or improve on their current level of fitness. Let's look at the three disciplines and see what we can do to improve on each in 2008.

SWIM - New Year's Resolution #1: Work on my technique.
It doesn't matter if you're new to triathlons, a regular who's looking for some tips on how to improve, or a frustrated "old-timer" who knows it all and can't squeeze any more speed out of the stroke. To become a better swimmer you don't need more muscle or great athleticism, you need skill and intelligent training. Talk to any master's swim coach, or read any periodical about swimming and you'll see: to improve your speed, improve your technique.

Arm stroke has very little impact on how fast you swim. Go from a poor arm stroke and perfect it and you improve only slightly. Improve your body position and you improve greatly! I know; it happened to me. I was skeptical at first, but I took some swim technique lessons while at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

My stroke count (counted as every stroke per one 25-meter lap) was 25 strokes/lap (SPL) prior to instruction on specific drills to improve my body position. My swim time was around 70-72 minutes for an Ironman swim. After the technique work, my SPL was 17-19 and my Ironman swim split dropped to 64-65 minutes. I didn't train differently. I just made sure that I started every swim session with about 300-500 meters of technique drills. This is where the discipline comes in. Drills are boring and tedious, but you have to stick with them. Speed or velocity (V) in the pool is based on the equation:

V = Stroke Rate (SR) x Stroke Length (SL)

Many times when you increase SR, you decrease SL. Not sure about this? Next time you go to the pool, swim a 50 as fast as you can and count SPL. When you increase SR and decrease SL the product (V) stays the same. All the biomechanical studies of the fastest swimmers in the world show one thing: they take fewer strokes per lap than their competitors.

So, the one component of this equation (V = SR x SL) that you can improve is SL. To do this you have to find a good swim coach who knows a thing or two about technique, or get a good book or video to show you what drills to do, and how to do them. Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin is a great place to start.

One other resolution for 2008 would be to learn to breath bilaterally. Many athletes I coach tell me how difficult this is as they train for one of the seven North American Ironman events. Six of these swims are counter-clockwise, meaning that all the swim buoys marking the course are on your left. If you breathe only to your right, you're going to have problems navigating. Let's add that to the list of swim resolutions.

RUN - New Year's Resolution #2: Do more tempo work.
Kenyan world record holder Daniel Komen's best time for 2 miles is 3:59 pace/mile. His best time for 5K is 4:04 pace/mile. How is it possible he can run nearly the same speed for 3 miles as he does for 2 miles? Komen's ability to maintain a higher percentage of his maximum VO2 (the body's ability to utilize oxygen) for an extended time is known as fractional utilization (FU).

The goal with tempo work is to increase your FU (your ability to race at a higher percent of your own individual max VO2), or get to the point where you can maintain near your 5K pace for a 10K. It's possible in Komen's case as a result of lots of tempo running over many years. All of the speed work, mileage and VO2 max work won't mean as much as it will with the addition of tempo runs. The mainstay of East African dominance revolves around these tempo runs. The goal of these tempo runs is to delay the onset of lactic acid accumulation in order to perform at a higher intensity for longer times. To do this, you have to do some tempo running.

You run at about 100% of your individual VO2 when you're running at a 5K race pace. You're running at about 80-90% of your VO2 when you are running at 10K to half-marathon race pace. If you're using a heart rate monitor, 88% of your heart rate maximum is a good target. Developing a higher form of running fitness comes as the result of various paces both faster and slower than your target pace, not only one pace over and over. Tempo running, therefore, can be done anywhere between 80-90% of your HRM, or anywhere from your 10K race pace to half-marathon race pace.

The most popular tempo run is 4 miles or 20-minute tempo runs. A 30-minute tempo run at 85% also develops this system, as does a 45-minute run at 80%. Bouts of tempo runs will accomplish the same thing and are best done early on to slowly introduce tempo runs to the mix. During the winter months base training some tempo runs can be added. A typical week of run training, including various tempo runs, would look like this:

M 45-minute run with 4x5-minute bouts at 85-88%
T 35-minutes run at 70-75%
W 45-minute run, with the middle 20 minutes at 80-83%
Th 35-minute run at 70-75%
F 30-minute run with 2x10 minutes at 85%
Sat 30-minute run at 70-75%
Sun off or long run at 65-75%

It would be even better with only one tempo run per week, and work up to this level after several weeks. Tempo running can be done year-round. Vary the intensity and duration to keep it new and interesting. The bouts can be different every time. 4x5 minutes one week, 5x4 minutes the next. 3x7 minutes one week, 7x3 minutes the next. The rest period between bouts should be 1-2 minutes, 1 minute for shorter bouts, 2 minutes for longer. Try a stepping stone tempo run where you run each segment a little faster; for example, a 7-mile run, where miles 1 and 2 are run at 80%, miles 3 and 4 are run at 85% and mile 6 run at 88%.

BIKE - New Year's Resolution #3: Get on the trainer!
Don't be intimidated or depressed by the notion of 3-4 months on an indoor trainer. This isn't about how much time you spend, it's about what you do with this time. Keep in mind the American College of Sports Medicine's guidelines when planning how much time you need to spend on the indoor trainer. The recommended quantity and quality of exercise for developing and maintaining cardio- respiratory and muscular fitness in healthy adults is 3-5 times per week at 55-65% of heart rate maximum.

Two of the key principles of exercise planning--frequency and duration (as well as intensity)--are discussed here. The third one to pay attention to (and the one I often see poorly applied) is progression. More often than not, athletes tend to add too much too soon and end up sick or injured.

The body adapts to certain levels of stress. For it to adapt further we need to provide additional stimulus in the form of intensity or duration. This adaptation process takes longer than most think. If you start out riding 1 hour a day, 3-5 days per week on the trainer in December, where do you go from there? It's not necessary to spend huge amounts of time on the trainer in the winter. Indoor training can be boring, and if you do too much too early you can get pretty burned out. Start out easy, with some short 30-minute aerobic rides, and build up the duration over the length of the winter.

The other side of the coin is not progressing enough. Some will spend 30 minutes on the trainer all winter, and after initial early gains, without any increase in intensity or duration, their fitness level will even out. I reviewed a schedule recently where a first-time Ironman was planning to ride 1 hour on a trainer every day for the next year to prepare for an Ironman. No progression, no added intensity, no added duration. No improvement!

As with your running and swimming resolutions, you can use the winter cycling to work on technique, as well as throwing in some tempo work to improve fitness. One-legged cycling is the cornerstone drill to develop good cycling technique. Starting with 6x30 seconds each leg and progressing from there to 8, 10 and 12x30 seconds. Work up to 2-4-minute one-legged drills by the end of the winter. Tempo rides, I've found, are best done in bouts. Again, start easy with 2x5 minutes and progress from there to 3, 4 and 5x5 minutes. Vary your position (stand for some, seated for others, aero position, too) as well as your gearing, but maintain that same 80-90% of maximum heart rate to make sure it's a true tempo effort.

Keep things fun and easy during the winter. Maintain that level of discipline and keep those New Years Resolutions! * - Coach Arenberg

Coach Michael Arenberg has an MBS in exercise physiology from the University of Colorado. He has been a competitive distance runner and triathlete for 37 years, completing 25 marathons and 11 Ironman triathlons, including 3 times qualifying for the Ironman World Championships. He has coached U.S. men's and women's Olympic Trial qualifiers in the marathon and two top-10 finishers in the U.S. Men's Marathon Championships, as well as multiple Ironman World Championship qualifiers. Coach Arenberg is available for coaching and can be contacted at makona94@aol.com If you have a training question for Coach Mike, send him an e-mail at makona94@aol.com. While he is unable to personally respond to every question, answers will appear from time to time in upcoming issues of Missouri Runner & Triathlete