WHAT IS THE KEY TO KILLER IRONMAN BIKE SPLITS?
By TIMOTHY CARLSON

When 1997 Hawaiian Ironman champion Heather Fuhr migrated from the snows of Canada to sunny San Diego to tram six years ago, the last thing she imagined she would be doing was sitting inside a garage in low fuzzy light spinning away on an indoor bike trainer.

When 1997 Ironman Australia and Lanzarote champion Peter Reid started holding his own with the German uber bikers in 1996, he credited the benefits of his indoor bike training sessions devised by his tri coach, Roch Frey, Heather's husband.

When Peter's beau, Lori Bowden, went from mediocre pro biker to best women's bike split (and second overall finish) in the Hawaiian Ironman in October, she credited the magic of her workouts on the indoor trainer as a key element in the transformation.

Fuhr's conversion to the indoor trainer is typical of many sun-loving triathletes. It took a while, and lots of endorsements by trusted personal friends, before she relented. "When I got to San Diego from Canada, the last thing I wanted to do was sit on the trainer," recalls Fuhr. "I went four years without trainer workouts, because in Canada we had to do them six months at a time."

It took a little outside pressure, like her husband, a premier Ironman coach, and eight time-Ironman champion workout partner, Paula Newby-Fraser. "Roch and Paula were always telling me the positive points, but [resisted] until I had a few bad years in Hawaii in 1994 and '95 and I realized I needed to do some work before I could be competitive on the bike with the other top girls,"

She started the workouts in 1996, and made a big jump. Fuhr says the workouts alone may not have been the only factor, but she insists "they were a big part of" her Hawaiian victory. "My legs got bigger and stronger," said Fuhr. "For a while, it cost a little on the run. But in short order, my legs adapted and I felt I had equal foot speed - with the bonus that I was now more injury resistant."

At Frey's insistence, Reid gave indoor trainers a try in the winter of 1995-96. "I had just started to work with Roch after I got third at Nice in 1995 and I was trying to go to the next level," said Reid. "At Roch's suggestion, I logged a lot of miles on the trainer that winter. He said that the workout would be uninterrupted because I didn't have to worry about traffic fights and cars and could focus purely on wattage and strength and how fast you could spin and keep the rpms up." But what really sealed it was when Reid read that cyclist Chris Boardman was using a trainer to prepare for his assault on the Hour record. Reid was a good cyclist, but by his own reckoning he made a big breakthrough at wildflower in 1996. "1 was tiding with Cam Widoff and Wolfgang Dittrich, but I felt so much stronger than anyone else and just climbed away from them on every single hill. Then I was able to race in Europe with people like Thomas Hellriegel." Another benefit, says Reid, is time. "I get the same intensity out of a 90-minute workout on the trainer that I do from three or four hours on the road," he said.

Reid's girlfriend Lori Bowden had also been dissatisfied with her bike splits toiling away in the winter in Victoria, British Columbia. Bowden's particular problem was that despite the fact that the coastal climate of Victoria was far less snow-drenched than the rest of Canada, she handled cold badly and missed a lot of winter bike rides. "I have a tough time in the cold," explained Bowden, "and Peter got mad if I missed my long rides, so I took to the trainer." Preparing for Ironman Australia last year, Bowden substituted virtual biking for several long rides that kept her in the groove.

There are, in fact, several obvious reasons that Frey elucidates. "You never coast downhill on a trainer; you never have traffic lights or stop signs. You can target a specific heart-rate zone and never fluctuate. And you can reach a higher heart rate on the bike and stay safe.

Frey suggests trainer workouts once a week, with a limit of an hour and a half because their intensity is higher than a road workout. But if long rides are not possible, as with Bowden, or other snowboard tris, you can adjust tempo and go a full three to four hours as required.

Technique drills: Frey adjusts his workouts to fit the athlete, but the rough outlines of a periodized preparation for a major ultra triathlon might begin with technique drills. He might start with 3 x 20 seconds on each leg, and then switch to two legs for 20 seconds and then go to the other leg for 20 seconds. This rests the one leg you have already worked and allows you to get your cadence back up, which may have dropped with the single leg. At the end of the training cycle, Frey says triathletes can expect to graduate to five sets of 50 seconds apiece on the one-legged drill. "At first it may be hard, so you will be in a lower gear; but eventually your technique will improve and you will become smoother pedaling with just one leg and you will be able to handle longer intervals," he said. The reason to do this is it teaches the leg to pull all the way through the rotation and not depend on the other leg to carry the load by constantly mashing down.

Actually, a perfectly circular stroke is not best, he cautions. "The best is an elliptical stroke where you push forward and pull backwards. This seems to smooth out the whole stroke and maximizes power. Imagine the upstroke going from 9 o'clock to noon and the downstroke from noon to 2," he adds. While great strides can be made with simple, inexpensive mechanical units, Reid and Bowden have enjoyed their computerized trainer which provides a constant computer readout of the efficiency of the stroke, complete with bar graphs to give immediate biofeedback.

Frey also advocates spin drills which ask the rider to start at a cadence of 90 and work up to well over 110. These are important, says Frey, to train the triathlete's neuromuscular synapses to maintain a faster turnover. A typical workout might start with 10 minutes of warmup, 10 minutes of single-leg drills, 10 minutes of spinning, and finish with 10 minutes of cool-down.

"The time goes by fast with music going and doing it with a friend," he said. But adjust with separate Walkmans if musical tastes are divergent. Reid prefers heavy metal Metallica, while Bowden likes fast paced dance music with a heavy beat. Roch likes the Canadian group Tragically Hip while Fuhr likes some MTV and dance videos - or they might settle on a good football or basketball game -or a tape of a marathon.

A typical AT workout might include 10-15 segments at 85 percent. So why not hop on and maintain 85 percent for 30 straight minutes? "The rest helps you maintain that intensity you need and allows you to keep going without getting burned out, flat, or taking too long to recover," said Frey.

To emulate hills, you can increase resistance, or change into a harder gear, depending on the type of trainer. just make sure you simulate a hill where your cadence will stay below 80 rpm, adds Frey, otherwise you won't be simulating a hill and won't be working the power and strength. To further emulate hills, you can set up the trainer on concrete blocks or telephone books to elevate the front of the bike. As part of the virtual hill training, he adds, concentrate on the upstroke rather than the downstroke.

Lactic tolerance work: Finally, the third phase is lactic tolerance. The perceived effort advances from "fairly hard to hard" at the AT threshold workouts to "hard and very hard" for lactic tolerance."The purpose of this phase is to get the body ready to tolerate painful buildup of lactic acid during sprint or international distance triathlons," he said. Target heart rate is 85 to 95 percent of maximum for 2-3 minute sets with a 1: 1 ratio of work to recovery. Total workout with warmup and cool-down is still under one hour. "It bums and hurts, and this teaches you to tolerate the discomfort," he said. A side benefit: It will move the anaerobic threshold at least marginally higher. But working at this intensity takes preparation as well."Go to the hardware store and buy the biggest fan you can get," says Frey. "And drink a lot of water and plenty of it.

"In order to get the best out of your muscles, don't train to acclimatize to Hawaii, keep cool and work the muscles and heart as hard as you can. And don't forget, place a towel on the handlebars and clean off the bike afterward so the salt in your sweat doesn't lead to rust." During Ironman preparation, the trainers can be used for acclimatization. Last summer, Reid set his up in the driveway of the condo he and Bowden rented in San Diego and rode like crazy in a heat wave with buckets of sweat making the driveway look like it was a carwash. "I could not have worked myself that hard on the roads," adds Reid.

Elite pros like Reid, Bowden and Fuhr usually stick to the brute force workouts and do not take advantage of the virtual courses on television screens with the computer based systems -sometimes they offer a welcome break."Once a month ago I tried riding one of those courses and thought I was an idiot for not trying it earlier because it was so much fun," said Reid. "But we have to keep on the program and it is just not as efficient as our designed workouts."

Ah, the schedule to success. Sometimes it tugs. "It is hard when we have trainer sessions scheduled and the sun breaks out and it is a perfect day for riding," says Bowden. "We just stay indoors. Then the next day, when it is rainy and cold and cloudy again, we will go for the scheduled ride."I guess it is good for us to show we are still tough enough to take what nature dishes out."